Memory Lane Cafe opens up in Newport to re-trace town's history

Newport History Society has been working on the idea for the cafe, which they hope to call Memory Lane Cafe, to allow residents to come together and look back through the town's archives.

The idea is for the history society to provide historical photos and memorabilia to jog the memories of some of the town's older residents.

Members hope it will be a two-way benefit to help those with memory problems and in turn, they will help the society fill in some of the missing history of Newport.

Cathryn Ross-Talbot, from Newport History Society, said the first cafe event on Friday, August 13 went really well and they hope to see more people there soon.

"Linda Fletcher, the deputy chair, was down in Wolverhampton when she saw something similar being set up there," Cathryn said. "She came back so enthusiastic and said this is something we have to do. Linda is an ex-archivist and is just brilliant.

"We spoke to the Boughey Trust about using the cafe behind the Guildhall. Our archive is located above the cafe in the Guildhall and it's where we have meetings. At the back of that building is a little cafe called The Pop In where people could go for a free tea or cafe and a bit of a chat.

"It lost its use a little bit during Covid and because of how close it is to us we thought it would be a perfect place to set up the memory cafe. We don't really have anywhere we can speak to the public and so this is nice for people to pop in and speak to us if they want to become a member or have research they want to look into."

Newport has a real appetite for history, Cathryn said, and the cafe concept should help bring that interest to the forefront.

"We also got in touch with Alzheimer's Society to speak to them about making the cafe dementia friendly. So everything just came together really nicely.

"We had our first opening on Friday and it was great, a few regulars came down as well as a couple of new faces. We are hoping more people will come along next week and we could also do with a couple of volunteers to help. It's amazing how people love to reminisce."

The cafe will be open 9am to 12pm every Friday at the back of the Guildhall.