---

Issue No.17 August 2001

The Botts of Old Church Street (4 pages)

Old Church Street is the road next to St.Anthony's Church that runs from Gregory Street to Priory Street. At the Priory Street end is a white stuccoed property which used to be two houses but has now been converted into one. The two houses were originally known as No.s 14 and 16 but in the late 1930s the Council decided to change the numbering and they became Nos. 25 and 23. For over eighty years various members of the Bott family lived at No.16/23 Old Church Street. Milly Farrell (nee Bott) provides readers with a brief account of family life there with particular reference to her father George Alfred Bott. He and her brother, George, ran the Priory Garage which stood on the site now occupied by the Red Cross's Nottinghamshire headquarters. Milly also recounts something of her working career first as an employee at Linday's soapworks in Dunkirk and later at Player's. She concludes with an account of her time as an Army driver during the Second World War.

The Lenton Parish Bazaar (6 pages)

Lenton Parish Bazaars of the 1930s used to be quite extravagant affairs. Our feature on these begins with an account by Bill Norris of how as a youngster he used to help his father, William Archibald Norris, and his team of employees as they erected the stalls for this annual three day event held in the Church Schools on Church Street. We then provide a little bit of historical background on how these lavish fund-raising events were organised and follow this with various newspaper reports drawn from the pages of the Nottingham Guardian which offer further insights into the Bazaar 'Experience' of the 1930s.

Our Sponsor's Story (1 page)

The Lakeside Pavilion at Highfields is no more. Its place has now been taken by the D.H. Lawrence Pavilion. Our article recalls a little of the history of the old Pavilion and what the University will be making available to the general public in the new Pavilion. It then concludes with a brief history of our sponsors, the architectural practice of Julian Marsh & Jerzy Grochowski, who designed the new building.

University College & Lenton's Royal Visitors (4 pages)

After Sir Jesse Boot sold his business empire to the United Drug Company of America for £2½ million in 1920 he began to spend some of this money on projects that benefited the city of Nottingham. He became an enthusiastic supporter of the campaign to create an East Midlands University based in Nottingham. Jesse Boot provided a site at Highfields and donated some £438,000 towards the cost of new buildings. The concept of a university serving the whole of the East Midlands was to founder when the University College at Leicester withdrew its support for the Nottingham campus and the hoped-for elevation from collegiate to university status was destined not to arrive until 1948. Nevertheless the acquisition of new buildings at Highfields allowed Nottingham's University College to move out of its cramped quarters on Shakespeare Street. The icing on the cake for the College was the announcement that King George V and Queen Mary had agreed to perform the formal opening ceremony in July 1928. Our article looks at how the new college buildings came to be built at Lenton and then goes on to describe that royal visit to Nottingham in 1928.

I was There - One of 17,000 (1 page)

On their previous visit to Nottingham King George and Queen Mary had been received by the City Council in the Market Place but by the time of this second visit the Exchange Building had been demolished and the new Council House was in the course of erection. Given that a building site was not really appropriate as the backdrop for the royal reception it was decided to hold this at Woodthorpe Grange Park in Sherwood. It was also decided that every Nottingham school child over the age of nine should be present at the occasion. Among the 17,000 schoolchildren brought to the park was Les Berry and, with the newspaper accounts of the time as an aide-memoire, Les recalls this particular point in the itinerary of Nottingham's royal visitors.

The Royal Show of 1928 (4 pages)

Established in 1839 the Royal Show soon developed into the premier agricultural event in the United Kingdom. Each year it would be held in a different part of the country and by the early part of the twentieth century it became customary for the reigning monarch to put in an appearance. Once Nottingham had been selected to host the 1928 Show royal officials would have mapped out a number of other engagements that could be performed by the King and Queen while they were staying in the locality. This is the main reason why University College got its royal visit. Our article explores a little of the history of the Show and recalls the two earlier occasions when the Show was held in Nottingham. On both occasions the site chosen had been Wollaton Park - in an area now occupied by the portion of the Wollaton Park housing estate lying east of Middleton Boulevard. The 1955 Royal Show was also situated within the grounds of Wollaton Park - but not the 1928 Show. The site chosen for this was adjacent to the Park but on the other side of the Wollaton Road and stretched as far as the Nottingham Canal with such natural features as Martin's Pond and Harrison's Plantation simply incorporated into the showground. Russell Drive (yet to be constructed) would now form a diagonal line across the site. We provide readers with the salient details of the 1928 Show and describe what was laid on for the King and Queen when they took in the Show. The visit to Nottingham also meant that the King George and Queen Mary could drop in on their son, Edward Prince of Wales, and view his recent purchase of Grove Farm, here in Lenton. The details of that particular part of their itinerary also feature in our article.

Anyone eager to learn more about Royal Visits to Nottingham may be interested to know of a current publication. Click here for more details.

Society Snips (4 page)

Fred Crosland: A Soldier's Tale (4 pages)

Although she was born in this country Marjorie Bundy now lives in Australia. She was aware that her great grandmother, Emma Crosland, had been born in Ireland and was from a military family. She recently decided to try and find out a bit more and her researches have, figuratively speaking, taken her not only to Ireland but also to Canada, the Caribbean, Gibraltar and England including a small village just outside Nottingham called Lenton. Marjorie recounts how she went about her researches and reveals what she has learnt about Fred Crosland, her great great grandfather, and his career in the Devonshire Regiment.

---