Newtown, Powys: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Newtown (Welsh: Y Drenewydd) is a town with a population of 10,542 (1993) in Powys, Wales, lying on the River Severn. The town is best known as the birthplace of Robert Owen in 1771, his former house now being a museum.

Newtown was founded in the tenth century and grew in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries around the textile and flannel industry and the arrival of the Montgomeryshire branch of the Shropshire Union Canal. In 1838, the town saw Wales' first Chartist demonstration.

The town was designated as a "new town" in 1967 and has seen a large population growth as companies and people have settled, changing the rural market town character.

Other attractions in the town include a museum about W. H. Smith newsagents, founded in the town in 1792, a textile museum, the Royal Welsh Warehouse built by Pryce Pryce-Jones to house the world's first mail order service, a theatre and an arts centre.

Gregynog, a branch of the University of Wales is nearby.