Old Notts Explorers

"The district was called 'Gallows Hill', but rather more than a hundred years ago its name was changed to 'Mars Hill' (in roughly 1827) out of deference to the wishes of the local inhabitants."

"There are many tales of the condemned being driven up Mansfield Road, being allowed a last pint in the Nags Head, before finishing their journey at the top off the hill."

Many people will know of Mansfield Road hill as a hill that boasts of the historic 'church rock cemetery' and ‘ST Andrews church’.

Over many years gallows hill has undoubtedly been a place of hard work, sadness, anxiety and excitement.
With a history consisting of quarry's, windmills along with the darkest of all, the gallows!

In the modern day much of the sandstone quarry faces and sand-mines have become hidden away from the public view however they are of course still there!
A great example of this (still open to the public) is a walk-through church rock cemetery where the sandstone faces of the quarries with inbuilt sand mines in which the entrances are now sealed and lost amongst the field of gravestones!

Remove the grave stones and you would have a far better idea of what had previously existed before the 1845 Nottingham Enclosures Act! At this time the hill was described as, "a bare and barren hill,”.

This hill has played host to many lost lives for possibly over 500 years!

Today we see peaceful graves but, prior to the church rock cemetery you would have instead seen individuals hung from a rope! Bodies would be left to swing in the wind as a warning to anybody entering Nottingham planning to commit crimes within the city!

The gallows could possibly date back further than 1496! they are said to have resided within the gates of the church rock cemetery and where St Andrew's church now stands. The gallows had certainly moved location at top of the hill over the many years and these 2 locations appear to be the most likely.

Recollections of a Nottingham Old Boy. Weekly Guardian. 1904 -
"I remember the last ex*****on on the Forest, I think it was about the year 1829. I saw people running and heard some terrified women shout “they are just taking him”. There was a great crowd round the cart, but the condemned man was conspicuous, being bare-headed, with his arms pinioned to his sides by thick ropes. Near him was the hangman and two friends. Some of the crowd were singing a plaintive hymn."

"Executions on Gallows Hill having become a public danger, and a scandal, the custom was abolished and convicts were publicly executed in front of the jails in which they were confined. I saw three executed together in front of the House of Correction (Glasshouse street). I think that was about the year 1830, and afterwards I saw several others. At the last I saw a number of people were trampled to death in the crowd."

The criminals would be transported from the county hall (Gallery's of justice high pavement). some were said to have been moved the night previous to the House of Correction (glasshouse street, parliament street junction), "so that his last journey should be shortened."
The convicted were transported along Bridle smith gate, high street, clumber street, Milton Street and possibly stopping at Nag's head within sight of the gallows!

Historical notes by J. Holland Walker-
"Gradually the custom arose that the landlord of the Nag’s Head, which stood just at the point where the gallows came into view, should provide the unfortunates with a last drink of Nottingham ale, and should receive whilst in exchange of their posies."

Windmills adorned the hill with a row of 13 following the the northern peak of church rock cemetery and following on through forest road east. Many of these mills were built with a bake house alongside (some of which do still exist. The mills were simple wooden structures that were easy to dismantle and relocate. A large building named Mount Vernon/Vernon Arms resided across the road, sadly these windmills and mount Vernon no longer exist. maps and many paintings beautifully demonstrate the location and style of these mills.

"The Mayor and Council, as Lord of the Manor, tried to control the mills and the encroachment of their gardens and houses on the Forest. They insisted in 1797 that the fences were to be removed and the gardens laid open to the Forest. This did not apply to the fences around the mills themselves, for the purpose of preventing anyone’s approach within the Range of the Mill Sails.”

It appears that this precaution was not always taken, with one unfortunate kid finding out the hard way.

“As we used to play about these mills, not preventing the danger we were in as the sails whirled round, until one struck a playmate and killed him, much to our grief and dismay” (Weekly Guardian, 1928)."

Nottingham is of course known for its many sandstone caves and gallows hill was indeed no exception! In the 18th and 19th centuries, Gallows Hill was the site of a number of sand mines and as far as we are aware three sandstone caves remain, a fourth is said to have been filled with concrete.

Gallows hill sand mine appears to have begun as three separate caves. These caves were later developed into a single mine residing within the east quarry of the hill via two tunnels linking the three. The intense, sweat inducing effort that had been put into this large sand mine was exemplified by the countless scars created by the pickaxe. These scars gave the walls a story of hard manual labour! many collapses have occurred over the years and the mine is generally seen as unstable.

Sandstone Caves of Nottingham, Tony Waltham -
"The mines were associated with sand quarries dug in the 1700s in the waste land on both sides of the Mansfield Road. Because this area was waste, these were uncontrolled public sand pits, where people dug for their own sand. The early workings were therefore rather chaotic, and only some remain, with modifications from the 1800s. There were three original quarries, in a line, each working southwards into the steep slope. There must then have been either some restrictions on land take or some variation in the sandstone, because two of the quarries were extended southwards into mines. Entered by level drifts, these were both pillar-and-stall workings, very similar to Rouse’s except that they were not so extensive. They successfully exploited a zone of the sandstone much weaker and more friable than the rock forming the walls of most of the other caves in Nottingham."

"The Nottingham Castle Sandstone is too weak to yield decent building stone, but it is so friable that it is easily excavated to produce loose sand. In historical times this was in demand, as building sand, and also for spreading on the floors of houses and public buildings to absorb the dirt, long before carpets were in use".

Many of the sand mines within Nottingham had been used as bomb shelters during WWII and this is very evident within gallows hill with a lot of additional brick support and entrances having been added.

For the small Old Notts Explorers team this entire research trail became never ending! We will not have the chance to explain every detail we have learned since our visit to the hill and sand mines, there is however far more information within the images of this post.

Barton Bus Depot, 270-276 Huntingdon Street,

whilst exploring a building on glasshouse street (that no longer exists) we could not help but notice a seemingly forgotten building just down the road.

We were to later learn that this building was in fact a Barton bus depot that had been facing the Huntingdon Street Bus Station. The bus station itself (residing in close proximity to the central market and the very well-remembered Palais de Dance) has since disappeared.

The Barton bus company was founded in 1908, close to 30 years prior to the Huntingdon depot opening. In 1989 Barton eventually merged with Trent Buses to become what we now know in the current day as Trent Barton.

Barton Bus Depot, Huntingdon Street, was opened in 1939 and had been designed by Architect HH Dawson to be a “statement” for the Barton transport bus company.

It is one of the final remaining Nottingham buildings to reflect the 1930s ‘Moderne’ style of architecture providing a perfect demonstration of Nottingham's inter-war road and transport development!

In the recent year of 2019 there were plans to carefully dismantle this building. The building was to then be reassembled at Bartons headquarters in Chilwell. This created fear of demolition and the loss of a rare Nottingham building.
Because of this, grade II listing was given to the Huntingdon Street bus depot on August the 16th. It does also appear, the year of 2019 was the year scaffolding and abandonment began taking a hold.

A building of quite ornamental frontage comprises of a ground floor and first floor.

The first floor would have looked out onto Huntington Street bus station through some rather impressive decorative windows. This floor appears to have provided office and mess spaces.

The ground floor with an impressively supported roof span had enough space to maintain Bartons buses along with further frontal space.

The Barton depot was later used as a car garage and showrooms and at a more recent time was used as an event space with close to 500 people in attendance.

This beautiful building of art deco design is now just hidden away by the cover of steel and wooden boards!

As happy as we are to see this building in its original location, we understand Bartons frustration with the difficulties a grade II listing must have caused. It is a beautiful building of Nottingham's interwar history and we hope that with the growing student economy in the area of this listed building, Barton will find an opportunity to remove the scaffolding and bring this building back to use!

Walter Danks LTD, 66 London RD.

Having investigated this building we did not expect
to find parts dating to the 1700s!

the building itself is said to be built in 1885 - 1900.
But, we are however aware that the Walter Danks building was used by the church.
It was quite the step up from a small rented room that had opened in 1884 to serve the north-eastern part of the parish
("St Margaret’s Mission").
The room was just no longer big enough so this building was instead used.
The date they moved to Walter Danks building seems unknown but by 1891 the Walter Danks Ironmongery
shop had decided to expand requiring the upper floors.
The church then moved to the corner of Crocus Street and Wallet Street.

In earlier years this part of London road was more like marshland!
It passed two great pools "Chainey Flash" and "Chainey Pool".
Chainey Pool was the larger pool of the two and resided around the location of the Walter Danks building.
The term "Chainey" refers to the wooden bridges stopped up by a great chain fastened across them allowing access through a very
different London road to what we see today!

At around 1766 the bridges were converted to stone structures and then at around 1790 a bridge of 10 arches was built. We assume these are the arches that we discovered on the lowest floor!

the building was later used for building contracting and training, accommodation and recliner sales.

walking around the building, it became immediately obvious why a survey of the internal structure was not permitted.
much of the buildings main structure appeared to be fine but the floorboards were totally rotten with human sized gaps between the joists.
the roof was in very poor condition allowing excess rain water into the building.

the building had a very interesting layout of staircases and floors of varying levels.

the material for the future plans was sat ready and waiting to be constructed
but we are very happy to hear the Walter Danks building will be renovated instead of being demolished!