It grew up around Newark Castle, St Mary Magdalene church and later developed as a centre for the wool and cloth trades.

Newark has a marketplace lined with many historical buildings and one of its most notable landmarks is St Mary Magdalene church with its towering spire at 232 feet (71 metres) high and the highest structure in the town.

In a document which purports to be a charter of 664 AD, Newark is mentioned as having been granted to the Abbey of Peterborough by King Wulfhere of Mercia.

[8] In the reign of Edward the Confessor, Newark belonged to Godiva and her husband Leofric, Earl of Mercia, who granted it to Stow Minster in 1055.

Newark Castle was originally a fortified manor house founded by the Anglo-Saxon King Edward the Elder.

In 1073, Remigius de Fécamp, Bishop of Lincoln, put up an earthwork motte-and-bailey fortress on the site.

[9][10][11] The town became a local centre for the wool and cloth trade – by the time of Henry II a major market was held there.

[12] After his death, Henry III tried to bring order to the country, but the mercenary Robert de Gaugy refused to yield Newark Castle to the Bishop of Lincoln, its rightful owner.

Around the time of Edward III's death in 1377, "Poll tax records show an adult population of 1,178, excluding beggars and clergy, making Newark one of the biggest 25 or so towns in England.

Although there was no legal requirement to do so, the Bishop of Lincoln, John Chadworth, funded a new bridge of oak with stone defensive towers at either end.

Newark was incorporated under an alderman and twelve assistants in 1549, and the charter was confirmed and extended by Elizabeth I. Charles I reincorporated the town under a mayor and aldermen, owing to its increasing commercial prosperity.

In the English Civil War, Newark was a Royalist stronghold, Charles I having raised his standard in nearby Nottingham.

The town fielded at times as many as 600 soldiers, and raided Nottingham, Grantham, Northampton, Gainsborough and other places with mixed success, but enough to cause it to rise to national notice.

About 1770 the Great North Road around Newark (now the A616) was raised on a long series of arches to ensure it remained clear of the regular floods.

Designed by John Carr of York and completed in 1776, Newark Town Hall is now a Grade I listed building, housing a museum and art gallery.

In 1775 the Duke of Newcastle, at the time the Lord of the Manor and a major landowner in the area, built a new brick bridge with stone facing to replace a dilapidated one next to the Castle.

[17] J. S. Baxter, a schoolboy in Newark in 1830–1840, contributed to The Hungry Forties: Life under the Bread Tax (London, 1904), a book about the Corn Laws: "Chartists and rioters came from Nottingham into Newark, parading the streets with penny loaves dripped in blood carried on pikes, crying 'Bread or blood'."

[19] In the Second World War there were several RAF stations within a few miles of Newark, many holding squadrons of the Polish Air Force.

The main industries in Newark in the last hundred years have been clothing, bearings, pumps, agricultural machinery and pine furniture, and the refining of sugar.

"Newark became a substantial inland port, particularly for the wool trade,"[31] though it industrialised somewhat in the Victorian era and later had an ironworks, engineering, brewing and a sugar refinery.

William Ewart Gladstone, later Prime Minister, became its MP in 1832 and was re-elected in 1835, in 1837, and in 1841 twice, but possibly due to his support of the repeal of the Corn Laws and other issues he stood elsewhere after that time.

Newark's former MP Patrick Mercer, Conservative[35] held the position of Shadow Minister for Homeland Security from June 2003 until March 2007, when he had to resign after making racially contentious comments to The Times.

[36] At a by-election on 5 June 2014 after the resignation of Patrick Mercer, he was replaced by the Conservative Robert Jenrick, who was re-elected at the general election of 7 May 2015.

The 39 district councillors cover waste, planning, environmental health, licensing, car parks, housing, leisure and culture.

The town has an elected council of 18 members from seven wards: Beacon (5 councillors), Bridge (3), Castle (2), Devon (5), Magnus (1), Sleaford (1) and South (1).

This school, which opened in 1972, has courses to train craftspeople to make and repair guitars, violins, and woodwind instruments, and to tune and restore pianos.

It has 130 permanent employees and processes 1.6 million tonnes of sugar beet produced by about 800 UK growers, at an average distance of 28 miles from the factory.

[58] The Palace Theatre in Appletongate is Newark's main entertainment venue, offering drama, live music, dance and film.

Newark Castle railway station on the Leicester – Nottingham – Lincoln line provides cross-country regional links.

Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC East Midlands and ITV Central from the Waltham TV transmitter.