Bestwood, Top Valley & Rise Park

Walking & Cycling Guide Bestwood, Top Valley & Rise Park

KING COAL KING COAL

“Two miners having finished work for the day mounted bicycles and, lurching forward round the angle of the gatepost, vanished into a little lane leading into the woodlands. I decided to follow them and was glad I did, for the scenery of the district is indeed enchanting” Alex Wells, Nottingham Journal, 1934 Cycling in Bestwood, c. 1880* The two most distinctive aspects of Bestwood are its royal associations and urban development from a colliery company village. But it also plays a part in the incredible northern growth of the city – onto an area which had been mostly farmers’ fields – throughout the twentieth century. Bestwood is so big that it becomes a difficult area to define, with a village, two Date stone plaques, Bestwood village council estates and a pumping station sharing the same name and some distance apart. The old maps reveal that Bestwood has always been huge, following the same contours since it was defined as a royal hunting park in the Middle Ages, stretching from Goosedale Ponds in the north, to Arnold Road in the south, and east to west between Bestwood Lane/ Hucknall Rd and Mansfield Rd. Bestwood takes a starring role in various episodes of royal history, from the Normans to the Stuarts. The Dukes of St Albans descended from the latter family which, in the seventeenth century, was granted Bestwood as its ancestral home. Emmanuel Church* The 10th Duke took a particular interest in the site, building the fabulous Bestwood Lodge in the 1860s, which became frequented by the rich and powerful of late Victorian England. The following decade a very different Bestwood emerged: an industrial village planned around a coal mine and ironworks, with competing railway The view at Bestwood Country Park today lines tripping over themselves to get here. By the end of Victoria’s reign the city was edging ever nearer with the building of Bestwood Pumping Station and the City Hospital. Yet it wasn’t until the 1930s that the first council housing emerged. The subsequent housing estates reveal the decade by decade changes in everyday life throughout that long century. 1. Royalty & Aristocracy

here only 3 days before the Battle of Bosworth. In a sense the Woodside Riding School has revived this equestrian tradition at Bestwood (1). Bestwood’s next and greatest feature within royal history did not emerge until the late seventeenth century, when the playboy king, Bestwood Lodge* Charles II, granted the lodge and grounds to his beloved mistress After the Norman conquest, Nell Gwyn. “Poor Nelly” was the Bestwood (forming part of mother of his illegitimate son and Sherwood Forest), became subject Charles was concerned enough to to Forest Law – an area vigorously endow him with a stable income protected by royal officials for and social position, entitling him both deer and timber. Grievances ‘1st Duke of St Albans’. It was the over access were bitter and likely 10th Duke, William Beauclerk, who it was these laws which led to the had the most remarkable impact folk tales of Robin Hood. Despite upon the estate, demolishing the this, it was hardly a landscape for medieval lodge and building an developing densely populated incredible mansion (2), gatehouse communities with diverse (3) and stables (4) throughout the economies; this was a hilly deserted 1860s. Designed in the gothic style landscape of dry sandy soils, grass, by notable architect SS Teulon, the woodland and deer. Hunting, for complex is stylistically the same as Medieval kings, was not a necessity St Pancras Station (built the same but a leisure pursuit, a game where decade). Bestwood was therefore a feudal society centred on military a very attractive location for visiting service and privilege could be dignitaries, such as Charles Dickens played out. And it was some of the and Benjamin Disraeli. The Duke’s most vigorous of those kings who patrician approach can also be exercised that right here: Henry I, seen at the 1869 Emmanuel Henry III, Edward III (who built the Church (5), built on the eastern first lodge), Edward IV and Richard fringes of Bestwood when it was III – who famously stayed the night still a small farming community. 2. A Colliery Company Village

Bestwood village cottages* The restored winding engine house

The 10th Duke’s next ambitious (12) were grown tall to keep the scheme involved a partnership blackened miners from sight. with mining entrepreneur John By 1901 Bestwood was so popular Lancaster. This was the planning that there were three different of an entire community centred railway company lines scrambling on a coal mine and ironworks over themselves to feed on the iron company. Bestwood quickly and coal produced here. Most of became one of the best provided this infrastructure was demolished colliery villages in the county, with following the Beeching axe of the a school, cottages (6), offices(7) 1960s but the cycle routes beside and the pit engine winding house Hucknall Rd (13) and Moor Road (8) built during the 1870s alone. (14) follow the old embankments. The Bestwood Institute pub (9), St At its peak the Bestwood Coal & Mark's church (10) and cemetery Iron Company employed around (11) were completed the following 2000 people, but by 1967 the coal decades, but it is perhaps the little mine was considered uneconomical things which are most evocative and closed. In the decades that of the Company’s paternalism. followed there begun a successful Notice the initials and date stone transformation of the ‘moonscape’ plaques on the cottages, walled – the colliery slag heap – into gardens and the green square – a Country Park and the careful originally laid out for allotments. restoration of the engine winding Nevertheless the Duke liked to house. The panoramic view from keep work and home life separate: the top of the Country Park (15) the hedgerows along Colliers Way is one of the best in the county 3. Farmers’ Fields & Bendigo’s Ring

Southglade Park today Bendigo in 1839*

Bestwood’s difficult soils were Just as these fields were carefully a magnet for have-a-go farmers being tended to, a man with an from 1775 until they were covered athletic appearance would have in housing during the twentieth been walking here, searching for century. The estates and roads a suitable hill to conduct a boxing still recall the names of the various match. According to historical farms that stood here, such as Top records it appears that Sunrise Hill Valley, Southglade, Bulwell Rise (17) was the site of Bendigo’s Ring, Farm, and Cherry Orchard Mount. rather than is popularly believed to Remarkably the hedgerows of be at nearby Glade Hill (18). Either Southglade Park (16) beautifully way, it was one of these hills in preserves the field patterns of the Bestwood where twice champion old farm. The first pioneers failed bare-knuckle prize-fighter William because the soils were so light and Abednego Thompson, practiced pebbly but by the mid nineteenth and fought during the nineteenth century farmers such as George century. He died in 1880 but lived Lamin were highly regarded an eventful life (politics, religion, for developing new methods drink) and was nationally famous. in manure and crop rotation. 4. Growth of the City

Postwar council housing at Bestwood Park

The City acquired Bestwood fields in the 1930s and spacious ‘garden city’ style houses were erected at Bestwood Estate (21). To the Bestwood Pumping Station* east, Bestwood Park Estate – with its incredible views – (22) was By the end of the nineteenth century built 1959-1966 and though of Nottingham was growing ever similar style and materials to its closer. Neighbouring Bulwell was predecessor you can spot subtle incorporated in 1877 – notice the differences such as the brickwork boundary markers (19) – but the first and modernist porches. By the 60s real instance of the city starting to and 70s car ownership had grown absorb Bestwood was the building enormously and local authorities of a fantastic pumping station by throughout the country struggled the Corporation in 1874 (20). Taking to accommodate the growth in advantage of the natural sandstone traffic and concern for safety. One wells deep within Bestwood, the approach – Radburn planning – famous water engineer Thomas involved the separation of vehicles Hawksley saw this as an important from pedestrians and this can been step in supplying water to a growing seen in the ring roads, cul-de-sacs, industrial population. Yet this was green space, precincts and multiple not without some stipulation from subways of Top Valley (23). the design conscious 10th Duke, who decided that the chimney should look like a church steeple!

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B O N R O A D Bestwood, Top Valley & Rise Park

Welcome to the free walking and cycling guide for the Bestwood, Top Valley and Rise Park suburbs. We’re delighted to bring you this unique insight into the history of this part of Nottingham. If you’d like to find out more about walking or cycling, organised rides and walks or how to plan your journey, then visit www.travelright.org.uk or call 0115 883 3732. You can download this map by visiting www.travelright. org.uk/bestwood

Written and designed by Chris Matthews on behalf of TravelRight. TravelRight is being delivered as part of Nottingham City Council’s successful Local Sustainable Transport Fund programme of activities.

Printed by Russell Press, Bulwell Lane, Basford

Cover image Bestwood Colliery, Rescue Team, 1911* *images courtesy www.picturethepast.co.uk