page_title: Newport, Shropshire
section_title: Religious sites
hierarchical_section_title: Newport, Shropshire / Facilities and places of interest / Religious sites
caption_attribution_description: English: SS Peter and Paul, Newport, Shropshire. Designed by Augustus Pugin. Martin Burns. https://www.flickr.com/photos/martinb/210646559/
context_page_description: Newport is a market town in the ceremonial county of Shropshire, England. It lies some 6 miles north of Telford and some 12 mi west of Stafford, and is near the Shropshire-Staffordshire border. The 2001 census recorded 10,814 people living in the town's parish, making it the second-largest town in Telford and Wrekin and the fifth-largest in the ceremonial county of Shropshire. By the 2011 census, the population had risen to 11,387.
  Newport is a Britain in Bloom finalist and has been awarded the silver gilt award from the Heart of England regional, making it the first town in the country to win six gold awards in a row. The 2010 competition, wherein it won more points than any town in the United Kingdom gave Newport its seventh consecutive gold medal.
context_section_description: The first recorded religious community is 963 AD where a Saxon script recorded a religious community. This was the church of St Mary Magdalene, built in the time of Archbishop Dunstan.
  Newport lies in the Church of England Diocese of Lichfield and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Shrewsbury and as a Norman planned new town, religion played a strong part in the design of the town, with the centre of the town being dominated by St Nicholas Church, originally built in the reign of Henry I and restored in 1886 and 1890.
  The second church of the town is the St Peter and Paul Catholic church in Newport Salters Lane, built 1857 and the oldest Catholic church in Shropshire, designed by Augustus Pugin.
  Lilleshall Abbey ruins are to be found 4 mi (6 km) from the town centre. They include a Norman west door and part of the front, considerable remains of the church besides, and traces of domestic buildings. The abbey was founded in 1145, under charter from King Stephen, by Richard de Baumes or Belmeis, dean of St Alkmund, Shrewsbury, for Augustinian canons, who were brought from Dorchester Abbey, Oxfordshire.
  A smaller church for the Baptist community sits at the back of The Royal Victoria Hotel in water lane, called Newport Baptist church, which was built in the 1960s.
  The town has had a wide range of religious sites over time and this is shown in the number of churches in the town, the Independent Chapel, Beaumaris Lane, Newport, built 1803 on the site of a church dating from 1765, converted into cottages in 1832 when they finished work on the new church, the Newport Independent (Congregational) Chapel, Wellington Road, built in 1831, subsequently becoming part of the United Reformed Church. It merged with the Methodist Chapel in Avenue Road in 2001 to become Trinity Church, a joint Methodist/United Reformed Church. A major renovation was undertaken in 2010.
  Due to the growth and decline of religions over time some previous churches have since been used for other uses or been demolished altogether, most of these are in the Upper Bar area of the town, around the Granville road and Wellington road area.
  Near to the Trinity church is the Newport Primitive Methodist Chapel, built 1877, closed 1920 which replaced the one built in Stafford Road, built 1830. This is still there as a house next door to the New Inn.
  Two more former churches are the Newport Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, Upper Bar, built 1829, which was turned into a shop and theatre in 1876 and the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Avenue Road which was built in 1876 and closed in 2001 on merging with the Wellington Road URC Chapel; it subsequently became a gym but has since been converted into a house.
  Newport General Cemetery was opened for burials on 2 March 1859 with its first interment taking place on 5 March 1859 when it is noted that some 1,000 people witnessed the burial. The cemetery contains a chapel built at the same time and is bounded at the public road side by fine wrought iron railings and gates. The cemetery was originally laid out with four oval lawns around a cross-shaped set of roads with the chapel centrally placed. Also buried in the cemetery are eleven British Army soldiers of World War I and a soldier and airman of World War II, who are commemorated by a row of Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstones.
caption: Inside SS Peter and Paul Church designed by Augustus Pugin.
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