News - Researchers hope to pick up where Victorians left off (Notts)

After more than a century a venerable history of Notts is finally being modernised and completed with the help of a group of passionate volunteer writers and researchers. Mark Patterson reports...

A PRESTIGIOUS history of Notts is finally being updated and expanded more than a century after it was first published.

New local history research to modernise and complete the two-volume Victoria County History of Nottinghamshire, published in 1906 and 1910, is now being done on a parish-by-parish basis with the first new material, a history of Plumtree, already online.

More parish histories are in the pipeline which may be published in book-form next year, updating the old history for the first time since before the First World War – and effectively giving Notts a new county history. The Victoria History of the County of Nottingham, to give it its full title, was part of a grand late Victorian project to provide definitive histories of every county in England.

Founded in 1899, the aim of the project, described as "the greatest publishing project in local English history", was to produce volumes to a standard format which traced a county's history back to earliest times.

Work on 34 counties began immediately.

Two thick general Notts volumes appeared just a few years later and contained a rich store of knowledge covering natural and ecclesiastical history, Roman and Anglo-Saxon remains, political and social history, agriculture, sport and industry.

Despite their age, the books are still regarded as key sources of knowledge for researchers, writers, planners, or indeed anybody who has an interest in local history.

Yet the great national Victoria County History project was to be unfinished.

Funding first ran out in 1908 and the First World War then brought research on all county histories in the series to a halt.

Work resumed on a fragmented basis after the war but the project today still remains incomplete, with one county – Northumberland – having no such books to its name at all while coverage in other counties has come and gone depending on funding.

The Notts history was meant to cover four volumes – the two general histories and then another two books covering manorial and parish histories.

It is these last two books, which never appeared, which are now being researched and written by a group of local retired history enthusiasts, guided by a professional historian, Philip Riden, of the University of Nottingham.

A first 18,000-word history, of Plumtree with Clipston and Normanton-on-the-Wolds, is now online and other parish histories in preparation include those of Arnold, Bramcote, Cossall, Gonalston, Greasley, Stapleford and Tollerton.

Initial work has also begun on parishes near Mansfield such as Skegby and Mansfield Woodhouse. It is hoped the first new printed volume in the Notts Victoria County History to appear in over 100 years, a book containing ten to 15 parish histories, can be published next year, or in 2013.

Progress depends on funding – and gaining more volunteer researchers.

"I would hope that within the next five years we can work towards a full-length record of Notts," said Mr Riden, who is also editor of the Derbyshire Victoria County History.

In all, books in the series are currently being written in 14 counties.

The Notts volunteers meet regularly at the Nottinghamshire Archives, in Wilford Street, Nottingham, which funded the project with £22,000 over two years.

Most of the researchers have tended to gravitate toward parts of the county they know best or have a connection with. For retired primary school teacher Sheila Leeds, who has written the history of Plumtree, the connection with the village dates back to when she was a little girl.

"When I was six years old I went on a school trip to the smithy in Plumtree and I've always had a memory of it," she said. "The smithy has long gone but you can still see the horseshoes around the arch where it used to be. "

The research and writing took a year to complete and Mrs Leeds, of West Bridgford, is now starting on the parish history of Tollerton.

A longer history of Arnold is being finished by Eric Dove, who hopes to have his 30,000-word project completed by Christmas.

It's a big research job: the last history of Arnold was published in 1912 and a great deal has happened in and around the northern suburb since then including the loss of Arnold's true independence when a tram link to Nottingham began running in 1915.

Breweries and factories appeared in Daybrook – and more recently closed down.

All of this, and much more, has been researched and written by Arnold-born-and-bred Mr Dove, who worked in the textile industry until retirement.

"Nostalgia is flavour of the month, isn't it? It's very popular," he said. "And I'm also getting 'free' academic guidance from Philip Riden."

A notable aspect of the Victoria parish histories is that they are all written to a standard format, with research steered towards several clear subject headings such as social history, economic history, religion and local government.

From: http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/Researchers-hope-pick-Victorians-left/story-13721605-detail/story.html

Article - What did the Romans ever do for us? Created Broxtowe's hidden fort

What part did Broxtowe play in the rise and fall of the Roman Empire? In the first of a series of articles on Roman Nottingham, Mark Patterson revisits the amazing story behind the city council estate...

NO sign or plaque today marks the spot, but around 2,000 years ago the invading Roman army built a fort on the land now occupied by Broxtowe estate.

The structure was first discovered in late 1937 when the Corporation was building the new estate and workmen digging drains and foundations found three Roman coins in Lindbridge Road, and later the floor of an ancient hut.

Subsequent excavations revealed what seemed to be a fully-fledged Roman military installation with a defensive ditch and parapet 600ft long aligned with the edge of the estate where it drops down to Broxtowe Park.

The discovery was big news. The Nottingham Journal ran a headline announcing "Striking Roman Finds on the Broxtowe estate" and listed many fascinating artefacts found in the fort, including coins, jewellery, metal knives and tools.

Also found was a complete and striking Roman skillet marked with the name Albanvs, which can now be seen in the University of Nottingham Museum.

The fort was, perhaps, an unusual shape, being more a squashed triangle than the classic "playing card" shape of most Roman forts.

Nevertheless, the discovery was a significant one that helped reshape understanding of Notts' ancient landscape and the regional movements of the Roman army, which may have built the fort within 10 years of invading Britain in 43AD.

The discovery was an "event" in other ways, too, propelling local ancient history into the newspapers and public consciousness while effectively gifting Nottingham with its first major Roman structure.

Until the excavations, it was known that the Roman army had built a few garrisons and roads in Notts, while evidence of dense civilian settlement had been seen in the remains of villas up and down the Trent Valley and in the north and west of the county.

But the ground occupied by Nottingham, founded by the Saxons or Danes, seems to have been bypassed by the Romans and the evidence of Romano-British occupation was decidedly thin on the ground.

The discovery of the fort changed that because it pulled Nottingham – or at least its north-western estates – into the story and the grander narrative of Roman Britain. Why, then, did the Corporation decide to cover the fort over?

In 1938, work on building Broxtowe estate resumed and the remains of the Roman fort were reburied. To modern eyes the speed with which such an important site was covered over again may seem puzzling, and perhaps akin to an act of cultural vandalism at the most. Yet then, as now, local authorities needed space for housing as the slums of Nottingham were being torn down.

Seventy-odd years later, the fort, if it is still intact, is untouchable because of the estate which sits on top of it. This inaccessibility is a problem, as it hinders modern archaeologists from reinvestigating the site to discover more or to confirm original conclusions.

The man who led the original 1937-38 excavations, George Campion, like many of his peers working in this area at the time, was a passionate, but amateur, archaeologist.

Campion had been director of the family motorbike manufacturing business, the Campion Motor Cycle Company, but had retired to pursue his enthusiasm for archaeology.

Working from premises in Castle Boulevard, he helped recover Bronze Age canoes from the Trent at Clifton and investigated Lenton Priory and the city's cave system. Yet his name today has almost become a byword for archaeological unreliability. As a short biography of the man said: "His interpretation of the finds left a good deal to be desired."

Suspicions that Campion's conclusions about the Broxtowe site may not have been quite right were raised in 1964 when a ditch was found that didn't fit the plan of the fort that Campion had produced.

The confusion was compounded because Campion and one of his chief excavators had produced different plans of the fort. Worse, Campion's pre-war records of the excavations have since disappeared.

In 1955, when Campion died, the records were left to his son-in-law Herbert O Houlds- worth, of West Bridgford, but they disappeared after Houldsworth's own death.

Houldsworth's papers are in Nottinghamshire Archives and while they contain many details about the fort, including Campion's colour drawings of pottery he found, the excavation records are not there.

Despite all this, the Broxtowe site is generally accepted to be a Roman fort and is marked as such on the Ordnance Survey maps of Roman Britain.

But what was the value of the Broxtowe discovery? The Roman army's expedition to Britain, ordered by the Emperor Claudius, began in 43AD and it is accepted that at least one legion had conquered the Iron Age people of the East Midlands by around 47AD. The founding of the fort has been dated to around 50 or 60AD, which both confirms an early military presence in the area and shows the Roman army underlining its dominance.

The fort's location to the north and west of the Trent also suggests that the army was beginning to establish strong points to strengthen its advance into possibly hostile territory to the west.

However, just as significant is that the coin finds suggest that the fort may have been garrisoned no later than around 70 or 71AD. If the Roman army command no longer felt the need to man forts such as Broxtowe, this suggests that the area was considered to be safely pacified by this point.

In Rome, a general with much experience of fighting in Britain, Vespasian, had become Emperor at the end of 69AD and a new period of military campaigning in the early 70s began to push the Roman legions north from the land now known as Nottinghamshire. The Broxtowe garrison may have been abandoned as part of this move northwards.

The excavation led to the discovery of pans and brooches, pots and silver cutlery – which remind us that ancient Notts was once connected to the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. That there are no signs at Broxtowe telling anybody about the fort's existence is curious, or perhaps even shameful.

Roman Nottinghamshire, by Mark Patterson, is published by Five Leaves Publications, £11.99.

From: http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/did-Romans-Created-Broxtowe-s-hidden-fort/story-13664944-detail/story.html

Event - Roman Nottinghamshire by author Mark Patterson (Bassetlaw Museum)

FREE talk at Bassetlaw Museum

Roman Nottinghamshire by author Mark Patterson

Meet the author and book signing this Saturday 2nd July 2011 2-3pm

Places are limited so ring the museum on 01777 713 749 to book yours!

Book - Roman Nottinghamshire (Five Leaves)

A new book will be published soon on Nottinghamshire during Roman times.

The 300 page illustrated book has been researched and written by Mark Patterson will be published later this year. The local Nottingham publisher, Five Leaves Publications will publish the book.

The book is a bargain at £11.99 and is available from 26th May. The book can be purchased via http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/roman_nottinghamshire_mark_patterson_i022326.aspx

ISBN 978-1907869-12-9