P.I. Wall Christmas story

I'm still writing the Christmas story, now titled A Golden Age.

It begins in the Murenger pub in High Street. This is interesting:

"There is also the present public house called the Murenger House, at 53 High Street. It has been claimed by tradition that it belonged to the Murenger (an official responsible for town walls and for collecting money for their maintenance in the Middle Ages).  In fact the Murenger House has a mainly modern timber framed frontage, with three upper stories under the gable.  The first floor front room has a plasterwork ceiling decorated with a Tudor roses and floral pinecone finials. It appears to be Tudor, or, according to John Newman, early 17th century in date, and therefore after any town wall would have been in use. However the thickness of the side and rear wall may indicate these were built of stone, and they could be considerably older than the frontage .The building is only referred to in local directories as ‘The Murenger House’ after 1880.

There are earlier references to another Murenger House, with a shield and arms carved over the front door. In 1801 William Coxe refers to the Murenger’s House as being ‘an old spacious building, with an ornamented front, and a coat of arms, carved in stone, over the door’, and it appears this building was demolished in 1816. It stood on the corner of High Street and the modern Bridge Street, on the site now occupied by the NatWest Bank. In 1750 it was referred to as ‘The Great House’ and in 1553 was the house of George ap Morgan and was described as ‘the strongest place in all the town’"

   -   http://www.newportpast.com/early/wall/index.htm

Christmas Rocket

There will be a #PIWall Christmas story available free in mid-December as a seasonal thankyou to those people who have bought and read the two #NewportNoir Kindle novels so far: #wegodownslowlyrising and #watchingforthedawn

The title will almost certainly be A Golden Age.

Nat Collins

Junction of Isca Road and Bullmore Road, Caerleon ultra pontem 

(scene of the Nat Collins attack)

Caerleon ultra pontem

Junction of Isca Road and Bullmore Road, Caerleon ultra pontem 

(scene of the Nat Collins attack) 

 

'5 Minutes With', South Wales Argus 29.11.13

The '5 Minutes With' feature in the South Wales Argus this week is with me:

http://tinyurl.com/p7b9st7

South Wales Argus 29th November 2013

Check out the South Wales Argus tomorrow - this week's '5 Minutes With..' interview is with.. me ‪#‎NewportNoir‬ ‪#‎SouthWalesArgus‬ ‪#‎PIWall‬


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Public art, Newport

Archform, by Harvey Hood, outside Newport railway station.

(See the relevant pages of the artist's website: http://harveyhood.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/archform-newport-railway-station.html )

Stan's patch

Wall's tech guy, Stan, lives near here, Shaftesbury Street, Newport

Caerwent

Remains of the Romano-Celtic temple 

National Roman Legion Museum, Caerleon

The Mithraic column

(The Museum website is http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/roman/)

Watching For The Dawn - Caerleon

The Caerleon victim's street

Watching For The Dawn - The Ship Inn, Caerleon

Review on Amazon.co.uk

Graham Price, from Newport, posted the following review of We Go Down Slowly Rising today:

"Living in Newport for most of my life I'm familiar with the places mentioned so this helped me to visualise the locations. (Tho' I'm still looking for the shed against the wall of St Woolos' cemetery!) A fascinating plot kept me on the edge of my seat and the finale was a wowser. Rocket is a fascinating character and I couldn't wait to read the sequel - what a shocker"


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