"If only half of the history that has happened in Nottingham had happened in some other place, that place would be famous; but because it did happen here no one knows".
Goosey is a 2-metre-tall, quarter-tonne fibreglass and timber statue that serves as the official mascot for Nottingham’s historic Goose Fair. For decades people have seen this curious statue appear around the beginning of September and located at the Mansfield Road roundabout (often called by locals the Goose Fair Roundabout). The iconic statue is typically put up on her perch at the beginning of September (around September 1st) each year ahead of the annual Goose Fair.
The Nottingham Goose Fair is one of Europe’s oldest and largest travelling funfairs, boasting a rich heritage that spans over 700 years. While primitive markets existed in Nottingham during Saxon and Danish times, the official fair is widely tracked to 1284, when King Edward I granted a Royal Charter acknowledging city fairs. For more on the history of the fair, see Nottingham Hidden History Team article ‘Origins of Nottingham’s Goose Fair’.
The annual tradition of erecting the giant goose statue began in the 1960s. Goosey is a 2-metre-high (6ft 6 ins) statue constructed out of fibreglass and timber. Despite her lightweight materials, she weighs approximately a quarter of a tonne. Local lore traditionally treats the mascot as female, though this remains an affectionate cultural consensus rather than a scientific fact. Unfortunately, the specific individual or artist who originally designed Goosey is not publicly documented or credited in historical records. Goosey spends most of the year in hibernation, emerging strictly for the autumn Goose Fair.
The Goosey, 2019. The “Goosey” is the famous two-metre timber and fibreglass mascot statue for the historic Nottingham Goose Fair, placed each year on the Mansfield Road roundabout near the Forest Recreation Ground. Photograph Credit: Joseph Earp.
The statue stands as a tribute to the historical roots of the event, which dates back to at least 1284. Long before it featured modern, high-intensity fairground rides, the fair was a major Michaelmas agricultural trading market. The event originally got its name from the up to 20,000 geese that were allegedly driven on foot from nearby areas like Lincolnshire to be sold in Nottingham’s Market Place (Old Market Square).
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Nottingham’s iconic eight-foot Goosey statue was temporarily relocated to the Old Market Square in 2020, as a symbolic display while the annual Goose Fair was cancelled. The historic Goose Fair was cancelled for two consecutive years (2020 and 2021) due to public health and safety concerns surrounding COVID-19. While the fairgrounds at the Forest Recreation Ground remained closed, Goosey was placed on display. The Lord Mayor of Nottingham and members of the Showmen’s Guild still performed the traditional bell-ringing ceremony on the steps of the Council House to mark the historic date of the charter. The fair successfully returned to the Forest Recreation Ground in September 2022 following the lifting of coronavirus restrictions.
‘Goosey’ in Nottingham’s Old Market Square, 30 September 2020. In September 2020, Nottingham’s famous Goosey statue was temporarily relocated to Old Market Square to lift public spirits after the historic Goose Fair was cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Photograph Credit: Joseph Earp.
Unfortunately in recent years Goosey’s fame has attracted unwanted attention in the form of climbers and vandals. Aside from structural damage caused by climbers, the statue was targeted by separate vandals who spray-painted it. Nottingham City Council has issued strict warnings ordering people to stop climbing on “Goosey,” the famous Nottingham Goose Fair mascot. The council has reiterated that CCTV is in full operation at its location and that this anti-social behaviour will not be tolerated. The statue is now well established as being connected to Nottingham’s Goose Fair for well over 50 years. It has become part of the history of the fair. The statue needs to be preserved and looked after so future visitors to the fair can enjoy this now famous Nottingham bird.
From the 17th century onwards a growing number of British antiquarians adopted the notion that numerous ancient sites throughout the nation were Druidic temples, or in some way associated with that cult. This belief was to last until the present day, although now professed by only a handful of amateurs. Druidism had been a religion subscribed to by many of the Celtic peoples of Britain and Gaul. Antiquarians in Nottinghamshire shared the enthusiasm for Druidism and energetically set about to discover places in the county they considered as having connections with it. The search was not made easy for unlike neighbouring Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire is devoid of stone circles, which were considered to be Druidic temples. It was all most frustrating to the antiquarians, who also had to contend with the fact of the county having few known tumuli. Nevertheless they met these problems head on and soon found their evidence, even if, at times, it was difficult actually to produce. Thus the 19th. century Nottingham antiquarian, George Campion, suggested in a newspaper article that a stone circle had once stood on the site now occupied by Nottingham Castle. However, the county does have some sites which may well have been used by the druids and others which provide circumstantial evidence for prehistoric religious practices which may include Druidism.
Standing stones need not be man-made but can be natural rock columns. There are two outstanding examples in Nottinghamshire, the Hemlock Stone at Stapleford, now a suburb of Nottingham and the Druid Stone at Blidworth. This latter stone was held in high regard in the village, though it is located in a field below the hill on which the old part of Blidworth stands.
The area shows considerable traces of glacial activity and the rock, a conglomerate, seems to be a relic of the last ice age. It is 5 metres high and 13m 80cm round near the base, which rests on a platform of rock. Unlike the Hemlock Stone it is holed, the narrowest entrance being on the east side and measuring 1m. 40cm high and 50cm wide at its widest point. On the west it funnels outward to reach a height of about 3m and 3m wide. The stone is aligned north-south, the hole east-west.
A notable local antiquarian, the Rev. R. H. Whitworth, vicar of Blidworth from 1865-1908, was firmly convinced that the stone and some other local curiosities had Druidic associations. Not least some other “structures” to be found in the same field as the Druid Stone, which look remarkably like robbed tumuli. There is also a large mound which could be either natural or artificial. One of the “tumuli” is a hollowed out rock with an “entrance” measuring two metres wide. There is another mound and hole in the immediate vicinity. The Druid Stone is immediately adjacent to a public footpath leading directly to a clump of trees where once a family lived in a dwelling excavated in the ground and roofed with branches and straw. The local health officer, called out after complaints had been received concerning the accommodation being unhealthy, said he had never seen so healthy a group of people. Above the field is a road called Ricket Lane, and as passing children through a holed stone was thought to cure rickets this may be of some significance. Until the late 1920s local children suffering from whooping cough were taken to the stone to be passed through the hole, this being thought to cure the ailment.
The Druid Stone, 1911. Photograph Credit: The Paul Nix Collection.
Although Whitworth considered the Druid Stone, described also as “The Rock”, to have been sculptured in part, this was not evident when the stone was recently examined in detail. Though it is possible the hole was enlarged many years ago. There is nothing aligned within theimmediate area which can be Druid Stone except, perhaps, a very high hill away to the east and one of the “structures” in the field, the entrance to the possible barrow, which aligns to the east entrance of the hole. A local farmer allowed members of the Nottingham Hidden History Team when conducting a field Survey of the area to examine a map of his farm which depicts what may be a barrow in a wood along Ricket Lane.
One or two further pieces of information need be considered here, for indirectly they may well reinforce the folk legend of Druidic connections. First is the name Blidworth itself, although said to mean Blid’s farm or residence, it might well be derived from Beli Ог Belid, the name of a Celtic god for which the Roman equivalent is Apollo. This is a deity in charge of oracles and prophesy, qualities attributed to the druids, one might note; thus Blid’s farm could easily have been Beli Ог Belid’s farm. At Lindhurst near Blidworth, a destroyed stone was discovered in 1874 which Nottingham historian, Cornelius Brown, considered to be a Roman altar.
The Hemlock Stone on Stapleford Hill is an isolated pillar of Bunter Sandstone heavily cemented by irregularly distributed barite. William Stukeley (1687-1765) thought it was a relic of past quarrying, a view recently advanced by a local geologist, Dr. E.Taylor, however, there is no evidence of any quarrying activity in the past ог more recently around the site of the stone. Stukeley, ignored possible Druidic connections, made to them when he discussed the Hemlock Stone, but Nottingham antiquarians displayed no such caution, and stated that the stone was certainly a Druidic shrine. The 1884 edition of White’s, History and Gazetteer of Nottinghamshire, refers to this strongly held belief amongst local antiquarians, and an old newspaper cutting preserved in scrapbook in Nottingham’s Central Library, records the claim of an anonymous local historian that it was “highly probable that it had been a Druidical altar”. This was on the grounds of its commanding position and the fact the area was probably “in Druidical times’ covered with a wood of native oaks. It might be worth noting here that the name Bramcote, contrary to currently accepted ideas, may be derived from Bran, the mystical raven of the druids, thus we have ‘Bran’s cote’, eg. Bran’s dwelling.
Writing in the Transactions of the Thoroton Society (1906), Samuel Page, argued that evidence for Druidical rites “may definitely be traced” to the site of the stone. According to him this is by a local stream called the Tottle Brook, which obtained its name from “an important Toothill close by”. He maintained “Toot” to be a rendering of the name of Celtic deity, Teutates. Page’s opinion is attacked in the same issue by an anonymous writer who said the name Toothill reduplication of synonyms”. Currently a toothill is considered to be a place of assembly or observation.
The Hemlock Stone, 1906. Photograph Credit: the Paul Nix Collection.
In a field not far from the Hemlock Stone is, or was, a spring called the Sick Dyke, the water of which was considered to have healing properties. This spring, according to another cutting in Nottingham Library, dated 1922, was thought to be where the druids went to wash their hands after their ceremonies at the stone. No trace of the spring now appears to exist, or, if still extant we have been unable to identify it (Frank Earp did mange to locate the Sick Dyke later on. See Mercian Mysteries Magazine Issue 9, 1991).
Off Castle Boulevard, Nottingham, though now concealed by a modern building, can be seen a system of caves. Stukeley believed these to have been the homes of the ancient Britons and Saxons. The German born Nottingham historian, Charles Deering (1695-1749), rejected this idea and refers to a local belief that the “rock houses” were “Popish houses” demolished by the Parliamentarians during the Civil War. Other local antiquarians, however, considered them to be the place where Druids lived and gave them the name Holes. They also believed a collection of small holes carved in the rock nearby was a relic of a Roman sepulchrum. In fact Deering discovered damaged remains of a medieval chapel dedicated to St. Mary of the Rock (St. Mary le Roche). In fact much of the site may have been used by the monks of nearby Lenton Priory as a sort of “industrial complex”, as in one cave there, (not widely known even amongst specialists), are the remains of two possible fish tanks. Fish and doves, or pigeons, were important to the monks for food. Circumstantial supporting evidence for this is provided by the fact of the River Leen having had its course changed opposite the chapel so that the river formed ox-bow giving the chapel site a small enclosed area where sheep or cattle could been penned. At an earlier date a hermitage is said to have been located at the site, which the Lenton monks eventually seized.
In the 19th century, the Rev. George Oliver published a little work entitled, Shadows Departed. In this he suggested a large amphitheatre then existing in the Church Cemetery, now the Church (Rock) Cemetery, at the top of Mansfield Road. He suggested it was an open-air Druidical cathedral. He described it as quadrangular with a semicircular head at the upper end and having a bearing ten points from the north to the west, which, Oliver noted, was identical to Kennet Avenue at Avebury, where the avenue went serpent like down Overton Hill. The Nottingham structure he likened to the head of a serpent, inside it being two serpent-like paths. Whether this structure was quite as ancient as Oliver imagined is open to debate. There were rock cut tanks which Oliver thought were used for ritual purposes; however, such tank-like structures were used for bleaching cloth in medieval times in Nottingham. It is worth noting that along Mansfield Road there once existed great many cave dwellings, and to this day there are extensive cave systems below the modern buildings there. Many of these were used as working sand mines. Many of the caves were used during the Second World War as air raid shelters.
The Church (Rock) Cemetery, 1904. Photograph Credit: the Paul Nix Collection.
At the top of Mansfield Road near where gallows once stood, was the White Stone, probably a prehistoric standing stone. This gave its name to Wiston, also known as Hwyston, Wyston, Weston and Wheston, a lost medieval village. Mansfield Road itself was at one time called Wyston Gate, and what became the present day Forest, Whistondale. The ancient stone has long disappeared.
One of the earliest roads into Nottingham is called Hollowstone, said by scholars to indicate it having been cut down through the Bunter Sandstone. This explanation is questionable, for roads cut through the sandstone at Mansfield Road were called hollow ways. There is also 12th century record of Hollowstone being called Hologate, which was quite apt as there was a fortified gate across the road. Hollowstone is situated in the oldest part of Nottingham, and here is also to be found the oldest church in the city, St. Mary’s. The logical name for a road through the rock would be hollow way. It is not unreasonable to contend that the name far from describing the road actually refers to an ancient stone megalith with a hole through it as once having stood in the area, perhaps a natural pillar akin to the Hemlock Stone but smaller in size.
It is a well documented fact that holed megaliths were considered in many places until relatively recently as possessing particular significance. In addition to their stamp on supposed ability to effect cures they set the legal agreements, for it was held that any agreement made by shaking hands or passing documents through the holes were strictly binding on the parties concerned. If there was a megalith with a hole in it close to, or, as I suspect, on the site later occupied by St. Mary’s Church, such a pagan stone still being held in high regard would have irritated the monks. The Normans who gifted the church to these monks, would have been irritated by this a great deal. Especially as it might have reduced their income through people going to it for cures, rather than to the saints shrines at the church, so it is not improbable they had it destroyed. However, local feeling amongst the Saxon population, for the area was the Saxon borough of the town, may have been so strong that the name of the stone was preserved and became associated with the road, and as time passed and memories of the actual stone faded the genuine origin of the name was forgotten.
Not far from Hollow Stone on the east side of what is now called London Road, which many years ago led to Hollowstone, is Eastcroft, now a corporation depot. The site is on the flood plain of the River Trent, and it was here on September 1, 1851, an interesting discovery was made, the significance of seems to have escaped both those who recorded it and recent scholars. According to a cutting in the local press studies department of Nottingham Central Library, during the course of excavations for a gas tank “a fine buck in an excellent state of preservation” was discovered “at a considerable depth” along with several large trees. What appears to have been a canoe was also found. It was decided that a “sudden catastrophe ог revolution nature” had buried them.
The remains, I suggest, deposited not by catastrophic act of nature but by human agency, being ritual deposit, and the fact that such a burial was made there implies the immediate area was considered to possess a special significance. Indeed, as the site was subjected to seasonal floods the significance must have been considerable. So can it be, then, that this ritual deposit was in some way associated with the Hollow Stone, the site of which overlooked Eastcroft? Nottingham Castle is significantly tied in with the sandstone rock, on which it stands. For although there is no evidence of a stone circle at that site, there is considerable evidence of prehistoric people having used the Castle Rock, consequently there may have been a sacred shrine, perhaps in the form of a standing stone there. However, subsequent building work will have effectively destroyed any substantial evidence for this.
The site of the Hollow Stone would be clearly seen as ritual when looking across from Castle Rock. As would the site of Nottingham Castle would be when looking from the lace market where Hollow Stone is located. We have, therefore, a triangle, a symbol of considerable meaning, possessed in religious and mystic lore. Add to this the site of the White Stone and you can erect the triangle between it, the Hollow Stone and the Castle Rock site. The implication having been from the religious standpoint special importance to the ancients, assuming, of course, triads. This they knew of the symbolic significance of observation brings us back to the druids.
Caves dwellings, Hollowstone, September 1973.The old ice stadium can be seen in the background. Photograph Credit: Nottingham City Council.
Druidism was the religion professed by many of the Celtic people Britain and Gaul, but very little documentary evidence regarding it has been preserved. Perhaps the most important source on Druidism is Ceasar’s, Conquest of Gaul (actually written by Hirtius). In this Druidism is shown to have been a national cult with a powerful priesthood who also had their secular role as judges and educators. Power such that they were able to exclude individuals or even whole tribes from religious rites. Druidism shares with Christianity the dubious distinction of being one of the few religious cults the Romans, normally very tolerant in matters of religion, sought to suppress. Druidism was nationalistic and seen as to threat the political state. It is highly unlikely the Druid priests would have missed the opportunity to have exploited the holy places of previous faiths in order to promote their own ends, as the Christians did when they achieved political power. The Druids may not have built Stonehenge, there is no reason to doubt the fact they conducted ceremonies there, assuming it to have been a holy place, for this is not an established fact. Thus if, as I suggest, there were sacred places in what eventually became Nottingham and district, as well as the area having a special mystical-cum-religious significance, then the druids would have adopted local religious sanctuaries and ‘druidised’ them, so to speak. The past environment of the East Midlands, including the Nottingham area, indicates it to have been wooded (H.A. Wilcox. The Prehistoric Woodlands and Marshlands of England. University of Liverpool, 1933), thus making Druidism ideal for religious purposes. Druidism was of course, only one expression of paganism and it would be superficial to assume that even when Druidism dominated it did not speak for all pagans.
When Christianity was introduced it failed to make much progress, for it was never a popular cult, contrary to what its present-day propagandists pretend. Paganism far from disappearing amidst a mass of converts to the new cult continued to flourish. This was true also of other areas in the Roman Empire and the new Christian cult, which had long got rid of its Jewish messianic leanings. It commenced to absorb so much from paganism that it can almost be said that the Roman Catholic sect, the Orthodox sect and other major historical expressions of the cult are paganism writ large. Whether followers of the Christian faith are aware that many of their customs and cult practices were taken from paganism is an open question. Some of the Christian clergy certainly knew of this. Indeed, in their published works some of them seemed to have feared popular paganism, as was the case of Rev: Robert Lowe. He was the Rector of the village of Bingham, near Nottingham, from 1810 to 1845. This wealthy, bigoted individual, a member of a politically influential family, had a henge-type monument outside the village destroyed. However large numbers of his parishioners disagreed with him and had repairs done to this monument. Each spring his parishioners went to the monument on Parsons Hill where they welcomed the re-birth of the countryside and the fertility this brought.
In the grounds of the parish church of St. John the Evangelist, at Carlton-in-Lindrick, can be seen a standing stone. This was re-erected after its discovery in 1937 and is Called the “Devil Stone”. It was known to have stood in the churchyard for centuries, it acquired its name from the belief that if an individual ran around it seven times he, or she, would either get good luck ог see the devil, depending on the direction chosen. In the church itself, can be seen a stone on which is carved the sun and fertility symbols. This is referred to as the “sun stone”, and even the church guide book acknowledges it to have been a stone associated with pagan worship. The fact that for centuries it has been housed in the church tells us a lot about how paganism retained its hold over the the minds of the rural population.
Published in Hidden History, Number 4, Volume 2, 1990. Copyright The Nottingham Hidden History Team.
Please note that the views and opinions in this article are those of the contributors. They should not be taken as necessary being those of the editors of the Nottingham Hidden History Team page.
The story of the Chilwell Ghost and Ghost House Lane lingers even though the house at the heart of the mystery was demolished in 1952.
Legend has it that a pedlar disappeared soon after telling a customer he was going to spend the night at a remote farmhouse. The family he had set out to visit then seemed to enjoy a brief spell of apparent and inexplicable prosperity.
Later, there was a deathbed confession to murder and later still, the widespread belief the house where it happened had become haunted. Day-trippers would go from Nottingham to see the site, roughly at the corner of where Pearson Avenue and Valley Road are today.
The approximate location of the Ghost House which is roughly at the corner of where Pearson Avenue and Valley Road are today. Photograph Credit: Joe Earp.
The story was well known in the area but, according to Mr Alan Dance, had never been properly investigated. So, back in the late 1990s, curiosity led him to begin his research Detective work into a legend more than 200 years old involved many hours looking at parish registers, census records, newspapers of the time and court documents. But gradually Mr Dance was able to sort fact from fiction to reveal a fascinating story
Chilwell was a farming community with many residents living on land rented to them by the Pearson family. At the time of the disappearance – 1827 – there were 823 people living in Chilwell. The population is now around 12,000 or more.
Through his investigations, Mr Dance found out the tenants of the cottage, then known as Ash Flat House, were the Baguleys: John Baguley was a farm labourer with a number of children, among them a daughter Diana. She had three illegitimate children and had served a jail sentence in Nottingham’s women’s prison for theft. The disappearance of the pedlar – called McQuince – didn’t spark haunting stories straight away. They came after the Baguleys had been evicted and subsequent tenants moved in. John Baguley is said to have confessed, on his deathbed, to killing the pedlar, but his motive remains in doubt.
Ghost House, Ghost House Lane, Chilwell, Nottingham, c early 1900s.
Mr Dance speculates that Baguley could have caught McQuince in a compromising position with his daughter. According to local legend, the murder weapon was an axe. An axehead was found some years later in the brook, now culverted, which surfaces on the south side of Inham Nook recreation ground. If Baguley had killed McQuince, then the likelihood is he would be buried nearby.
In any event, there was no proper investigation at the time and if McQuince was buried somewhere near the house, his body is still there… under two centuries of urban development. The ghost stories were enough to unnerve two families who lived there after the Baguleys. Later, the Pearsons, too, had enough of the stories, shut the house and converted the building into an apple store. The Pearsons sold off land holdings in Chilwell in 1892. The area was bought by the Hollingworth family and in 1938 the building was leased again, after being renamed Sunnyside Cottage.
Ghost House Lane, Chilwell, 2026. Ghost House Lane originally led to the isolated cottage known as Ash Flat House (or simply the “Ghost House”), which once stood where the lane led towards Stapleford. Walking down the lane today you can still get the ‘countryside’ feel of how Chilwell would have been back in the days of the farm house. Photograph Credit: Joe Earp.
Today there are a few associations and connections to the legend of the Chilwell Ghost in the area where the farm house once stood. This wooden sculpture in Chilwell is a local public art installation that sits near the historic Ghost House Lane footway on the Inham Nook estate. It serves as a visual nod to Nottinghamshire folklore and the local urban history of the area. Photograph Credit: Joe Earp.
Mr Dance found one of the last occupants, elderly Anne Robbins, still living in the Chilwell area. She told Mr Dance that once, when she was alone there, kneeling to clean the hearth, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned, thinking it was one of the farm lads from nearby Sunnyside Farm – but there was no one there.
The house was demolished more than half a century ago, as building progressed on the Inham Nook Estate. Ghost House Lane remains, though, as a footpath off Field Lane.
Mr Alan Dance’s book ‘The Chilwell Ghost – A new Investigation’ is available to buy from his website:
The Hemlock Stone is a well known and much loved feature in the County’s landscape. At over 8m tall, this strange sand-stone pillar stands in a public park, – ‘The Hemlock Stone Woodland’, – managed by Broxtowe Borough Council. It is not for nothing that the Hemlock Stone is often referred to as being ‘enigmatic’. Thousands of visitors to the park have wondered at its presence in the landscape. Locals have a wonderfully rich tapestry of folk tales which answer this question. These tales are from an age old oral tradition, the best known of which have found their way into print on a free leaflet produced by the Council.
Although primarily intended as a guide for a walking trail, the leaflet also includes a short account on the most popular legends and the variously proposed origins of the name Hemlock Stone. There has been an ‘information board’ – containing more specific information, – at the foot of the Stone for decades. The current board was erected in 2006 shortly after the first ‘Hemlock Stone Happening’ and contains updated information provided by this author. Over the centuries, hundreds if not thousands of people have climbed or attempted to climb to its summit. Perhaps the most famous of these ‘rock climbers’ was the late Mountaineer, Doug Scott. In an interview with this author, he recalled how, as a teenager he practised for his future career on the Hemlock Stone and a giant oak tree at the end of my grandfather’s garden. Mr Scott also provided an ‘origin legend’ attached to the stone of which this author had no prior knowledge. It must be noted that there is restricted access and climbing on the Stone is now strictly forbidden.
The Hemlock Stone is the subject of a poem by Robert Millhouse (1788-1839), where he calls it, “Thou mouldering relic of forgotten time!” More ‘Gothic Horror’ and ‘nightmarish’, is the epic poem by Journalist Henry Septimus Sutton, (1825-1901). From a description of the stones origin in the ‘Great Flood’, Sutton goes-on to speculate on the countless number of people who have stood at its foot. In literature, the stone makes an appearance in the semi-autobiographical novel, ‘Sons and Lovers’ by D. H. Lawrence. The late Robert Morrell, was the first to write extensively on the Hemlock Stone in his booklet, ‘Nottingham’s Enigmatic Hemlock Stone’, first published in 1987. The Hemlock Stone has established its place on the internet. However, most of the sites referencing the Stone contain no new research or opinions.
For over 400 years, every reference to the Hemlock Stone has, – directly or indirectly, – been influenced by a single ambiguous line of text written by the Antiquarian, William Stukeley (1687–1765) “A little beyond, in the road, upon the brow of the hill, is a rugged piece of rock, called Hemlock-stone, seen at a good distance: probably it is the remains of a quarry from around it”.
Academic interest in the Hemlock Stone by historians and geologists did not really begin until the mid 19th century. When the first accounts appear in the historic record, Stukeley is cited as the chief authority. His comment is interpreted as meaning, – the given name of the feature is The Hemlock Stone and – with the word ‘probably’, dropped or ignored, – it is the result of quarrying.
This interpretation gave rise to a debate, – existing to the present day, – between historians as to the origin and meaning of the supposed name, – whilst geologist debated whether the sandstone pillar was of natural origin, – (erosion), – or the result of human activity, (quarrying), as apparently suggested by Stukeley. Dr. Spencer Timothy Hall (1812 – 1885) adds a new dimension to the debate. Writing under the pseudonym, ‘The Sherwood Forester’, Hall says that he believed the stone to be of “……natural origin but improved by man through artistic quarrying”.
The Nottingham architect, William Stretton (1755 – 1828), gives not only the first illustration of the stone, but also the first written example of the use of Cromlech as its name; “its present name of Hemlock Stone (is) only a corruption of Cromlech Stone, and must have been of British or Danish origin”. Stretton’s illustration is dated 1818 but his manuscript was not published until 1910.
William Stretton’s illustration of the Hemlock Stone, dated 1818. Image Credit: The Paul Nix Collection.
Morrell says that although Stretton claims to rely on earlier sources for the name, he does not cite them. However, further research shows that it is likely that Stretton’s primary source was William Borlase (1696 – 1772). Borlase introduced the word ‘cromlech’ in 1769 to denote two particular kinds of prehistoric megalithic structures, a dolman (a type of prehistoric megalithic tomb) and stone circles. By Stretton’s day the word was used to denote all prehistoric megaliths as well as any natural ‘stone’ with supposed ‘Druidic’ associations. It seems likely then that Stretton used the name to deliberately associate the Hemlock Stone with a prehistoric past. This would have been very much in-keeping with the folk belief of the time which is still current.
In an article in the ‘Nottingham Guardian’ (1913) the article rejects the idea that Hemlock is a corruption of cromlech. It offers ‘hemmelig’ – supposedly a Danish word meaning cover, close or something, which overspreads, – as a considered alternative. Although frequently referenced as the alternative or original names for the Hemlock Stone, this example is quoted without citation. A very recognisable illustration of the Hemlock Stone is labelled ‘Himlack Stone’ in Edward Hull‘s comment on mineralisation on Stapleford Hill.
Following his assistance with the Nottingham Hidden History Team on The Three Stones Project, geologist, Dr David Bates amended the ‘official’ view to one of ‘natural erosion’. However, he explained that rather than some considered change of opinion, this update was long overdue and had only come about at this time because of a revived interest in the stone.
The Hemlock Stone is best described as a; ‘Kopje’, – “a large, free-standing rock outcrop that rises abruptly from the surrounding smooth and gentle slopes of a rounded hill summit or ridge crest”. The description provided for by Dr. David Bates, British Geological Society, describes the stone as “a kopje – a 28ft – 8.5m pillar of New Red Sandstone laid-down 200 million years ago in the Triassic Period. It consist of a layer of Nottingham Castle Sandstone overlying a layer of Lenton Sandstone. Both layers are members of the Sherwood Sandstone Group. Its presence in the landscape is the result purely of natural erosion, particularly by ice in the Quaternary Glaciation and continuing differential erosion giving it its ‘waisted’ shape. The upper half of the kopje is now identified as being of the Chester Formation and the lower half confirmed as of the Lenton Formation. The whole kopje has an estimated weight of 500 tons.
Image of the Hemlock Stone taken from the 2015 ‘UAV’ Scan. Photograph Credit: The University of Nottingham and The Nottingham Hidden History Team.
At this stage, there is no evidence that kopje has been enhanced by human activity. However, constant erosion may have removed any form of early decoration or rock-art of an earlier age. Two early photographic images of the kopjes’ eastern face shows what may be traces of a natural or artificial rock-shelter. For centuries the question of origin and name have made research into the Hemlock Stone problematic. In finding answers for these same questions, it has freed-up the research to move on from the ‘Stukeley Factor’.
The Hemlock Stone is not a quarrying artefact. It is now identified as a natural geological feature, a kopje visible in the landscape throughout the whole of human history. This is an important point to note when considering its relationship to prehistory, archaeological sites, and finds. The name – ‘Hemlock Stone’ – was adopted in error:- This discovery negates past and further debate as to how and why the kopje received its name.
“The Hemlock Stone’ at Bramcote is one of the enigmas of the County, not only to the rank and file of its inhabitants but to the generally well-informed portion of our community.” (John Potter Briscoe).
In classifying the Hemlock Stone as “one of the enigmas of the County”, Potter Briscoe was expressing long held popular opinion, – an opinion confirmed as still held relevant by Morrell in the title of his booklet.
Much of the mystery surrounding the Hemlock Stone has always been generated by the academic debate around its name and origin. However, the mythos relating to these same questions, – name and origin, – started countless generations before Stukeley began the academic interest. These ‘opinions’ have circulated around the Hemlock Stone in an oral tradition. The kopje’s very presence in the landscape has led to various associations which have entered the historical record from this oral tradition.
The most popular origin theory in none academic circles was that the kopje simply fell from the sky or that it was a projectile thrown by a supernatural being. When Barker visited the kopje in the 1850’s, when questioned, ‘a sensible countryman’ informed him that it had been,“left by Noah’s Flood”.
It is still very much a surviving popular opinion that the Druids are associated with the Hemlock Stone. Once again it is Stukeley and his fellow Antiquarians who are to blame for this common misconception of Druidical involvement in prehistoric sites and natural features like the Hemlock Stone. Antiquarians like Stukeley did not have the modern knowledge of prehistory. Their primary source of information was ‘classical references to Roman Britain’. To them, the prehistoric megalithic sites and earthworks which littered the landscape were the product of the ‘Ancient British’ and their priestly cast the Druids. Although the Hemlock Stone has been strongly associated with witches and witchcraft, there is no record of any historic examples. Reports of the area around the kopje being used for so-called ‘black magic ceremonies’ have periodically appeared in the media in the first half of the 20th century. It is known that modern ‘pagans’ (witches), in recent years, have used the land adjacent to the kopje for ‘hand-fasting’ and other social ceremonies. In the debate around the kopje’s name it has been suggested that witches created spells and potions using hemlock plants growing in perfusion around it’s base.
William Stukeley (1687–1765). Image Credit: The Paul Nix Collection.
The British Isles are ‘rich’ in prehistoric monuments dating from the Neolithic and Bronze Age. It is equally ‘rich’ in folklore, stories, and legends supposedly accounting for their presence in the landscape. A comparative example is the legend attached to the prehistoric monoliths known as ‘The Devil’s Arrows’ near Boroughbridge, Yorkshire. However, these accounts/legends, are not confined to archaeological features. In many parts the same, or very similar legends have become attached to topographical and geological features such as kopjes and ‘glacial erratics’. Again, a comparative example can be found in the Nottinghamshire village of Hickling. Although this glacial erratic boulder has not been given a name, legend tells how it was drop by the Devil during thwarted attempt to destroy the village church. The neighbouring village of Kinoulton has a legend, explaining the presence of a large glacial erratic located on the north side of the old churchyard. This example was destroyed in the 18th century when the medieval church was demolished (see article: Diabolical Missiles ‘A Battle Between Christianity and Paganism’ by Frank E Earp).
Between 1710 and 1725, Stukeley embarked on annual tours of the countryside, seeking out Druidical monuments and other features that interested him. These were not some random trips into the countryside. They were well orchestrate and would have been led by local guides. On visiting a site Stukeley would have first questioned local inhabitants as to its history. The results would have certainly included the myths and legends associated with the site. In the case of Stonehenge this would have been legends of the wizard Merlin, the Devil and Giants. Over a 15 year period of study, Stukeley would have recognised a commonality and pattern in the stories. Although he makes no reference to the Hemlock Stone, it is possible thanks to Stukeley and his fellows that we should attribute something of the preservation of the legends.
In exploring the origin and history of the famous kopje on Stapleford Hill, the ‘trail’ consistently returns to the first written reference in Stukeley’s ‘Itenerarium Curiosium.’ Until investigated by the Three Stones Project, this reference has, – in one form or another, – been credited in providing the kopje’s current name, – Hemlock Stone. All of the commentators giving an alternative name have suggested that Hemlock is a natural, linguistic corruption of their alternative, – none have provided an historic citation. Other commentators have speculated that the name was given because of the kopjes’ association with Witches and the practice of Witchcraft, – Hemlock being a plant supposedly used in ritual magic; -an alternative suggestion is that the plant once grew in abundance in the area. The new interpretation of Stukeley’s reference demonstrates that the name Hemlock-stone applies to the kind of rock/stone the kopje is made of and is not therefore its given name. This being the case, all alternative suggestions of a name based on an assumption that it was the name for the kopje automatically become invalidated.
The Hemlock Stone, Beltane Morning, 2020. Photograph Credit: Joe Earp and The Nottingham Hidden History Team.
To conclude this article on the Hemlock Stone and how attitudes have changed over the centuries we turn again to Dr Spencer Timothy Hall, a.k.a. ‘The Sherwood Forester’ (early 1800s). He provides us with reasons for believing that the Hemlock Stone could possibly have very old associations with Beltane (1st May). He goes on to say that when he was a young boy the old folk could remember a time when a fire was lit upon the top of the stone annually on Beltane Day.
Author Frank Edmund Earp at The Hemlock Stone, Beltane Morning, 2020. Photograph Credit: Joe Earp and The Nottingham Hidden History Team.
Nearby the Hemlock Stone was once the ‘Sick Dyke, this spring was regarded as a healing well. More than one writer on the subject has suggested that the Well was connected with rituals performed at the Hemlock Stone. The Hemlock Stone also has connections with three other stones, a possible standing stone on the nearby Crow Hill and two other local landmarks, the Cat Stone at Strelley and Bob’s Rock at Sandiacre.
Article taken from the unpublished paper ‘Nottingham Hidden History Team and The Three Stones Project- The Hemlock Stone: Presentation of Research Findings by Frank Edmund Earp‘.
References:
Unknown. (1913) Nottingham: ‘Nottingham Guardian’, – local notes and queries. Issue for 27th September 1913.
Avelin, W. T. (1880) Geological Survey Memoir.
Barker, M. H. (1856) Nottingham: ‘Rambles round Nottingham’. Simkin, Marshall & Co.
Borlase, William (1769) ‘The Antiquities of Cornwall’. London: W. Bowyer and J. Nichols, for S. Baker & G. Leigh, T. Payne, B. White, London.
Briscoe, J Potter (1881) ‘Old Nottinghamshire’. Hamilton, Adams, and Co., London.
Hull, Edward. (1869) ‘The Triassic and Permian Rocks of the Midland Counties of England’. Geological Survey.
Morrell, R. W (1986 – 1991) Nottingham: ‘Nottingham’s Enigmatic Hemlock Stone’. Apra-Nufois Press, 1st – 3rd editions.
Research by Brooke, Barbara. Clayton Alan. and Ward, Jill. Nottingham: ‘The Hemlock Stone’, (Presenting the walks, panoramic views and interest points of the mysterious Hemlock Stone, Stapleford Hill and Bramcote Hills Park). Broxtowe Borough Council.
Stretton, William (1910) ‘The Stretton Manuscripts’: Being Notes on the History of Nottinghamshire’. Nottingham: Editor, George Coke Robertson; Publisher, Priv. Print.
Stukeley, William: (1724) ‘Itenerarium Curiosium’, First Edition.
The Long Stairs is a 500-year-old medieval thoroughfare in Nottingham that once served as a primary pedestrian link between the affluent Lace Market (High Pavement) on the cliff top and the impoverished Narrow Marsh area below. After being closed to the public for over 90 years following the 1930s slum clearances, the top section of the stairs was officially reopened as a heritage attraction on 19 April 2026 after an extensive restoration project.
J Holland Walker in his 1928 work ‘Links with old Nottingham’, explains the history of Long Stairs:
“Long Stairs, which gave communication from Commerce-square, via Malin-hill (oft High Pavement, opposite St. Mary’s Church to Narrow Marsh (later Red Lion-street and now Cliff-road), probably began life ages ago, long before the Romans came to Britain, as a covered way leading from the low ground or marshes along the Leen, to the summit of the cliff some 90 feet above it; upon which stood the primitive settlement that has developed into Nottingham.
The rise of Long Stairs is from right to left, so that an enemy ascending it would be unable to use his shield as a defence against defenders stationed on the summit of the cliff. A similar ‘covered passage is still to be seen in the Castle Cliff and as its roof has broken down in one or two places it is easy to learn from it how Long Stairs gradually became open to the sky. Long Stairs’ history is somewhat sordid, being mostly concerned with murders and the like. In 1531, the year in which Henry VIII. was acknowledged the supreme head of the Church of England, a certain Edward Chamberlayne paid 2s. 5d. for a “little house and pinfold ” on Long Stairs. I presume that he wanted to use it as a pig stye.
About half-way up Long Stairs was to be found one of time half-dozen fig trees which clung to the sour soil of the cliff side, and in spite of deplorable atmospheric conditions managed each year to leaf and fruit. They were rather pathetic memorials of the gardens of the gentry which at one time crowned the cliff, and from which might be enjoyed, in the days before industrial smoke, a magnificent view. The demolition of the slums of the Marsh area, and the planning of a new residential estate by the Corporation, led to the closing of Long Stairs of which only the iron-fenced upper entrance on Malin Hill now remains”.
Long Stairs in 1922.
The Long Stairs in Nottingham’s Lace Market officially reopened on 19 April 2026 after a dedicated eight-year restoration project. These medieval steps, which are at least 500 years old, were closed in 1933 during slum clearances and had spent the last 93 years neglected and overgrown. The project was led by heritage campaigner Janine Tanner, who became the site’s official custodian in 2018. Approximately £20,000 was raised entirely through donations and fundraising tours to clear debris and secure “wobbling” upper flights.
Long Stairs is the only original thoroughfare remaining that links the upper part of the city to the former “lower marshes”. The stairs will no longer serve as a public thoroughfare because the bottom exit is occupied by private gardens. Instead, they will operate as a historic attraction and venue for school visits, poetry nights, and local fundraisers. During the restoration, volunteers investigated a bricked-up cave entrance from the 1820s found along the steps, though it remains a mystery as a second layer of bricks was found behind the first.
Nottingham’s historic Long Stairs officially reopened as a heritage attraction on Sunday, 19 April 2026. The steps were unveiled at 2:00 pm by Janine Tanner, following an eight-year volunteer-led restoration project.
Janine Tanner said: “It’s wonderful to see the project finally completed. It’s been a long time coming but the Long Stairs look absolutely lovely now. The restoration of the stairs means that people can finally enjoy them. The Long Stairs are one of the oldest thoroughfares in Nottingham and is the only original one that links the upper part of the city with the lower marshes”.
Janine further added “It needed being looked after and it needs to be celebrated because so much else has been lost but this site is still here more than 500 years later. I want to say a very big thank you to everyone who supported us along the way of maintaining and restoring the stairs.”
Janine Tanner at the official opening of Long Stairs, The Lace Market, Nottingham, 19 April 2026. Photograph Credit: Joe Earp.
Linus Pauling (1901–1994) was a monumental American scientist, humanitarian, and one of the most influential chemists of the 20th century. He is uniquely distinguished as the only person to have ever been awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes. In a nutshell Pauling was famous for his scientific work, peace activism and later on his own invention ‘Orthomolecular Medicine’, which mainly focused on his now famous research and work on Vitamin C.
Pauling was a founding father of several modern scientific fields, including quantum chemistry and molecular biology. His work fundamentally changed how we understand the building blocks of life. His work on Chemical Bonds introduced essential concepts like electronegativity, resonance, and orbital hybridisation, which explain how atoms join together.
He discovered the alpha helix and beta sheet, the basic structural motifs of proteins. He was the first to identify a human disease at the molecular level, demonstrating that sickle cell anaemia was caused by an abnormal protein. Though he incorrectly proposed a triple helix for DNA, his work on helices and molecular models provided the foundation for Watson and Crick to discover the correct double-helix structure.
Pauling was also known for his peace activism. Disturbed by the horrors of nuclear warfare after WWII, Pauling used his scientific prestige to advocate for disarmament. He presented a petition signed by over 11,000 scientists to the United Nations, calling for an end to atmospheric nuclear testing.
In the final decades of his life Pauling became famous and controversial for his own work on Vitamin C and his own coined term ‘Orthomolecular Medicine’. Orthomolecular medicine is an alternative approach aiming to maintain health and treat disease by providing the body with optimal concentrations of substances. These are substances normally present, such as vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and fatty acids. Coined by Pauling himself, it often uses high-dose supplementation (“megavitamins”) to correct individual biochemical imbalances.
Pauling first became fascinated on ‘megavitamin therapy’ in 1967 after reading the work of Canadian based psychiatrists and medical doctors, Abram Hoffer and Humphry Osmond. Hoffer and Osmond were known for the use of large doses of niacin to treat schizophrenia. According to an interview with Hoffer, Pauling saw the book How to Live With Schizophrenia (co-written by Hoffer and Osmond) on a friend’s coffee table, took it home, and stayed up all night reading it. This book deeply impressed upon Pauling the potential of vitamin therapy and would be a subject he would work on for the rest of his later life.
Abram Hoffer and Linus Pauling, November 1992. Photograph Credit: paulingblog.wordpress.com.
Pauling would go on to become well know for his work on Vitamin C writing books such as: Vitamin C and the Common Cold (1970), Cancer and Vitamin C (1979) and How to Live Longer and Feel Better (1986). Pauling ‘practiced what he preached’, himself taken 18,000 mg (18 grams) of Vitamin C per day.
Linus Pauling Famously Ingested 18,000 mg (18 grams) of Vitamin C per day.
In his long and productive life Pauling travelled and toured the world in connection with his scientific work, activism and other interests. In 1948 Pauling spent an academic year as the George Eastman Visiting Professor at Oxford, lecturing and conducting research. It was during his time in England that Pauling notably worked on the alpha-helix structure, a discovery that was fundamental to the field of molecular biology.
Linus Pauling in 1948. Photograph Credit: paulingblog.wordpress.com.
During his time in the UK Pauling toured and lectured at many Universities as the ‘Pauling Blog’ explains:
“The clamor for Pauling was such that he was forced to turn many offers down, but still managed to give a mind-boggling thirty-nine lectures over six months, in addition to the three per week required by his Eastman Professorship. As he wrote to his colleague Robert Corey, who was holding down the lab back in Pasadena, I am continuing to get along very well – perhaps being kept a little too busy, with so many extra lectures to deliver. However, I feel that when there is so much interest in what I have to say it is proper that I make the effort to say it. Among those who had the opportunity to hear him speak were attendees of many universities in England and Scotland, The Chemical Society, the British Undergraduate School of Medicine, as well as those who attended the three Scott Lectures for the Physics Department at Cambridge. Pauling also gave three lectures at University College, London, the Sir Jesse Boot Lecture at Nottingham, a Bedson Lecture at Newcastle, The Liversidge Lecture for the Chemical Society and the first Lyell Lecture at Oxford”.
It is the ‘Twenty-First Sir Jesse Boot Foundation Lecture’ which we see Pauling’s visit and connection to Nottingham. The Sir Jesse Boot Foundation Lecture is an annual public lecture series hosted by the University of Nottingham since 1922. It was established to celebrate the benefactions of Sir Jesse Boot (the first Baron Trent), whose donations of land and money were instrumental in the founding of the university. The lectures are typically delivered on aspects of Chemistry that relate to the life of the community or the industries of Nottingham. The series celebrates the foundation and endowment of the Sir Jesse Boot Chair of Chemistry.
On 28 May 1948, Linus Pauling delivered the 21st Sir Jesse Boot Foundation Lecture titled “Molecular Architecture and the Processes of Life”. The lecture was held in the Great Hall, University College, University Park (Trent Building at the University of Nottingham). During this presentation, Pauling remarkably predicted the essentials of the gene replication mechanism, suggesting that a structure serving as a template (like a gene or virus) could consist of two complementary parts that serve as molds for each other. This insight was shared five years before the discovery of the DNA double helix structure by Watson and Crick
Linus Pauling delivered the 21st Sir Jesse Boot Foundation Lecture on 28 May 1948 at the Great Hall, University College, University Park (Trent Building at the University of Nottingham). Photograph Credit: The University of Nottingham.
The University of Nottingham continues to reference Pauling as a standard of excellence for its researchers. Nottingham researchers, such as Professor Stephen Liddle, have received the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Corday-Morgan Prize—an award previously won by Linus Pauling himself.
His theories on Vitamin C and his philosophy on innovation are still cited in the university’s academic and business case studies. The university’s Nottingham University Business School still quotes Pauling’s philosophy on creativity—”If you want to have good ideas you must have many ideas. What you must learn is which ones to throw away”—as a guiding principle for its innovation facilitation processes.
21st Sir Jesse Boot Foundation Lecture delivered by Linus Pauling on 28 May 1948. Photograph Credit: paulingblog.wordpress.com.
References and Sources:
Hager, Thomas., 1995. The Force of Nature : The Life of Linus Pauling. Publisher: Simon & Schuster.
Hoffer, A., Adventures in Psychiatry: The Scientific Memoirs of Dr. Abram Hoffer. 2005. Publisher: Kos Publishing Inc.
Toton is a large suburban village in the Borough of Broxtowe in Nottinghamshire, England. It forms part of the built-up area of Beeston, which in turn forms part of the wider Nottingham Urban Area. Until 1974, Toton was part of Beeston and Stapleford Urban District, having been in Stapleford Rural District until 1935. The border with Derbyshire lies immediately to the west. Toton adjoins the Chetwynd Barracks (also known as Chilwell Depot), which forms a boundary to the east; the Erewash Valley railway line and Toton traction maintenance depot form a boundary to the west.
Although the village of Toton has existed since at least Norman times, little is known of its history. It is known that Toton parish at one time encompassed a much larger area than is now apparent, including much of what is now Attenborough village; it shared a church (probably on the site of St. Mary’s, Attenborough) with the neighbouring Chilwell parish, an arrangement that was unusual for the times.
Robert Mellors in his ‘Then and now series: Attenborough, Chilwell and Toton, (1920)’: explains about the early history of Toton:
“Toton is said to derive its name from the tun, or farmstead of Torolf (” Place Names of Notts.”) In Domesday book it is called Tovetune, and Tolvestune, and in the following centuries Toueton, Towton, etc. The manor of Tovetune, comprising 3 carucates (? 360 acres) of land assessed, belonged to Aldene, the Saxon, but in or after 1066 it was taken from him, and given to William Peverel, the lord of Nottingham Castle, and in 1086 his man, Warner, had 4 sochmen, or ordinary tenants, 16 villeins or bondsmen—who instead of paying rent cultivated on certain days Warner’s Manor farm— and 3 bordars. who were lower serfs. There was a church, which apparently was what we call Attenborough Church, and there was a priest, jointly presented by the lords of the manors in Toton and Chilwell. There were two mills, doubtless on the Erewash, rendering 8/-; also 100 acres of meadow, and a little plantation of willows. The value before, and after, the Conquest was 60/-”.
The Toton Duck Race is a longstanding community tradition held annually on the River Erewash at Manor Park. Originally established in 1991, the event serves as a major fundraiser for Age UK Derby & Derbyshire and, more recently, has been managed by the Church Wilne Rotary Club. The annual event has become a local tradition in its own right and can very much indeed be classed as a folk custom or calendar custom.
Duck Race at Toton, Easter Saturday, 2026. Photograph Credit: Joe Earp.
The event was conceived by Angela Barnes, a fundraising networker for Age UK Derby and Derbyshire. She was inspired by a similar duck race she had heard of in a village in Wales. In its first year (1991), the race raised approximately £200. By 2018, it was raising between £2,000 and £3,000 annually, with over 1,500 ducks sponsored for the main race. In 2016 a ‘Corporate’ race to celebrate the Silver anniversary, 25 years of Duck Racing took place. Local business’s supported the race by sponsoring a duck. This was so successful that the event now have a corporate race each year.
The Ducks ready to go at the 2026 Toton Duck Race. Photograph Credit: Joe Earp
The ducks are released at the 2026 Toton Duck Race. Photograph Credit: Joe Earp.
The event is held every year at Toton’s Manor Park (also known as Manor Farm Recreation Ground). In previous years the duck race has raised money for charities such as Age UK Derby and Derbyshire and other local projects. For many years the event took place on New Year’s Day. In recent years the event has been held at Easter making weather conditions better for the event.
The Ducks floating down the river. Photograph Credit: Joe Earp.
The Finish Line. Photograph Credit: Joe Earp.
The Duck Race involves releasing approximately 1000 to 2000 ducks into the river. The event involves Numbered Yellow Rubber Ducks carefully released into the River Erewash from the bridge at Carrfield Avenue and race downstream to the finish line at the next bridge. Entry is typically £1.50 – £2.00 per duck. Tickets can be purchased online or on the day, subject to availability. The event features family-friendly entertainment, food stalls, hot and cold drinks, and a tombola with special prizes. Winners of the prizes are awarded to the owners of the first ducks to cross the finish line. Winners do not need to be present to claim their prize. All plastic ducks are collected from the river using a net or boom system after the race to be reused and prevent pollution
Duck being gathered up at the end of the race. Photograph Credit: Joe Earp.
Broxtowe Borough Council Lord Mayor giving out prizes to the lucky winners at the 2026 Toton Duck Race.. Photograph Credit: Joe Earp.
With literally thousands of pounds of money raised for charity since the event was started in 1991, the annual duck race has become a local tradition in its own right and long may it continue.
“Eh Up Me Duck”, as they say in Nottingham. If you don’t know me my name is Joe Earp and I run the Nottingham Hidden History Team. You may have seen us around somewhere! For those who don’t know who we are let me explain a little more about our history.
The original Nottingham Hidden History Team were formed in 1965. The purpose of the Team was to try to save or at least record before destruction the cave sites continually discovered during the major redevelopment of the City in the 1960s and onwards. Almost every day new sites were unearthed and destroyed before anyone was officially notified; the last thing contractors wanted was someone telling them to stop work on a project; TIME is MONEY.
During this period the ‘Team‘, – about ten strong (varying on availability of members at any particular time), recorded, cleaned and helped preserve many sites that would have been lost for ever. The team’s founder and team leader was Mr Paul Nix.
In the early days, the team found themselves involved with various cave explorations. Readers should remember that it was groups like the Nottingham Hidden History Team and others who were the first to excavate and record the many caves under Nottingham. The team’s cave highlights saw them recording Daniel in the Lion’s Den and the Colonnade in the Park Terrace. They were also one of the first to record the Old Angel Inn, Judge’s Restaurant on Mansfield Road, caves under Long Row, and caves under the old Flying Horse Hotel, plus many more.
Paul Nix, Bridlesmith Gate Caves, Nottingham, circa 1978.
Perhaps the highlight of the team’s work was a rescue excavation of the Goose Gate caves. In 1979 shops along Goose Gate were being demolished. Whilst the land was being levelled, it was decided to excavate the site before further development. On Thursday the 30th January 1979, while scraping a section around twenty yards in from Goosegate, a large hole was found containing an opening into a cave system. Paul Nix was called in to excavate and record the caves. Through the team’s research, it was discovered that the cave system was Nottingham’s first brewery which was called Simpson’s, on land leased from Richard Arkwright. It was also discovered that part of the system was an underground slaughterhouse used by a pork butcher’s shop, which over several years had subsequently various uses. By the end of the team’s dig, the Council’s Department of Technical Services decided to save the caves and preserve them.
Paul Nix, Caves Under Long Row, 1982
In 1982 the Team was officially recognised by the City of Nottingham’s Arts Department with Paul Nix as its Team Leader. It was officially agreed that the Team would record various aspects of Nottingham History, including features and functions of old buildings, as well as recording and photographing old caves, related cellars and underground features. It was also agreed that the Team would work in collaboration with the City’s Museums and advise on any possible archaeological investigations.
Nottingham Hidden History Team being ‘officially’ recognised by City of Nottingham’s Arts Department
By the late 1980’s the Team working collectively, involved Paul Nix, Robert Morrell and Syd Henley. The Team researched and worked on Nottingham’s local history, folklore and archaeology. Nix, Morrell and Henley would go all over Nottinghamshire recording what they discovered as well as photographing everything . The team published a quarterly magazine on their research, plus various Nottingham local history booklets which was published through Robert Morrell’s publishers ‘APRA Press’. The team’s major works included published material on the Hemlock Stone at Stapleford, material on Nottinghamshire’s Holy Wells and Springs, Nottinghamshire Mazes and of course Nottingham cave publications.
Business Card from the 1980s.
The team with the leadership of Paul Nix also started a quarterly magazine ‘Mercian Mysteries’, in collaboration with well established and respected publisher and writer Bob Trubshaw. Trubshaw remembers their days together “I would help Paul put together each issue of Mercian Mysteries. A vast amount of Computer equipment was squeezed into his bedroom. I would sit on his bed, surrounded by relevant paperwork, while he beavered away on the keyboard. Hours would go by and I would return home nearer to midnight. The following Saturday I would collect him and the artwork for the magazine, we would drive to Trinity Square and then spend ages in a stationery shop photocopying about a hundred copies of each issue before going back to Cromer Road to put them in envelopes and add stamps. Eventually I would drop them off at the PO sorting office on the corner of Huntingdon Street on my way back home”.
‘Hidden History’ one of the many publications published by Paul Nix, Robert Morrell and Syd Henley in the 1980s.
Later in Paul’s life he met Peter Woodward, while researching a village near where Peter lived in 2002. After their first meeting the pair spent many hours, days and nights together, with Paul teaching Peter about manipulating images and Web Pages. Their days together would be spent with Paul teaching Peter how to build a webpage which developed into a vast site called ‘My Broxtowe Hundred’. Paul had helped many people over the years with their websites and would answer people’s many questions relating to Nottingham or Nottinghamshire. Paul Nix was one of the first people to set a website up on Nottingham Local History.
The pair worked together on their two websites as well as collecting and writing material. Perhaps the highlight in their research was work on Huntington Beaumont’s first railway line at Wollaton and their extensive work on Nottinghamshire villages. The team lapsed for a few years after the death of Paul Nix in 2008. Luckily Bob Trubshaw and Frank Earp managed to save some of the Hidden History Team’s vast collection of photographs, postcards, slides and research. The result of the recover and preservation of the collection, made me decide to reform the team back in 2011.
Since 2011 we have been very busy. We have almost written 10 books between us. The most popular of our books being Secret Nottingham, Secret Beeston, Nottingham From Old Photographs and the latest Lost Nottingham (2025). The Team has worked on many projects, events and talks. We have also contributed to many newspapers, magazines, TV and Radio Shows. We have an amazing archive of photographs and material on old Nottinghamshire. Over the last few years I have been slowly sorting through this material. A lot of our stuff can be found on this site and in our books. The Nottingham Hidden History site continues to be a digital archive for our research and work.
Lost Nottingham Published in 2025 by Amberley Publishing.
Sadly in June 2025 my Father, Frank Edmund Earp, past away. His death has left a profound sense of sadness and loss in the field of Nottingham History and Folklore. Throughout a remarkable career, he made significant contributions to the Nottinghamshire History scene. Frank Earp had over fifty years experience of working in history, folklore and earth mysteries. Frank was born in Half Way House in Wollaton, Nottingham. The Half Way House was an old farm house possibly dating back to the 1500s and 1600s and was part of the old estate belonging to the Willoughby’s of Wollaton Hall. The house had a lot of history and this inspired him to take up his life long passion for Nottinghamshire’s folklore and history.
Frank had a wealth of experience in his area of expertise. His past had seen him write and publish a series of books, some of which include: May Day in Nottinghamshire, The Catstones of Catstone Hill, A Guide To The Druid Temple In The Church Cemetery and John Darrell: A Nottinghamshire Exorcist. In recent years he has wrote The A-Z of Curious Nottinghamshire for The History Press. He has also co-authored two books with me for Amberley Publishing. These two books are the very popular book Secret Nottingham and Secret Beeston.
Frank Earp’s First Publication, May Day in Nottinghamshire, Published by Heart of Albion Press in 1991.
Frank Earp at the Catstones in Strelley, 1990s.
Frank has also wrote past articles for the Nottingham Post, Northern Earth Mysteries, At The Edge and Mercian Mysteries. Frank regularly conducted and led guided walks and talks around Nottinghamshire on a number of topics. For over ten years Frank wrote his highly successful Nottinghamshire History column for The Topper Newspaper.
One of the many articles for The Topper Newspaper by Frank Earp, July 2001.
The death of my father is not the end of our work. We are going to continue to publish his work and the work of Paul Nix and the original Nottingham Hidden History Team. I also continue to research, write about, document and photograph Nottingham and Nottinghamshire’s history. My published books currently include: Nottingham From Old Photographs, Secret Nottingham, Victorian and Edwardian Nottingham Through Time, Secret Beeston and the latest Lost Nottingham.
My own research, work and photographs is now starting to become an archive within itself. I currently have twenty plus years of over 15,000 of my own photographs of Nottinghamshire, where I have photographed and recorded the changing face of the city and county. I have a lot of projects, articles and books in the pipeline connected with Nottingham and the county’s history and folklore. I will continue to add to this site. There is plenty to keep me busy over the next few years. Please also visit our very popular Nottingham Hidden History Facebook page, YouTube Channel and perhaps take a look at some of our books.
The Nottingham Ice Stadium was an ice rink in Nottingham, 1939 – 2000. It had a capacity of 2800 for hockey games. The building was first opened in 1939 but it was quickly called upon for other purposes.
Throughout the Second World War, the Ice Stadium acted as a store for guns, bullets and other ammunition produced at the nearby Royal Ordnance Factory, (ROF Nottingham).
The stadium was requisitioned by the government to serve as a makeshift storage facility for guns, bullets and other ammunition. It supported the nearby Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF Nottingham). In addition to its role as a munitions dump, the building was used as a temporary morgue during the war years.
Despite the requisition, a few unofficial matches occurred before the rink was fully converted for war use. Between 1939 and 1940, three challenge matches were played by a team using the “Nottingham Panthers” name, primarily consisting of Canadian soldiers stationed in and around Nottingham. These soldiers faced other military-based teams, such as those from RAF Grantham and Cambridge.
The stadium eventually reopened for recreational use and professional ice hockey on 31 August 1946. The building soon returned to being a recreational and ice sport building. A year after the end of the war, the Ice Stadium became the home of the Nottingham Panthers ice hockey team, who would use the facility until it closed, albeit with a twenty-year break. When the Panthers shut down in 1960, the rink continued to be used for ice skating and some other ice sports and would be where Torvill and Dean would practice in their early years.
Ice Stadium, Nottingham, 1992.
The history of Torvill and Dean is inseparable from the Nottingham Ice Stadium, the original rink where they began their journey as global legends. Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean first met and trained at the Nottingham Ice Stadium in the mid-1970s. Despite being remembered as a “cold, dark place” where they sometimes had to clean the ice themselves, it was the training ground for their 1984 Olympic Gold Medal win.
The Panthers were re-established in 1980 and the Ice Stadium became renowned as one of the most intimidating places for opposition ice hockey teams to visit. In 1995, plans were announced to replace the ageing building with a modern arena and a new skating pad.
The Nottingham Ice Stadium was closed after 61 years in 2000. The Panthers played their final game at the Ice Stadium against the Newcastle Riverkings, which was lost 2-1 in overtime. The building was demolished soon afterwards to allow for the completion of the National Ice Centre.
Nottingham Panthers, Ice Stadium, Baker Gate- Lower Parliment Street, Nottingham, 2000 . The photograph was taken at the final game in the Ice stadium against Newcastle Riverkings.
The National Ice Centre was constructed on the site of the former Nottingham Ice Stadium. Plans to replace the stadium were first announced in September 1995. The estimated cost of replacement was £13 million, part of which was to come from National Lottery funds. The plans were officially unveiled in October 1996, by which time the British Olympic Association were in support of the proposal.
Several buildings were demolished to make way for the new ice centre; this included an Art Deco warehouse and “The Old Cricket Players” pub, which was initially planned to be spared. The former Ice Stadium closed in March 2000, and by May 2000 was described as “nearly demolished”, with four skip loads of demolition rubble being removed from the site every day.
During excavation for the new building in July 1998, a rare 1,100-year-old Saxon jug was found, which is on display at the Nottingham Castle Museum. A 19th-century graveyard was also found under the car park, from which the bodies were then exhumed.
The centre was officially opened on 1 April 2000 by Olympic Gold Medalist, Jayne Torvill; with the first public skating sessions taking place the same month. The second phase of the project – the ‘family rink’ – was scheduled to be completed by May–June 2001, but opened ahead of schedule, on 7 April 2001.
Ice Stadium, Barker Gate- Lower Parliment Street, Nottingham, 2000. Internal view of the stadium being demolished.
The folklore of Britain is full of stories of the Devil, like some petulant child, throwing stones. His intended target is usually a Christian edifice. In most cases, these satanic missiles miss their target and land, – with varying degrees of accuracy, – harmlessly in the landscape. Here, they remain, proudly shown by generations of locals as evidence of victory over the Devil.
Reasons for the Devil’s attack vary, but most common are his indignation at the building of a new church or that he is offended by the sound of the church bells. One of the reasons why church bells are rung, – other than to summon parishioners to service is to ward off evil spirits.
It is widely accepted by folklorists that such stories derive from the conflict between the early Christian Church and the native pagan religion it supplanted. Before the advent of the science of geology, these legends also served to explain the presence of such stones within the landscape.
The diabolic missiles generally fall into three categories; Natural rock outcrops of local stone, – ‘glacial erratics’, non-native stones deposited by retreating glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago, – and ‘worked stones’ such as the remains of an ancient cross or a prehistoric monolith.
A number of counties have their examples of a diabolical missile, but Nottinghamshire is unique in possessing three. Chief of these is the Hemlock Stone at Bramcote which falls into the first category. The other examples, at Hickling and Kinoulton are both glacial erratics.
The Hemlock Stone Legend
Our story starts not with the Stone or the intended target, but with the Devil in Castleton, Derbyshire. Castleton takes its name from the Norman Castle, standing high on a hill above the town. At the foot of this hill is a natural limestone cave known as ‘The Devil’s Arse’, – because of the strange gurgling sounds that emanate from it after heavy rain. When this water flows from the cave, it is said to be the Devil urinating.
One fine summers evening, – before the castle existed, – the Devil emerged from the underworld via the cave, to take a stroll in the balmy evening air. He soon found himself at the top of the hill and here, he lay down to enjoy the cooling breeze. Free from the cares of Hell, he drifted off into a deep sleep.
Thirty miles to the south, – Lenton Priory near Nottingham, – a venerable old monk could not sleep. Sensing that the Devil was abroad, he paced his tiny cell wondering what he should do. Should he ring the chapel bell to alert his brother monks and the Father Abbott? Would they believe him? With a heavy heart he sank to his knees in prier, asking for God’s guidance. Such was the piety of the monk; the power of his praying ran through the ground like an electric current. It travelled in an instant to where the Devil lay and like a bolt of lightning, entered his body through his cloven hooves.
The Devil awoke in a powerful rage and jumped to his feet. Ceasing an enormous rock, he threw it with all his might in the direction from which the current had come. The stone whistled through the air and came to rest on a hillside at Bramcote to the west of the Priory. The Devil had missed his target by over 4miles.
It is said that from the moment the stone landed, the Devils has never slept and that the old monk fell into a deep sleep never to awake.
Putting an accurate date and origin on folk legends of this kind is usually difficult if not impossible. However, the Hemlock Stone story may-well be an exception. The authorship of the legend can be attributed to a monk of Lenton Priory and the date can therefore be no earlier than 1102-1108, – the date of the founding of the Priory.
The Hemlock Stone, a massive natural pillar of local sandstone, stood on the side of Stapleford Hill in Bramcote for tens of thousands of years before the Priory. Over that time it had become the centre of pagan superstition and worship. The annual lighting of a bonfire on the top of the stone on May Day, the pagan Beltane, continued well into the 17th century.
Performance of ‘Druids’ took place at Hemlock Stone, 2001. Photograph Credit: Broxtowe Borough Council.
The stone was on or close to regularly used routes between Lenton and two other monastic sites, – Beauvale Priory and Dale (Abbey) Priory, – and monks from all three establishments would have been familiar with the stone. We can imagine that monks would cross themselves or avert their eyes whenever they passed what to them was an obvious pagan and frightening object. As the biggest Christian influence in the area at this time, the authorities at Lenton, would have needed to neutralise the pagan influences of the Hemlock Stone both on the monks and the local population. I believe that they achieved this in a tried and trusted way, by involving the stone in a story which demonstrated the power of the Christian Church over the old, the Devil.
The author of the tale displays a clear knowledge of all of the sites involved. The intended target of the Devil’s missile, the old monk has his dwelling at the Priory and clearly stands for the power of the Church. Lenton Priory, – for which there is evidence that it sits on a pre-Christian site, – was founded by William Peverel. The site, from which the stone was thrown, – the hill at Castleton in Derbyshire, – appears not to have been randomly chosen. Not only does it have a legend of an entrance to the underworld, but the castle on the hill was also founded by Peverel. Perhaps this is a subtle reference or acknowledgement to Peverel’s lordship and his part in the defeat of Old Nick?
Author Frank Earp at the Hemlock Stone in 2013. Photograph Credit: Joseph Earp.
The Hickling Legend
Looking down from his lair on Hickling Standard, the Devil became increasingly angry as he watched the building of the church of St. Luke in the village below. When at last the church was complete the priest began to ring the newly installed bell. To the Devil, this was the last straw.
A plan formed in the Devil’s mind, and for weeks he avoided his lair on the hill. On the next night of a full moon, clutching a large boulder, he flew towards the church, intending to drop the stone on the church tower and destroy the offending bell.
St. Peter, in Heaven looked down on these events and decided that he must intervene. When the Devil was halfway between the church and Hickling Standard, he reached down and pulled the clouds over the face of the moon. Undeterred, the Devil flew on more determined than ever destroy the bell. St. Peter waited until the Devil was close to his target and again reached down into the clouds. This time he pulled the clouds apart and the light of the moon shone straight into the Devils eyes. With a scream that could be heard for miles, the Devil put his hands up to shield his eyes. In doing so he lost his grip on the stone and down it fell. Thwarted he flew off into the night. Never again did he dare to return to Hickling Standard or to trouble the good Christians of the village.
Frank Earp’s Illustration of the Hickling Legend.
The village of Hickling lies in the beautiful Vale of Belvoir, around 3 miles north-west of the A606 Melton Road. The road into the village, – Bridegate Lane, descends from the A606 past the hill known as Hickling Standard, – a favourite haunt of the Devil. On the right-hand side of the crossroads between the Lane and Main Street is a curious boulder said to be evidence of the Devil’s presence. This wedge shaped stone, – around 2ft tall, 3ft wide and 4ft long, – is in fact a glacial erratic. In 1848, a Methodist Chapel was built by the crossroads, but the stone was deliberately excluded from the church yard. To this day it lies only inches from the enclosing wall.
The Hickling Stone. Photograph Credit: Joseph Earp.
Author Frank Earp (in Foresters Morris Men Kit) stood next to the stone at Hickling in 2012. Photograph Credit: Joseph Earp.
The Kinoulton Legend
Perched on the hill where Lincoln Cathedral now stands, the Devil watched in alarm at the building of Kinoulton Church. As day by day another course of stone was laid his anger grew. Finally, he could stand no more and he seized a large stone and with all his might threw it at the building. The stone missed its target by a matter of yards and landed on the north side – the Devils quarter, – of the churchyard. The failed sabotage did not deter the builders and church was completed. The Devil never again tried to demolish it.
The parish church of St. Wilfrid, Kinoulton, was built on a hill to the west, well outside the village. Churches built in such inconvenient places usually indicate that they were built on a pre-existing pagan site. The hill in question, overlooks the village to the east and the Roman Road the ‘Fosse Way’ to the west. On the southern slope of the hill, close to the modern road, maps indicate the presence of a ‘spa’ or healing spring. On the north side – the Devils quarter, – of the churchyard was a large stone, – probably a glacial erratic. Given all of these factors it is reasonable to suspect that the site of the church was a pagan shrine or sanctuary, – possible the stone itself.
St. Wilfred’s Church was considered to be too remote from the village and by the late 1700’s it had fallen into ruin. The roof was removed and it was finally demolished in 1792, shortly after the new red-brick church was built in the village. The Devils missile was broken up and used for road mending.
