Day 20 Part 1: Newport's public realm

Funny how quickly the novelty of a full cooked breakfast wears off. Having ended last evening with a scrummy meal of crabcakes and sauteed potatoes, helped down with a couple of pints of Goddard's Castle 1684 (brewed especially for the pub), I didn't really want to kick off Day 20 with a full fry-up. So I steered past the all-you-can-eat Travelodge breakfast buffet and popped round the corner to a cafe.

Newport is the island's capital, or more properly, its administrative centre. But it's smaller than Oadby, the suburban parish in which I live. So it's an odd combination of big civic offices, national high street chains of shops and grown-up village.

I enjoyed the little museum in the Guild Hall (adults £2). Apparently the first floor gallery will be opening at some point, which will be a significant improvement. At the moment, the ground floor displays take visitors through pre-history Wight (lots of fossils), and the anglo-saxons but not much else. So it's a kind of National Curriculum style history - selected periods only. Still, the anglo-saxon stuff was pretty impressive, particularly the 'skillet' which is believed to have been an accessory for baptising.

In places, Newport didn't appear keen to show itself to visitors in a particularly attractive light. I've become a something of a student of municipal public seating, having a keen personal interest in nice places to rest weary legs.

Small French towns often have seats outside the town hall, and frequently others along the wider streets. Failing that, most bus shelters sport some kind of bench.

Someone in Newport once thought that it would be a good idea to make a resting spot outside the county council offices. Judging the achitectural style, I would say that the idea occured sometime in 1971 and having built the seating, was forgotten in early 1972.

Bench seats set into a curved wall led around two contrasting flower beds, each of about two metres across. One featured an enormous, overgrown shrub, the other was bare mud, concrete-hard. All of this just yards from the county council offices where someone probably has responsibility for the urban environment. I sat under the gaze of the CCTV camera (something else that doesn't feature in France) and noticed the tired-looking Newportians who I'd passed in the town. Perhaps all the bright and happy people are at work.

(continues in Part Two)