Another Newport pub closure

Time has been called on the Page pub in High Street, situated a few doors down from the closed Kings Hotel. The pub which was operated by Barrucuda was originally called the Old Monk and became part of the pubcos empire when it aquired the pub company of the same name. Not a great loss, the place was inhabited by those who thought Chaverspoons was too classy for them, often to be heard hurling abuse at passers by. I had not visited in about 12 years after a drinking companion almost chocked on a matchstick in his pint - the place was a filthy hole and Barrucda allowed it to be run as such. It was not a patch on their other pubs such as the George in Chepstow or the Goscombe in Cardiff, places that I have always found to be clean and serve good beer. Still it's a loss to Newport as the pub was useful as a daycare centre for the mentally ill, they will have to return to Chaverspoons now.

The Morning Advertiser has details on the Barrucuda restructuring and its new name, the Bramwell Pub Company.

Newport High Street is looking pretty desolate at the moment with the Kings Hotel closed and boarded up, Edwards Bar/Flares closed and now the Page gone. Still there is a rumour that the former Edwards Bar/Flares is to become a budget hotel - it is of course in an ideal place, straddling both High Street and Cambrian Road, both pedestrinised during the day and party time on Friday/Saturday nights.

The pub was called the Page as the building was not originally a pub but the offices of the South Wales Argus, before they moved to Maesglas in the 1970s. The rear of the building is under separate ownership and was the printing works for the newspaper, in the mid-1990s this became home to a brewery as Bristol-based Ross brothers turned into into the Newport Brewhouse, but that a story for another post!