Nottingham Civic Society - Book Review - The illustrated history of Nottingham's suburbs

The Illustrated History of Nottingham’s Suburbs
by Geoffrey Oldfield
191pp h/b Breedon Books 2003
£14.99

When my elder daughter was born in Highbury Hospital an older teaching colleague told me “She’ll be a good lass, she’s born in Bulwell.” This feeling for Nottingham’s suburbs comes over very well in Geoffrey Oldfield’s latest book. He reminds us quite emphatically that there’s rather more to Nottingham’s suburbs than just differing postal codes.

Geoffrey has been out and about photographing the city and the county for over half a century. Over that time he has built up a very comprehensive visual record of the changes that have taken place, often he makes certain he covers a subject before and after alterations – and sometimes, sadly, on the eve of a demolition.

In his Illustrated History of Nottingham’s Suburbs the author has drawn generously from his own photographic collection and augmented them with earlier archival photographs, where appropriate, and a number of map extracts (O.S. 1915?).

The book is divided into three sections: The First Suburbs, Nottingham’s former open fields enclosed in 1839 and 1845; The Inner Suburbs, the outlying ring of villages brought into the town in 1877 and later into the city after 1897; The Outer Suburbs, those districts adjoining the city but firmly in the county and are all part of Greater Nottingham.

There is enough basic local history here to whet the appetite and generate interest to find out a little more. With time expansion has coalesced suburbs to form a great amorphous built-up area. Geoffrey’s book helps to untangle this “progress” and gives back to each of these suburbs some individuality, some local character and pride.

I feel a couple of maps of Greater Nottingham, of different dates, as end papers would have given a better appreciation of the relative locations of these suburbs. As the small map extracts printed are not referred to in the text they serve only as decoration, which is a disappointment.

Overall this is a well-illustrated introduction to Nottingham’s suburbs, not only to the well known districts, but also to those we often pass through on the way to somewhere else, such as Attenborough, Netherfield and Toton.

Ken Brand
(January 2004)

Book Review: The Illustrated History of Nottingham’s Suburbs by Geoffrey Oldfield