Woodborough’s Heritage

Woodborough, a Sherwood Forest Village, recorded in Domesday



Wright’s Directory 1889



Woodborough is a parish and large straggling village, in a narrow dell near the Dover Beck, 6.5 miles N.E. from Nottingham, 3.5 miles N.W. from Lowdham station, and 141 from London, in the Newark Division, hundred of Thurgarton, Basford union, Nottingham County Court district, rural deanery of Gedling, and diocese of Southwell. St Swithin's church is a large stone building, in which there are the remains of a good Norman doorway. The chancel is large, and considered a perfect specimen of 14th century work (Decorated), about the time of Edward III. There is low embattled of the Perpendicular period; the nave and aisles are debased. The aisles are separated from the nave by an arcade of four bays. There are a clock and four bells. In the windows are some fragments of ancient armorial glass. In the chancel there is a very fine sedilia, also an aumbry and piscina. It was re-pewed and partially restored in 1864. During the year (1886) the interior of the tower was restored at a cost of nearly £100. About the same time Colonel Percy Smith, on the occasion of his marriage to Miss Parkyns, was at the expense of re-hanging the bells, and re-casting the one which was cracked. It is proposed to repair the floor of the chancel, rebuild the buttresses, open out the old oak roof, remove the organ into the north aisle, reset the tracery, replace decayed stones and screen off the tower from the nave, so as to form a vestry. The estimated cost is £1500. The Registers date - baptisms 1547, marriages from 1578, burials from 1572. The vicarage is of the value of £800, partially derived from 55 acres of glebe, with residence, in the gift of the Bishop of Manchester. A Burial Board was formed in 1879. There is a small cemetery, with mortuary chapel and lich gate. William Edge, by will, July 29th, 1796 devised his personal estate to his wife, subject to the payment of £40 to the churchwardens and overseers of Woodborough, the interest to be paid half-yearly as follows: moiety to the singers of Woodborough church, and the other moiety to the poor widows of the parish. His widow gave up part of the personal property to Mr William Taylor who has paid 20s. a year to the minister, and 20s. to the churchwardens, as the interest of the £40. The former sum is paid to a master for teaching ten boys and girls to sing psalms, and the latter is distributed on the day after Christmas to indigent widows. The Nether Close, in Calverton, consisting 1a. 1r. 13p., was awarded on the enclosure of the open fields of that parish to the poor of Woodborough, but it has been lost. The Free School, founded by the Rev’d Montague Wood in 1736, now possesses an income of £90 a year, derived from a farm at Blidworth and land at Stapleford. New handsome and commodious schools, with residence for the master, were built in 1878 at a cost of £1600, the accommodation being for 150 scholars. A new Wesleyan chapel was built in 1887 at a cost of £630. The Baptists and Primitive Methodists have each a chapel. Bricks are still made but the hosiery trade has been depressed of late years owing largely to the manufacture having been transferred to the great factories. There is a sick club numbering over 260 members. The feast is on the Sunday after July 2nd. The chief landowners are Mr M Parkyns, Mr R.L. Thorpe, Col. Seely, Mr Charles Shaw, and Mr R. Howett, the proprietor of a noted horse breeding establishment. Area, 1869a. 0r. 30p.: rateable value, £4037 12s. : population in 1881, 889. Woodborough Dumble is 2½ miles west.

St Swithin's church - services, Sunday 10.30 and 6.30, and on the third Sunday in the month. Communion Sunday in the month. Reverend F.G. Slight B.A.: wardens, Messrs R. Brett and R. Ward: Hon. organist Miss Augusta Parkyns:

Clerk, J. Richardson. Hymns A & M.

Chapels - Sunday 2.30 and 6. Wesleyans: Steward Jas. Statham: Primitive, Joseph Marriott: Baptists, James Small.

Burial Board - Messrs J. Hartshorn (chairman), E. Brett, E. Robinson, G. Dring and W. Hogg Junior: Clerk, Mr F. Housley.

Post Office, J. Foster, Sub-postmaster. Letters from Nottingham delivered at 7.30, box cleared at 6.10 weekdays only.

Money Order office at Epperstone (1 mile): telegraph office at Lowdham (3.5 miles)


Donnelly, Mark - framesmith

Hill, William - brickmaker (& at Saxondale)

Hogg, William Senior - Parish Clerk

Holland, William - drainer

Holmes, Miss Charlotte - mistress of Endowed School

Housley, Frederick - master of Endowed School, clerk to Burial Board and collector of taxes.

James, Mr Henry

Marriott, James - framesmith

Martin, Arthur - stud groom

Mellors, Thomas - baker

North, J - coal dealer

Orme, William - blacksmith

Parkyns, Mansfield Esq - Woodborough Hall

Pollard, John - tailor and rate collector

Richardson, Joseph - parish clerk

Sleight, Rev’d Frederick Goode B.A. - The Vicarage

Taylor, William - fruit grower and threshing machine owner

Vasey, Henry - race horse trainer

Wain, George - tailor

Ward, Richard - joiner and wheelwright

Whysall, German - gamekeeper

Wyld, William Junior - chair seater & brush maker



Bag Hosiers

Bish, Herbert

Dring, Henry & gardener

Dring, James

Richardson, Arthur

Robinson, Edward

Wyld, William


Boot Makers

Alvey, John

Baguley, John

Baguley, Joseph,

Cook, John

Dalling, William


Butchers

Hartshorn, John & farmer

Richardson, Mark

Tomlinson, Mrs Martha


Coal Dealers

Dring, George & cottager, Shelt Hill

North, William & shopkeeper

Roe, John & cottager, Foxwood House


Cottagers

Alvey Mrs Charlotte, & market gardener

Bish, John, & gardener

Brett, Edward, & valuer

Dring, George, & coal dealer, Shelt Hill

Foottit, George

Foster, Gimson

Hancock, John

Howitt, William, & bricklayer

Moss, William

Roe, John & coal dealer, Foxwood House

Southern, William, & gardener

Taylor, William


Dressmakers

Dixon, Mrs Sarah

Marriott, Miss Eliza

Richardson, Mrs Selina

Turtle, Miss Emma


Farmers

Brown, Henry, bailiff to Mr Collyer

Collyer, George, in Derby Mills, near Melbourne

Flinders, William Thorpe

Godfrey, William, bailiff to Mr Howett

Hartshorn, John & butcher & gardener

Howett, Robert, & race horse breeder, Woodborough Manor, & stud farm.

Kelk, John

Lamin, William, bailiff to Mr Parkyns

Middup, William, Grimesmoor Farm

Norton, John, bailiff to Mr Thorpe

Poole, John, bailiff to Colonel Seely, Woodborough Woods

Poole, Joseph

Rawson, John, bailiff to Mr Shaw

Reavill, Mrs Emma, & victualler, Four Bells

Shaw, Charles, in Nottingham Park

Stevenson, James, Stoup Hill

Thorpe, Roby Liddington, in Nottingham

Turtle, John, Grimesmoor Farm


Gardeners

Alvey, Mrs Charlotte & cottager

Bish, John, nurseryman

Dring, George & butcher

Dring, Henry

Dring, James

Foottit, George, & cottager

Foster, John, & shopkeeper

Hallam, Henry

Hartshorn, Mrs

Hartshorn, John

Plumber, Joseph

Smith, William

Southern, William, & cottager


Publicans

Ashmore, William, victualler, New Inn

Hogg, William, victualler, Nags Head

Leafe, Joseph, beerhouse, Bugle Horn

Reavill, Mrs Emma, farmer & victualler, Four Bells

Whitworth, William Surplice, victualler, Punch Bowl


Shopkeepers

Co-op Stores, John Clayton, manager

Foster, John, & sub-postmaster

Marriott, Joseph

North, William

Richardson, Mrs Ann

Richardson, John

Richardson, William

Robinson, William


Carriers

Ashmore, William, to Nottingham Wednesdays & Saturdays

Dunthorne, James, to Nottingham Wednesdays & Saturdays.

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