Redwick

Redwick village is within the boundaries of Newport City Council and is eight miles from the City Centre. It has a population of 194 (2001 census)  and is regarded as the best-preserved medieval nucleated village on the Levels.There are a diverse range of pleasant buildings and other landscape features including orchards, and with several working farms it retains a high degree of integrity as a working agricultural village. The village probably originates from the late eleventh or twelfth century. The first reference to the village is given in the survey of Wentwood in 1270.

The population of the village has varied from 171 in 1801 to a high of 289 in 1861. The number of houses inhabited has varied from a low of 49 in 1911 to the current level of 72. There is no Welsh name for the village. A manor existed in the village for some time and was held by the Knovil family in 1317. It is referred to as Dennis Court and is recorded in historical documents right up to the late seventeenth century. The Church was originally dedicated to St. Michael but is now known as St. Thomas. The building was damaged in the war as the Luftwaffe emptied their bombs after targeting Newport Docks.

The village contains a fine collection of documentary sources, including several detailed late medieval and post-medieval surveys. A plaque on the wall of the church commemorates the great flood of 1606 when many thousands of people and animals died. Redwick is also the largest nucleated village on the Levels, focused around a nodal point in the road network. Several small areas of roadside common survive, one with a plaque commemorating the enclosure act of 1850.

Bradney’s ‘History of Monmouthshire’ states that the village is remarkable for the presence of English surnames and place names in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries presumably due to settlers from across the Bristol Channel. However, by the eighteenth century the village was mostly inhabited by residents with Welsh surnames.

The village is increasingly popular with walkers and cyclists and forms a key part of the Newport Wales Marathon course.