Woodborough’s Heritage

Woodborough, a Sherwood Forest Village, recorded in Domesday



Woodborough Buildings of interest - Introduction



This schedule of 28 Woodborough buildings was originally created by Gedling Borough Council, the local authority in which Woodborough falls. It forms a guide to properties classified as either Grade II Listed, or of special 'local interest'. There is a brief description of each property and any architectural features that are to be preserved. 

For ease of use we have divided the village into three sections, there are maps, each one covering, the West End, the Centre, or the East End of the village and shows the approximate location of the buildings. Either use the numbers on each of the three maps to link directly to a property, or scroll from page to page.

It is well worth mentioning there are many other notable properties in Woodborough that are of architectural interest, but are not represented on the Council's schedule. For example there are at least 90 properties in the village that have been associated with the Frame Knitting Industry but only a few appear on the schedule, some of these are single cottages or terraces, the largest consisting of up to 15 cottages and dating from 18th and 19th centuries.

Woodborough properties that are listed


Scheduled Ancient Monument:


Grade II*:


Grade II:


Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest - Introduction to the National Grading policy

Under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 the Secretary of State is required to compile lists of buildings of special architectural or historic interest. Buildings which qualify to be ‘listed’ are:

(a) All buildings before 1700 which survive in anything like their original condition;

(b) Most buildings between 1700 and 1840, though selection is necessary;

(c) Between 1840 and 1914 only buildings of definite quality and character.


Selected buildings of 1914 onwards are also sometimes considered. Buildings are classified in grades to show their relative importance.


Once listed, statutory protection is given to the entire building (including the inside), any objects fixed to the building and any structures within the curtilage of the property which stood there prior to 1948. Anyone wishing to demolish, alter or extend a listed building must first obtain ‘Listed Building Consent’ from the local planning authority (in this case Gedling Borough Council).


Application procedure is much the same as for planning permission (which may also be necessary) by completion of a form which is returned to the Borough Council. It is an offence to demolish, alter or extend a listed building without consent and it is possible for an unlimited fine and/or up to twelve months imprisonment to be imposed.



1: Foxwood Earthworks – scheduled ancient monument 9


An Iron Age camp with finds which suggest continued occupation into the Roman period. The Earthworks are typical of a defensive camp of the period, oval in shape and defended by surrounding ditches and banks giving multiple lines of defence. The Earthworks straddle a long ridge carrying a trackway which is also the parish boundary between Woodborough and Calverton. Detail on site is somewhat difficult to ascertain owing to the wooded nature of the terrain.


For more information and a full survey use this LINK


2: Bank Farm, Bank Hill – local interest


Outbuildings and farmhouse surrounding crew yard. Mid-or late eighteenth century farmhouse in original condition except for the unfortunate addition of full height cant bays with modern metal windows. The north stables and cow sheds are contemporary with the farmhouse. The cow shed to the western side is nineteenth century and the remaining outbuilding bears a date stone of 1858.

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To enlarge the plan below use - ctrl+



3: 18-30 Bank Hill – local interest


Group of nineteenth century cottages with some alterations including rendering and modern windows. Nos. 30 and 28 both have wood and tile porches. No. 24 is small detached cottage set back from the others. Adjoining no. 18 is a listed workshop building (item no. 2) with a plain tile roof and knitters’ windows.


4: Workshop to west of Halmar, the Bank – listed Grade II


This early nineteenth century knitter’s workshop has now been converted to the use as a garage by the addition of a modern garage door with segmental head. However the large knitter’s casement windows are still insitu on both floors, adjoining nineteenth century cottages – see number 3 above.


5: Woodborough Hall, Park Hill (Bank Hill) – listed Grade II*


Woodborough Hall was originally built around 1660 for Philip Lacock. It was however remodelled and given its present Victorian appearance in the 1850’s by the famous architect Thomas Chambers Hine for Mansfield Parkyns. Parkyns, a descendent of Sir Thomas Parkyns the ‘wrestling baronet’, of Bunny, had lived in Abyssinia for many years and wrote a book about his experiences there.


The three storey hall is built on a square plan of rendered brick with a hipped slate roof. Most of the windows are interesting mullioned and transomed casements with Gothic glazing bars, those to the ground and first floors have hoodmoulds. On the south front is a central chamfered round headed doorway containing Gothic traceried doors.


The rear and side elevations have a number of modern extensions, some with flat roofs. The adjoining mid-nineteenth century single storey service wing is built of brick. “The oldest and best featured is the fine well staircase with a scrolled foliage balustrade and carved pots of flowers on each newel”. [Nikolaus Pevsner’s ; the Buildings of England; Nottinghamshire]. The large staircase window has interesting nineteenth century stained glass in it installed by Mansfield Parkyns and showing the heraldic emblems of six of his ancestors.


For more information use this LINK


6: Old Coach House, wall and potting shed, Woodborough Hall, – listed Grade II


This mid-nineteenth century coach house was converted to flat accommodation in 1986. It is built of brick with a slate roof and all the windows are modern casements with segmental heads, inserted at the time of conversion. The west front has a large glazed opening with an elliptical head. To the east side adjoins a nineteenth century lean-to greenhouse by Morris and Jones. The rendered brick garden wall with stone coping, which also adjoins the coach house is L-shaped, being 100 metres by 70 metres with a potting shed to the north.


For more information use this LINK


7: Elm Cottages, nos 7 & 9 Main Street – listed Grade II


A pair of early eighteenth century cottages of brick with dentilated eaves. The front elevation has Yorkshire sashes, those on the ground floor with segmental heads whilst the rear elevation is blank with no window openings. On the west front are two late nineteenth century tiles porch hoods on wooden brackets. The mid-nineteenth century two-storey addition has a pantile roof unlike the plain tiles on the rest of the building. Inside is a dog-leg staircase with landing, square newels and stick balusters.


8: Chimneys, 11 Main Street – listed Grade II


A late eighteenth century brick house with rear nineteenth and twentieth century additions creating an L-plan. The house takes its name from the three gable and three ridge stacks on the pantile roof. The street front has a lower two storey service wing and to the rear is an off centre twentieth century lean-to porch with a door and casement.


9: K6 telephone kiosk, Main Street - listed Grade II


Situated next to ‘Chimneys’, the second listed telephone kiosk of the Sir Giles Gilbert Scott K6 type in the Borough. It is made of cast iron with a domed roof.


10: Hall Farmhouse, 29 Main Street – listed Grade II


The date stone of this large brick farmhouse records that it was built for “Philip Lacock Esq 1710”. Further work took place in the 1870’s when the house was re-fenestrated and mullioned casement windows were inserted. The south front has a central mid-nineteenth century gabled porch with a round headed opening and half glazed door with fanlight. The interior has an early eighteenth century dog-leg stair with interesting string and handrail, square newels and vase balusters. The common rafter roof is constructed mainly of re-used timber.

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11: Woodborough Manor, Main Street – local interest


Nineteenth century rendered L-shaped house, showing remains of an earlier lower house, with porch and six panel half-glazed door in return angle. Iron finials on ground floor bay windows. The grounds are surrounded by a dwarf boundary wall with iron gates and railings.


For more information use this LINK


12: Manor Farm Buildings, Main Street – listed Grade II


A large group of racehorse stables & barns dating from the 18th century onwards. The complex is built in the form of two quadrangles divided by a late-eighteenth century barn which has a queen post roof with struts. The front has a central gabled gatehouse with a keystoned, round headed archway and flanking pilasters, a round headed recess over the archway and a datestone inscribed “RH 1878”. The western rear range has a large early nineteenth century barn altered in 1851, with a datestone inscribed “W.T. 1851”.


For more information use this LINK


13: Water pump, Manor Farm Buildings, Main Street – listed Grade II


In the eastern courtyard of the Manor Farm Racehorse Stables stood a cast iron water pump of circa 1878. It has a round stem with a fluted barrel and a domed cap. Water is pumped using a cranked handle on a bracket.


14: Old Vicarage and outbuildings, Lingwood Lane – local interest


Eighteenth and nineteenth century house with both horizontal and vertical sliding sashes. The lower, earlier part, has dormer windows, whilst the later block has a turreted tower attached to it. Adjoining Victorian outbuildings have cast iron ventilators and tie bars.


For more information use this LINK


15: Old School, Lingwood Lane – local interest


School of 1878 now converted to a house. Much decorated brickwork and a plain tile roof. Some vertical sliding sashes remain.


For more information and full survey use this LINK


16: Church of St Swithun’s, Main Street – listed Grade II*


A twelfth to fifteenth century church restored from 1891 to 1897. “The best piece is the chancel, built in the mid-C14. It is wide and high and receives its light from a large five-light east window with the wildest of flowering tracery”. [Nikolaus Pevsner’s : the Buildings of England; Nottinghamshire]. This window of 1897 is by Kempe and is flanked by large mask corbels said to be Edward III and Eleanor of Aquitaine. The majority of the windows date from 1907-10 and include one in the chancel by Morris and Company to a design by Burne-Jones showing saints and prophets.


The north aisle is fifteenth century but re-set in it is a twelfth century doorway with scalloped capitals, cabling and zig-zag bands. It is flanked by restored double lancets with square headed reveals and hood moulds.


The choir stalls, canopies and reading desks were presented to the church on Christmas Eve 1893 by Mansfield Parkyns of Woodborough Hall in memory of his wife. Parkyns had spent two years working on them with two local joiners but only lived for a few days after the dedication, dying aged 70, on 12th January 1894. The oak screen is fourteenth century style, and also dates from the nineteenth century, but incorporates some fourteenth century fragments.


The late nineteenth century south porch has a flat roof and moulded eaves. A mid-twentieth century vestry also has a flat roof. The west tower is built in two stages with a thirteenth century base and a Perpendicular top section.


For more information use this LINK


17: The Old Post House, 101 Main Street – local interest


Brick cottage with some original windows surviving. Some modern alterations included a brick porch.


18: Punch Bowl House, 111 Main Street – local interest


Eighteenth century former public house which appears as such in nineteenth century directories of the area. Twentieth century brick porch and massive rear extension, but still of interest for its previous use.


19: 117 Main Street – listed Grade II


This pair of eighteenth century brick cottages and an adjoining nineteenth century knitter’s workshop has now been turned into one single dwelling. The doors are mainly of recent ledged and braced construction whilst the windows are both, casement and Yorkshire sashes, all ground floor openings having segmental heads. The slightly higher workshop has two large knitters’ windows on the first floor.


20: The Pinfold, Main Street – listed Grade II


A century ago, every village would have had a small brick or stone enclosure into which a village official known as the ‘pinder’ would drive any stray animal, where it would stay until a fine was paid. In the Nottinghamshire village of Laxton the fines in 1789 were recorded as


 “A horse or beast, one penny

  A score of sheep, two pence

  A sow and pig’s, four pence”.


It would be likely that although only dating from the start of the nineteenth century, the Woodborough pinder would impose a similar scale of fines. This pinfold, which was restored in 1978, is of brick with blue brick and some chamfered stone coping. The walls are four feet high and enclose an area of about eighteen square feet.


For more information use this LINK


21: Pigeoncote and Stables, 121 Main Street – listed Grade II


A late eighteenth century two-storey brick pigeoncote with an adjoining single storey stable. One side of the pantile roof has an interesting plain tile verge. The first floor has eight cogged bird alighting ledges to the south front and eight to the east gable.


For more information use this LINK


22: Water Pump at 121 Main Street – listed Grade II


A lead water pump of 1817 with a rectangular wooden case and hipped cap. The cistern has cast decorative figures and inscription “J.C. 1817”.

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Above: Plan of Woodborough Village showing location of all properties in the schedule


It is possible that changes may occur to this list and so you are advised to contact the Borough Council to establish if a building is listed. The plot numbers on the plan above and following plans have been changed to reflect a west to east sweep along the village. The descriptions below are those at the time the list was compiled in 1990.


23: 143 and 145 Main Street, Post Office Yard – local interest


Pair of cottages rendered and altered during twentieth century. Some horizontal sliding sashes survive with knitters’ windows to number 145.


24: The Homestead, 153 Main Street – local interest


Cottage with some twentieth century alterations including tiled hoods over windows and the use of ‘neo-Georgian’ bottle glass. There is some brick diaper work to street front. Single storey stables to rear.


25: 161 Main Street and [now 163] adjacent barns  – local interest


Brick farmhouse with tie-bars, modern windows and evidence of a raised roof level. Adjacent barns dated 1785 and 1812 on beams, have cross shaped breathers but the original threshing door have been bricked up and a small door inserted. The barn was converted to a dwelling in 1996.


26: Nos 152 and 156 Main Street – listed Grade II


A row of three nineteenth century cottages of brick with plain tile and pantile roofs. The windows are all twentieth century casements, those to the ground floor having segmental heads. To the rear are mid-nineteenth and twentieth century lean-to additions.


27: 158 Main Street – listed Grade II


An early nineteenth century brickhouse with a pantile roof and dentillated eaves. The windows are mainly casements, those to the ground floor having segmental heads. On the front is a recent gabled brick porch and to the rear an addition built in 1986.


28: Nos 173, 175, 179, 181, 183, 185 Main Street – local interest


Group of brick cottages arranged in an L-shape. No. 177 has been excluded because of its poor modern alterations and extensions including the imposition of a gable end onto the row. Some of the others however, retain their vertical sliding sashes. No. 185 has a brick porch.




Acknowledgements:



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