Thorpe Street, Newport

Written By Campbell Mattinson

I lived in Thorpe Street, Newport for 20 plus years and still walk down it often. I went to Newport West Primary School, when it as called Newport West, and to Paisley High School, when it was called Paisley High, before they demolished pretty much both of them. When I lived in Thorpe Street the road at the southern end of Blenheim Road, Newport was unsealed – it was gravel – as indeed was all of the southern end of Maddox Road. There was no defined nature strip in Rosshire Road either back then, that was gravel too. Anyway, that gives an idea of the locale of Thorpe Street. The roads arounds are all now sealed (except for Ross Road), and the Australian Islamic Centre is now just around the corner, and Newport West Primary is Newport Gardens, and Paisley High is now a campus of Bayside.

Campbell Mattinson

This post was written by Campbell Mattinson. Mattinson is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion book, former editor of Halliday magazine, former editor of Australian Sommelier Magazine and founder of The Winefront business. He is the author of five books on wine – four of which were bestsellers (The Wine Hunter, the Big Red Wine Book 2008, the Big Red Wine Book 2009, and the Big Red Wine Book 2010).

Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.

Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award; is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter; and is the author of the best-selling novel We Were Not Men. He’s also a winner of a St Kilda Film Festival Award (as writer-director) and is a former winner of the national Best Australian Sports Writing Award. In 2026 three of his photographs were short-listed for the World Food Photography Awards.

Campbell Mattinson, who is 100% independent, has tasted between 5000 and 10,000 wines each and every year for the past 25 years. He tastes blind, in comparative brackets, as often as is practicable.

Campbell Mattinson is a journalist, a photographer, a filmmaker and a wine critic. In all of these mediums his prime motive is to tell people's stories.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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