Ye Olde Murenger House

Mrs BB arranged to pop into have a coffee with a friend in the next village and I joined them a couple of hours later. Afterwards, we went to a sports shop to buy Mrs BB some new 'Aquasphere' swimming goggles and some swimming costumes that were reduced in the sale. She swims so much that her gear doesn't last long, despite washing the chlorine off.

Whilst I did an early evening schedule call she went and did her 1.5 mile swim.  About 7pm, after finishing my call, I headed into Newport to look for a photo. The one I like best is Ye Olde Murenger House. It's a local landmark.

It's on the High Street and it replaced an earlier pub built on the same site in the early nineteenth century. The pub takes its name from the murenger, a person who collected taxes to pay for the upkeep of the town defences. A building on this site was first mentioned in 1533, a town house for the Herbert family of St Julians Manor. By the 17th century, it had become a pub called the Fleur de Lys. According to Cadw the original building was a single-storey stone structure, which was demolished in 1816 and replaced by the current public house, established in 1819. A photo taken around 1900 shows the distinctive faux-Tudor jettties did not exist at the time and these were added after this date.

It became a Grade II listed building in 1951 because of its historic interest to the immediate area. In a poor state of repair in the 1970s, the pub was taken over by Sam Smiths (Brewery Company) in 1980, repaired and re-opened in 1983. In 2014 Ye Olde Murenger was suggested as a candidate for the Old Kent Road space on a Newport version of the board game Manololy.

The pub has three jettied storeys plus an attic with the gable facing the street. The latter has a three-light casement window. The first and second storeys have broad oriel windows flanked by square panelling with a close studded band below. The facade of the ground floor is an early twentieth-century public house front on the left with a six-light window on the right side.