Ye Olde Murenger House facts for kids
Ye Olde Murenger House is a historic building in Newport, Wales. It looks like an old, fancy house with a special "mock Tudor" style front. This means it was built to look like buildings from the Tudor period, even though it's much newer. Today, it's a popular pub located on High Street.
The building is very old and has a lot of history, which is why it's called a Grade II listed building. This means it's protected because it's important to the local area. It's named after a job from the Middle Ages called a "murenger." A murenger was someone who collected money to help fix and build the town walls.
The Story of Ye Olde Murenger House
The name of the pub, "Murenger," comes from a very old job. In the Middle Ages, a murenger was a person who collected special taxes. These taxes were called "murage" and were used to build or repair the walls around a town.
The first mention of a building on this spot was in 1533. It was a large house for the Herbert family. Later, around the 1600s, it became a pub called the Fleur de Lys. The original building was made of stone and had only one floor.
In 1816, that old building was taken down. A new pub, the one we see today, was built in its place in 1819. Photos from around 1900 show that the famous "mock Tudor" look, with its sticking-out upper floors, was added later.
The building became a Grade II listed building in 1951. This was because of its important history in the Newport area. In the 1970s, the pub was not in good shape. But in 1980, a company called Sam Smith's took it over. They fixed it up, and it reopened in 1983. In 2014, someone even suggested Ye Olde Murenger House for a Newport version of the board game Monopoly!
What the Pub Looks Like
Ye Olde Murenger House has three floors that stick out over each other. It also has an attic, and the front of the roof faces the street. The attic has a window with three sections.
The first and second floors have large, rounded windows that also stick out. These are called "oriel windows." They are surrounded by square wooden panels. Below these windows, there's a band of closely spaced wooden studs.
The ground floor, which is the bottom part, was updated in the early 1900s. It has the main pub entrance on the left side. On the right side, there's a large window with six sections. Inside, you can find a painting of David 'Bomper' Pearce. He was a famous boxer from Britain who was never defeated.
