In July 2025, we came across this photograph of The Little Shop on the Old Nottingham Pictures group. 1983 The Little Shop, 876 Woodborough Road, Mapperley. Anybody remember this? Sally Williams certainly did. She was able to recall the various names that the shop had [ … ]
Category: History
Nurse Waddingham – The Sherwood Murder Of 1936
Despite being almost a century ago, the name Nurse Waddingham is still remembered in Nottingham. Convicted of murder in 1936, she was the last person to be hanged at Winson Green Prison and there were 10.000 protesters outside the prison. Local Author Reviews The Case [ … ]
Private Kenneth Wagstaff (1925 – 1944)
Kenneth Wagstaff lived with his parents in St Anns Nottingham. Like many of his peers, he joined up to serve in the Second World War, but unlike most of his peers, he never returned Pte Kenneth Wagstaff was ‘killed in action’ just three days before [ … ]
Memories Of The Metropole
Located on Mansfield Road in the Sherwood district of Nottingham, the Metropole cinema was a wonderful art-deco gem. Here it is in the early 1970s, not long before it closed. Note the Esso petrol station on the corner of Elmswood Gardens, and ‘The Candy Shop’ [ … ]
Mapperley Brickyards – The Final Years
This extract is from the book Clay Stealers to St Pancras Station – A History of Nottingham’s Brick Makers, by Jeff Sheard. Published in 2012 and not available in a digital format, it is published here with kind permission of the author. Top Yard – [ … ]
Charles Bell TAYLOR Of Beechwood Hall
Mapperley People likes to recognise the achievements of our residents, and Charles Bell TAYLOR is one that deserves his place in the area’s history. Charles Taylor was a surgeon oculist, the old term for what we now call an ophthalmologist. He lived and died at [ … ]
Johnson’s Pond
Following a discussion on a ‘school memories’ group about the Mapperley Plains Primary School, which moved to its new site about 30 years ago, someone commented that the new building was on a site known as ‘Johnson’s Pond’. We asked whether anyone recalls this and [ … ]
Crosslands Farm – Mapperley Plains
The residential area of Mapperley extended away from the city in phases. New housing developments were mostly built on what was farmland. Some of the original farm names have survived. Middlebeck Farm, Plains Farm and more recently the Chase Farm development. The name Crosslands Farm [ … ]
The History Of The Punch Bowl
Whenever we ask about our old buildings, the people of Mapperley never disappoint. We recently asked: Can anyone explain the history of The Punch Bowl public house on Porchester Road? The question arose when we noticed the name on the original pedestrian entrance gate at [ … ]
Mapperley – Nottingham’s Last Lace Factory
In 1910, Nottingham was the world capital of the lace industry. There were around 40,000 people working in the industry, a third of the city’s working population. One-by-one the factories have closed down and in 2011 the last of Nottingham’s lace manufacturers switched the machines [ … ]