Church on the hill

Holy Trinity Christchurch

HISTORY
In 1648, during the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell's troops camped overnight on Christchurch Hill overlooking Newport before their attack on Newport Castle the next day. A cannonball dug up from a garden in nearby Summerhill Avenue, dating from this time, now rests in Newport Museum. Cromwell's men smashed all of the stained glass in the church, except for one tiny orange-coloured pane which remains in the east window.

A tombstone in the north aisle of the church, near the door, is carved with a woman's head, dated 1712 and known as "The Beauty of Chistchurch". Through the ages, on the eve of Corpus Christi, sick children would be brought to be cured by the "Healing Stone of Christchurch", a long narrow grave-stone in the chancel, dated 1376 and dedicated to Johannes Colber and his wife Isabella. The custom led eventually to a system of bribes and profiteering, until it came to an abrupt end, following the intervention of Squire Van of Llanwern, in about 1810.

In the early morning of 6 November 1949 the church was discovered to be on fire. Although the vicar succeeded in saving the church records and the ancient chalice, the entire building, apart from the walls and tower, was destroyed. A week later St John's Church in Maindee suffered a similar fate. The fire, Newport's most disastrous for many years, was estimated to have done damage valued at £30,000 (equivalent to £960,000 in 2015), The roof had recently been thoroughly repaired. The fact that the previous evening had been Guy Fawkes Night was regarded as mere coincidence. "The Beauty of Christchurch" survived the fire but was accidentally destroyed during the reconstruction of the church.

Christchurch is the location of one of Newport's large municipal cemeteries, north of Christchurch Road overlooking Caerleon. Nearby once stood Christchurch Junior School.

Christchurch has a War Memorial, to combatants of World War I and World War II, directly in front of the church, and a public house, The Greyhound Inn, opposite.