The Governor's House

A Memory of Newark-on-Trent.

I lived in part of the Governor's house in 1973. The back of the house extended to where the car park access ramp is now, before the shopping centre was built. In the cellar were bread ovens and a bricked up tunnel that went under the market square - a number of tunnels apparently linked important buildings. The upstairs rooms, on 2 floors, had stone floors which were very uneven - difficult for furniture! The wooden windows had what is called a Yorkshire sliding sash which goes horizontally not vertically. The shop on the right at the front was owned at the time by Lees Tobacconists, who also had a shop in Chain Lane, where I worked for a while. They also had another newsagents shop. I also worked at the bank opposite, which was National Westminster in 1973. Because you could access the house through a back gate off what was just an open car park, people occasionally mistook our house for a pub or tearoom! The shop at the front is now Greggs the bakers. On a recent visit to Newark we were able to go upstairs and have a look round.