Memorials of old Nottinghamshire
| Language | en |
|---|---|
| First published | 2026-02-05 |
| Rights | Public domain in the USA. |
| Gutenberg ID | #77866 |
Description
"Memorials of old Nottinghamshire" by Everard L. Guilford and P. H. Ditchfield is a collection of historical essays written in the early 20th century. It gathers illustrated studies that illuminate the county’s past through local history, architecture, archaeology, topography, and culture. Readers can expect pieces on medieval church building, monastic houses, Wollaton Hall, the River Trent, Sherwood Forest, the Civil War, regional poets, coinage and clockmaking, and portraits of Nottingham and Southwell. The opening of the volume offers a preface explaining a change of editor, the aim for variety, and thanks to contributors, followed by a detailed contents and list of illustrations. The first substantive essay, “Historical Nottinghamshire,” urges a blend of documents, tradition, and landscape-reading, then briskly traces the county from prehistoric cave-dwellers and the Brythonic Coritani through Rome’s light footprint, Saxon borderland politics, Danish rule and the Five Boroughs, Norman castles and twin English/French boroughs at Nottingham, and the town’s later prosperity driven by the Trent and Sherwood; it touches on the Wars of the Roses, the Civil War focus on Nottingham and steadfast Newark, and the rise of hosiery, lace, and coal. Next, the opening of the essay on medieval church architecture sketches the county’s generally modest parish plans, the limited architectural role of religious houses, and strong artistic currents from Lincoln and York, illustrating them with Blyth Priory, Southwell Minster (Romanesque nave and later quire and famed chapter-house carvings), Worksop and Thurgarton, and Newark’s tower-and-spire scheme; it shows how these influences yielded refined fourteenth‑century chancels and furnishings at places like Hawton, Sibthorpe, Car Colston, and Woodborough. (This is an automatically generated summary.)