A Brief History of Mapperley Park

This information has been taken with permission from the website of Michael Edwards, our local councillor. He is at pains to stress that he is not a historian and there may be errors which he is happy to have corrected. I am hoping to improve this section over time.

The name is thought to derive from that of Thomas Mappurley, from Derbyshire, who became owner of an area of land known as the Mappurley Closes in 1377. There are connections with the village of Mapperley, in Derbyshire.

A stately home - Mapperley Hall - was built around 1792. The grounds became Mapperley Park and the hills north and east of it became known as Mapperley Hills.

Extensive brickyards existed on Mapperley Hills for many years. These have supplied much of the building material for the city, hence the saying that “Nottingham was once on Mapperley Hills.” St.Pancras station in London was built using 10,000,000 of these bricks.

The Battle of Mapperley Hillstook place on 23rd August 1842, following a series of Chartist disturbances across Nottingham for four days previous. Cavalry challenged a meeting of some 5,000 Chartists (who had just sat down to eat dinner) and arrested 400 men, leading them into town in rows of 4. The event was celebrated annually in the city for some years as a celebration of civil rights.

Mapperley was 'brought into the compass' of Nottingham in 1877 through the Borough Extension Act.

The Borough of Nottingham Lunatic Asylum opened on August 3rd, 1880, occupying 125 acres. It had its own farm, bakery and butchery, along with a church and recreation hall. It was designed by local architect George Thomas Hine, son of TC Hine, the designer of the Coppice Hospital.

The Mapperley reservoir was built in 1881.

The Suburban Railway (opened around 1888) ran alongside The Wells Road before entering a tunnel to reach Sherwood station and serve the clay pits off Sherwood Vale. The Kingsthorpe flats complex was built on the site of St.Ann's railway station and goods yard. A 440 feet long tunnel passes under Woodborough Road, to the works of the Nottingham Patent Brick Company at what is now the Penarth estate off Sherwood Vale.

Trams ran up Woodborough Road to the Porchester Road terminus and up St.Ann's Well Road to Donkey Hill (St.Bartholomew's Road).

The 20th century brought new housing, both generally, and specifically the in-filling the estates of Mapperley Park and the former hospitals, to support the economic growth of the city. Brick making finished in the fifties or sixties.

Mapperley Park is distinctive and is designated, along with Alexandra Park, as a Conservation Area. The Hall was owned by the Wrights, a banking family. The last member of the Wright family to live at the Hall was a Colonel in the British Army and many of the street names are associated with military campaigns. The estate started to be sold for development in 1873 and a very significant sale of the northern half of the estate for development took place in 1903. The estate is a clearly defined area, originally a quadrilateral formed by Mansfield Road, Redcliffe Road, Woodborough Road and the rear of the houses on Private Road; the southern boundary later became Mapperley Road. The estate rises in terraces from Mansfield Road to Woodborough Road: Carisbrooke Drive, Cyprus Road, Lucknow Avenue, Lucknow Drive. Distinguishing features of the estate are the street trees and the Bulwell stone walls. There are many grand houses on the estate, but recent trends have seen many properties, particularly in the south of the estate, converted to flats, including the Hall itself. The original large gardens invited recent attempts at infill housing.

The Mapperley Institute opened in 1906 and the Majestic Cinema opposite was popular in the forties and fifties.