Calverton, Nottinghamshire
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Calverton () is a village and
civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...
in
Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...
, of some , in the
Gedling Gedling is a village in the Gedling district, in Nottinghamshire, England, four miles northeast of Nottingham city centre. The population at the 2011 census of the ward was 6,817 and 111,787 for the district. Gedling was recorded in the Dome ...
district, about 7 miles north-east of
Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...
, and 10 miles south-east of
Mansfield Mansfield is a market town and the administrative centre of Mansfield District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest town in the wider Mansfield Urban Area (followed by Sutton-in-Ashfield). It gained the Royal Charter of a market tow ...
. England, and situated, like nearby Woodborough and Lambley, on one of the small tributaries of the Dover Beck. The 2011 census found 7,076 inhabitants in 2,987 households. About two miles to the north of the village is the site of the supposed deserted settlement of Salterford. The parish is bounded on the south-east by Woodborough, to the south-west by Arnold,
Papplewick Papplewick is a village and civil parish in Nottinghamshire, England, 7.5 miles (12 km) north of Nottingham and 6 miles (10 km) south of Mansfield. It had a population of 756 at the 2011 census. In the Middle Ages, the village marked ...
and
Ravenshead Ravenshead is a village and civil parish in the Gedling district of Nottinghamshire, England.OS Explorer Map 270: Sherwood Forest: (1:25 000): It borders Papplewick, Newstead Abbey and Blidworth, and is part of Nottinghamshire's Hidden Valleys ...
, to the north by
Blidworth Blidworth is a village and civil parish approximately five miles east of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 4,457. Its history can be traced back to the 10th century, although many of t ...
, and to the north-east by Oxton and
Epperstone Epperstone is an English village and civil parish in mid-Nottinghamshire, located near Lowdham and Calverton. It had a population (including Gonalston) of 589 at the time of the 2011 Census. Many inhabitants commute to work or school in Notting ...
. During most of its existence Calverton was a forest village, in that part of
Sherwood Sherwood may refer to: Places Australia *Sherwood, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane *Sherwood, South Australia, a locality *Shire of Sherwood, a former local government area of Queensland *Electoral district of Sherwood, an electoral district from ...
known as Thorney Wood Chase, with a rural economy limited by a lack of grazing land, in which handicrafts (like woodworking and the knitting of stockings), must in consequence have assumed a more than usual importance. The parliamentary enclosure of 1780 brought some agrarian progress to the village, but it was not until the opening of a colliery by the
National Coal Board The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "v ...
in 1952, that the village began to assume its present identity, with new housing estates and marked population growth. The colliery closed in 1999 and while a small industrial estate provides some local employment, Calverton has taken on the character of a large
commuter village A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...
. In May 1974 the village was officially twinned with
Longué-Jumelles Longué-Jumelles () is a commune in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France. Longué-Jumelles is twinned with Calverton, Nottinghamshire in England. Population See also *Communes of the Maine-et-Loire department The following is a l ...
, in the Loire valley of France.


Toponymy

The place appears as ''Calvretone'' in the
Domesday Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...
survey of 1086 and as ''Kalvirton'' in the '' Rotuli Hundredorum'' of 1275. Scholars believe that the name means "the farm of the calves", from
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
calf (genitive plural "calfra" + ''tūn''. It is intriguing that a forest village, with a presumed shortage of grazing land, should be named after the young of domestic cattle; perhaps it was the atypical presence of a calf farm, in the woodland landscape, that ensured its name. Calverton is one of a number of settlements in the area (with Oxton, Bulcote and Lambley), which contain animal place name elements; this has inevitably led to speculation that there was some undiscovered ancient functional connection between the places. Salterford (''q.v.'') was ''Saltreford'' in 1086 and probably means "ford of the salters", where salter refers to a salt–dealer or carrier, rather than a maker of the commodity. Although the place was situated in the forest, the road to York, or King's Highway (the precursor of the A614) passed close by, and this may well have been frequented by salt-carriers. An alternative explanation that it is derived from a ford near to a saltery, or deer-leap, (Latin ''saltatorium'') on the boundary of the royal hunting ground of
Sherwood Forest Sherwood Forest is a royal forest in Nottinghamshire, England, famous because of its historic association with the legend of Robin Hood. The area has been wooded since the end of the Last Glacial Period (as attested by pollen sampling cores ...
, and had nothing to do with salt is, perhaps, less likely. Some deer parks were established in the Anglo-Saxon era, but this would be a very early use of the word saltery. Bonner Hill, Bonner Lane and Burnor Pool may each contain the
Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...
word ''brunnr'', a spring +
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
''haugr'', a hill. Alternatively the first element may be the Old English ''burna'', meaning a spring or stream.


Roman Calverton

There are traces of two Roman marching camps in a field north-east of the Oxton Road and Whinbush Lane crossroads on the west side of the valley of the Dover Beck ().These were identified from aerial photographs, there being no above ground evidence in the form of earthworks. The site of the camps is a protected Scheduled Monument. A smaller one of four acres is set wholly within the defences of a larger, perhaps earlier, one of about twenty-six acres. Marching camps traces are thought to be the remains of the entrenchments made by an army unit for an overnight stop, where there was the chance of an attack. The dimensions of the camp are dictated by the size of the army unit. The transitory nature of these camps suggests that there are unlikely to be substantial archaeological features, other than the identified entrenchment traces. A lead figurine was found at "a hill-top site" in Calverton. It is of a naked seated female personage with long hair, topped by a plain round head-dress. It may depict a fertility goddess, perhaps a local version of
Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...
. According to the ''Victoria County History'', nearly two hundred
denarii The denarius (, dēnāriī ) was the standard Roman silver coin from its introduction in the Second Punic War to the reign of Gordian III (AD 238–244), when it was gradually replaced by the antoninianus. It continued to be minted in very ...
, chiefly of
Trajan Trajan ( ; la, Caesar Nerva Traianus; 18 September 539/11 August 117) was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared ''optimus princeps'' ("best ruler") by the senate, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presi ...
and
Hadrian Hadrian (; la, Caesar Trâiānus Hadriānus ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born in Italica (close to modern Santiponce in Spain), a Roman ''municipium'' founded by Italic settlers in Hispania B ...
(A.D. 98–138), were supposedly found, in the eighteenth century, in a broken pot somewhere in the parish. This may well, however, be a duplicate report of a find, in 1765, of a vessel full of Roman coins dug up at 'Robin Hood's Pot' close to the junction of Haywood Oaks and the A614. More recently, two very similar coin hoards were unearthed at sites less than three hundred yards apart. The first in June 1959, during work on the foundations of Manor Park Infants' School, Collyer Road, and the second during the building of a house in Crookdole Lane in about April 1960. No structural remains were detected with either hoard and the only associated archaeological material was the
earthenware Earthenware is glazed or unglazed nonvitreous pottery that has normally been fired below . Basic earthenware, often called terracotta, absorbs liquids such as water. However, earthenware can be made impervious to liquids by coating it with a ce ...
pot in which the first hoard was concealed. While most Roman coin hoards are believed to have been buried for safe-keeping, with the intention of being eventually recovered, it is possible that hoards may instead sometimes represent communal
votive offerings A votive offering or votive deposit is one or more objects displayed or deposited, without the intention of recovery or use, in a sacred place for religious purposes. Such items are a feature of modern and ancient societies and are generally ...
to the
gods A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater ...
.


Domesday survey

The Domesday survey indicates that the Calverton of 1086 was held by three parties: the
Archbishop of York The archbishop of York is a senior bishop in the Church of England, second only to the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and the metropolitan bishop of the province of York, which covers th ...
had one part, as a berewick (or outlying estate) of his manor at
Blidworth Blidworth is a village and civil parish approximately five miles east of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 4,457. Its history can be traced back to the 10th century, although many of t ...
, with a church and priest, and the other two parts were held by
Roger of Poitou Roger the Poitevin (Roger de Poitou) was born in Normandy in the mid-1060s and died before 1140. He was an Anglo-Norman aristocrat, possessing large holdings in both England and through his marriage in France. He was the third son of Roger of Mo ...
and the
thegn In Anglo-Saxon England, thegns were aristocratic landowners of the second rank, below the ealdormen who governed large areas of England. The term was also used in early medieval Scandinavia for a class of retainers. In medieval Scotland, there w ...
Aelfric of Colwick. The church is one of only eighty-five mentioned amongst some four hundred places names listed in Nottinghamshire and it is perhaps possible that its existence, at that early time, was due to it being situated on land that was part of an archiepiscopal estate. Two freeman (''sochemannus''), thirteen villagers (''villanus''), two smallholders (''bordarius'') and a priest are mentioned and, assuming that these were the heads of eighteen households, the population of Calverton in 1086 was perhaps around seventy persons.


Population

The Protestation Returns of 1642 were intended to record a full list of all male inhabitants aged eighteen years and over in each parish, who took an oath to "live and die for the true Protestant religion". A population total can be easily calculated by allowing for the estimated proportion of the population under the age of eighteen years, perhaps 40% and doubling to allow for women. Seventy-five names are listed in the Calverton parish returns, with the note "none refused". A population estimate for the village, immediately before the
English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...
, is therefore 250. The
Hearth Tax A hearth tax was a property tax in certain countries during the medieval and early modern period, levied on each hearth, thus by proxy on wealth. It was calculated based on the number of hearths, or fireplaces, within a municipal area and is cons ...
was introduced, ''after'' the Civil War, in 1662 to provide a regular source of income for the newly restored monarch, King Charles II. Sometimes referred to as "chimney money", the tax was essentially a property tax on households (rather than houses) graded according to the number of their fireplaces. The 1664 Hearth tax returns show that Calverton had seventy-nine chargeable hearths in thirty-five households and seventeen not-chargeable hearths in seventeen households which had been exempted from the tax. A multiplier, recommended by some authorities, is 4.3, which gives a population for Calverton at the end of the
English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...
, of 223 in the fifty-two households. Village surnames which span the Civil War period include Cooper, Wilkinson, Martin, Pepper, Mottram and Sturtivant. Soon after the
Restoration Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to: * Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage ** Audio restoration ** Film restoration ** Image restoration ** Textile restoration * Restoration ecology ...
, Calverton lost its vicar, John Allot, for non-conformity. The
Act of Uniformity 1662 The Act of Uniformity 1662 (14 Car 2 c 4) is an Act of the Parliament of England. (It was formerly cited as 13 & 14 Ch.2 c. 4, by reference to the regnal year when it was passed on 19 May 1662.) It prescribed the form of public prayers, adm ...
required the use of all the rites and ceremonies in the
Book of Common Prayer The ''Book of Common Prayer'' (BCP) is the name given to a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion and by other Christian churches historically related to Anglicanism. The original book, published in 1549 in the reign ...
in church services. Revd. Allot, a
puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become m ...
, was one of nearly two thousand clergymen who refused to conform and were removed from office in the
Great Ejection The Great Ejection followed the Act of Uniformity 1662 in England. Several thousand Puritan ministers were forced out of their positions in the Church of England, following The Restoration of Charles II. It was a consequence (not necessarily ...
from the Church of England for not complying with the Act. He went to London and ministered in private, but died soon afterwards. The Act encouraged the notion of non-conformity and religious dissent in English society. By 1676 it was of urgent interest to discover the religious opinions of the people, since the Catholic
James James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...
was likely to succeed his brother King Charles II. This anxiety led to the Compton Census, a national ecclesiastical survey named for Henry Compton, Bishop of London. Adults (i.e. people over the age of 16) of each parish were recorded as either communicants, popish recusants, or other dissenters. In Calverton 129 communicants were recorded, no recusants, but a remarkable fifty-two dissenters. Demographic historians suggest that the proportion of the population over sixteen in settlements at the time was about 65%, so a simple calculation gives the total population as 278. The population estimate is less interesting however than the high proportion of dissenters, which may well have been a result of the ejection from his living of Calverton's vicar, James Stephenson for an unknown reason, at some time between 1654 and July 1656 ( Stephenson, had however previously been ejected from
Blackwell Blackwell may refer to: Places ;Canada * Blackwell, Ontario ;United Kingdom * Blackwell, County Durham, England * Blackwell, Carlisle, Cumbria, England * Blackwell (historic house), South Lakeland, Cumbria, England * Blackwell, Bolsover, Alfre ...
, in Derbyshire in the late 1640s for being a "scandalous drunkard"), and also by the 1662 ejection of John Allot for non-conformity (above). Ejections left a void in a parish, which may have facilitated the growth of groups of dissenters. In 1677
Robert Thoroton Dr Robert Thoroton (4 October 1623 – c. 21 November 1678) was an English antiquary, mainly remembered for his county history, ''The Antiquities of Nottinghamshire'' (1677). Life Thoroton belonged to an old Nottinghamshire family, which took it ...
commented that Calverton was '... a populous village, with an empty church, for the most part'. In 1743 a new Archbishop of York,
Thomas Herring Thomas Herring (169323 March 1757) was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1747 to 1757. Early life and education He was the son of John Herring, rector of Walsoken in Norfolk, who had previously been vicar of Foxton, near Cambridge, and his wife, ...
, was appointed. Soon after taking up his post he wrote to all the clergy within the diocese, seeking information about the parishes they served. Calverton's curate, Maurice Pugh (1705–1766), replied to the archiepiscopal enquiry, and his answers give interesting incidental information about life in the village in the mid 18th century: :* ''I. We have about eighty Families in Our Parish we have but two Families
Dissenters A dissenter (from the Latin ''dissentire'', "to disagree") is one who dissents (disagrees) in matters of opinion, belief, etc. Usage in Christianity Dissent from the Anglican church In the social and religious history of England and Wales, an ...
, one of them
Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
, one
Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...
.'' :* ''II. We have a licensd Meeting House in Our Parish for the Presbyterians, but it has not been made use of these 5 or 6 Years'' :* ''III. We have a Charity School, but not endowed, to teach fourteen Children to read english at the Direction of Mr: Abel Smith, Trustee to the late Mr. Labray of this Town. the Children are instructed as the
Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western ca ...
requires.'' :* ''IV. We have no Alms House, but have land given to the Poor, by Mrs. Jane Pepper late of this Parish and others the Rent of which is 2 : 7 : 0 per An. The Vicar and Parish Officers dispose of it jointly to the Poor, we know of no abuse in the management of it.'' :* ''V. I reside upon My Vicarage of Calverton.'' :* ''VI. I do the Duty Myself'' :* ''VII. I know of no such Persons.'' (''i.e.'' Non-baptised churchgoers) :* ''VIII. I read the publick Service once every Lords Day in My Church Morning & Evening alternately I am obliged to do Duty in the Church of Woodborough that is joined with Calverton, I presume the small allowance from the Church of Southwell has been the Reason that Service could not be performed according to Canon'' :* ''IX. I catechise the Children and Servants during the time of
Lent Lent ( la, Quadragesima, 'Fortieth') is a solemn religious observance in the liturgical calendar commemorating the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke ...
, and all the Summer from May to Michaelmass, and spend some time every Sunday Evening in instructing the Youth in the Principles of the Christian Religion during that time.'' :* ''X. I administer the
Sacrament A sacrament is a Christianity, Christian Rite (Christianity), rite that is recognized as being particularly important and significant. There are various views on the existence and meaning of such rites. Many Christians consider the sacraments ...
four times in Year at least. I have about a hundred and fifty
Communicants The Eucharist (; from Greek , , ), also known as Holy Communion and the Lord's Supper, is a Christianity, Christian Rite (Christianity), rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an Ordinance (Christianity), ordinance in ot ...
they all receive two or three Times in the Year, about three score last Easter.'' :* ''XI. I give open and timely Warning of the Sacrament before it is administred, My Parishioners give Me Notice when any Young persons design to communicate, or new Servants, but the elderly People I have not called upon to do so but will for the future. I have had no Reason to refuse the Sacrament to any Person. Calverton 21 May. 1744 MAURICE PUGH Vicar'' If the family size was 4.75 in 1743, then the settlement had about 380 inhabitants at that time. Twenty years later, at the time of Archbishop Drummond's 1764 visitation, Maurice Pugh reported that the number of families had risen to 'above 110', and so the number of villagers was perhaps 520. Throsby, however, writing in the 1790s said that 'the village consist of 100 dwellings'. By the time of the first decennial census of 1801 the population had risen to 636 in 129 families.


Enclosure

Until the opening of the colliery in 1952, the greatest social change in Calverton's history had been arguably the parliamentary enclosure of 1778–80. By the time that an enclosure petition was presented to Parliament on 1 December 1778 by "several landowners and persons interested", some 996 acres, or about 30% of the parish had already been enclosed. Some of these acres would of course have been accounted for by the houses and gardens of the settlement itself and the rest had been enclosed piece-meal over centuries. The award, when it came in 1780, would reveal that there had been only 51 acres of the open fields left to enclose. This is about % of the total area of the parish, so any notion that the primary objective of Calverton's enclosure was to rearrange the village arable from strips and furlongs in large communally farmed fields, into the landscape of today, must be resisted. The rest of the land enclosed was about 550 acres of warren and Sansom wood and 1728 acres of common and forest, much of it to the west of the Old Rufford Road (A614). Calverton was one of forty or so townships within the ancient bounds of Sherwood Forest, and so was subject to forest law, which protected both the animals (primarily deer) for the exclusive use of the king. It may be that because of this, agricultural improvement and commercial development in Calverton was different from other, more purely agricultural, settlements. Specifically the village was situated in the southern of the two administrative districts or bailiwicks into which Sherwood Forest was divided, the part called Thorney Wood Chase, of which the Earl of Chesterfield was hereditary keeper. Thorney Wood Chase was formerly well wooded and stocked with fallow deer, but growth of population and changes in agricultural practice were altering the character of the area. Back in 1609 Richard Bankes' map had shown the progress of enclosure in the parish. Calverton, like most settlements on Bankes' map, was found to be surrounded by a number of large communally farmed arable fields. These must have been in existence for many centuries, but by 1609 each of the large open fields had had some of its land changed into non-communable closes, some of which may have been used for pasture. In Calverton the map shows about twenty small closes converted out of a portion of a field, ''The Moores'', to the north east of the village, between the present Carrington Lane and the Doverbeck. Nearby was a bigger ''New Close''. Many other closes, large and small, had been created between Dark Lane and the southern parish boundary with Woodborough, in the large ''Hyll Feild''. More closes line the western edge of the ''Hyll Feild'' along the course of the stream which now flows near George's Lane. Other parts of the parish were less subject to the making of permanent closes, as they were more wooded and breck agriculture was practised. These brecks were temporary enclosures made out of the forest waste land and sheep walks. Plots of land were fenced off and ploughed as arable for up to seven years, after which period the fences were taken down and the land reverted to open forest. In Calverton each messuage was entitled, as a customary or common right, to an acre of the breck, and each cottage to half an acre. According to Dr. Thoroton's history of the county, the freeholders of Calverton in 1612 were Christopher Strelley, John Sturtivant, Robert Cooper, John Lees, Thomas Leeson, Ed. Benet, John Barber, John Lambrey, Humfr. Youle, Euseby Marshall of ''Arnall'', John Chaworth of ''Southwell'', esquire and John Cressewell. A bill was presented in March 1779 by the Nottinghamshire MP
Lord Edward Bentinck Lord Edward Charles Cavendish-Bentinck (3 March 1744 – 8 October 1819), known as Lord Edward Bentinck, was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1766 to 1802. Background and education Bentinck was the second son of William ...
, who was the younger brother of the third Duke of Portland. It noted counter-petitions to some of its provisions by the
Earl of Chesterfield Earl of Chesterfield, in the County of Derby, was a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1628 for Philip Stanhope, 1st Baron Stanhope. He had been created Baron Stanhope, of Shelford in the County of Nottingham, in 1616, also i ...
and other smaller owners. The Earl of Chesterfield's objections concerns the alleged insufficient compensation to be allowed to him as hereditary ranger of Thorney Wood Chase. The earl's claims were apparently met by the promoters, and the bill was amended accordingly. The other counter-petitioners, led by villager William Huthwaite, described themselves as "owners and proprietors of ancient houses having right of common". They alleged that if the bill passed it would be prejudicial to their
rights Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical the ...
and properties (as noted above, only 51 acres of open fields remained) and injurious to the public in general. They successfully secured the appointment of an additional, fifth, commissioner, a local man George Padley of Calverton, to represent their interests. ''An Act for dividing and inclosing the open fields, meadows, pastures, commons, forest and waste grounds in the parish of Calverton in the County of Nottingham'' was passed by Parliament in May 1779. After a little over a year, on 7 July 1780, the commissioners were able to sign the award. One hundred and seventy plots of land were allotted to nearly ninety owners. Because about 2,334 acres of Calverton had been enclosed in such a short time, it seems very likely that much of the detail mentioned in the award had ''already'' been agreed by the principal owners, and the work of the commissioners will have been to satisfy the claims of those villagers who perhaps owned no land at all, but did have
common rights Group rights, also known as collective rights, are rights held by a group '' qua'' a group rather than individually by its members; in contrast, individual rights are rights held by individual people; even if they are group-differentiated, which ...
around the parish. These rights would be replaced, at enclosure, by small allotments of land. John Roe (''q.v.'') for example received just 11 perches, or about 330 square yards. The principal landowners were now the
prebends A prebendary is a member of the Roman Catholic or Anglican clergy, a form of canon with a role in the administration of a cathedral or collegiate church. When attending services, prebendaries sit in particular seats, usually at the back of the ...
of Oxton, Revd James Bingham as vicar, the Duke of Portland, Margaret Sherbrooke, Elizabeth Bainbrigge and Thomas Smith. There were many other smaller proprietors however, and because of this multiplicity of ownership, Calverton could not be described as a "closed village", where the property was in the hands of a few people who could control development and, for example, restrict people coming in who might become dependent on poor relief. The initial stimulus or spark to parliamentary enclosure is not clear. As noted, it was ''not'' to reorganise the arable, but since the largest Calverton landowners were now the holders of the two prebends of Oxton, Hugh Thomas and John Marsden, it may well have been prompted by them, so that the annual payment of tithes to the prebendaries could be changed into an allotment of land, and all tithes could be extinguished. Thereafter the land, that had been allotted, would provide an income to maintain the prebendaries, who served at
Southwell Minster Southwell Minster () is a minster and cathedral in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, England. It is situated miles from Newark-on-Trent and from Mansfield. It is the seat of the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham and the Diocese of Southwell and N ...
. The Duke of Portland would also have been a supporter of enclosure, since the Calverton villagers' common right of breck agriculture must have been an irritation at a time when the 'Dukeries' were beginning to subsume the forest wastes. Enclosure meant that the system whereby land which was owned by one person, but over which other people had certain traditional or
common rights Group rights, also known as collective rights, are rights held by a group '' qua'' a group rather than individually by its members; in contrast, individual rights are rights held by individual people; even if they are group-differentiated, which ...
, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, or to collect firewood, or collect sand and gravel was ended forever. The common right of breck agriculture, which was peculiar to forest villages, was also brought to an end. The landscape of the parish was also altered. Hedges were planted, drains dug, gates and stiles erected, footpaths and bridleways established in law and roads (sixty feet between the hedges) were laid out, so that today's Calverton is recognisably as set down in the Award of July 1780. Perhaps prompted by the social upheaval of parliamentary enclosure and by a gradual movement towards
self-help Self-help or self-improvement is a self-guided improvement''APA Dictionary of Physicology'', 1st ed., Gary R. VandenBos, ed., Washington: American Psychological Association, 2007.—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a subst ...
, the first friendly society in the village was formed in 1783, and registered in 1794 under the provisions of the original Friendly Societies Act (
Roses A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be e ...
's Act of 1793). Registration gave a friendly society a measure of legal protection, publicised its role as a provider of sickness benefit, and might help to prevent it from falling under suspicion of trade union activity. By 1815 there were perhaps five friendly societies extant in Calverton, including one for women.


The nineteenth century

Although the village is estimated to have had about two hundred knitting frames at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it seems to have escaped the worst of the local
Luddite The Luddites were a secret oath-based organisation of English textile workers in the 19th century who formed a radical faction which destroyed textile machinery. The group is believed to have taken its name from Ned Ludd, a legendary weaver s ...
disturbances of 1811–12. Because the Luddite rioters only broke the frames of those owners that had lowered men's wages, it may be that none had been reduced in Calverton. A spirit of radicalism did exist however as Calverton was one of eleven Nottinghamshire villages (which also included Woodborough, Oxton and Lambley) that presented petitions to parliament in 1817 demanding electoral reform. The petitioners wished (in a foreshadowing of later Chartist demands), for annual elections of representatives chosen by 'all men who have attained the age of twenty-one... seeing that all men pay Taxes, and all men have lives and liberties to protect'. At the time only male owners of property worth at least forty shillings were allowed to vote. Limited electoral reform was not to come until
1832 Events January–March * January 6 – Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison founds the New-England Anti-Slavery Society. * January 13 – The Christmas Rebellion of slaves is brought to an end in Jamaica, after the island's white plan ...
. (''q.v''.) By the time the first county directory was published in 1832, Calverton had grown to a "considerable village" of 1,196 persons, of whom 270 were engaged in manufacturing, of one sort or another, forty-seven in retail and handicrafts and only thirty-seven were primarily employed as agricultural labourers. It was ''not'' therefore a traditional English agricultural village, but one in which cottage industries, such as the making of hosiery, dominated. William White's directory claimed nearly three hundred stocking frames were in use at the time. Calverton's principal resident was Lady Katherine Sherbrooke (1783–1856), the widow of Sir
John Coape Sherbrooke General Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, (29 April 1764 – 14 February 1830) was a British soldier and colonial administrator. After serving in the British army in Nova Scotia, the Netherlands, India, the Mediterranean (including Sicily), and Spa ...
(1764–1830) who had been
Governor General of British North America A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political_regions, political region, ranking under the Head of State, head of state and in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of ...
and who had retired to live at Calverton Hall. Other residents included five shoemakers, four hosiery manufacturers, four shopkeepers, three butchers as well as blacksmiths, frame-smiths and tailors. The 1832 directory lists two pubs, the ''
Admiral Rodney Admiral George Brydges Rodney, 1st Baron Rodney, KB ( bap. 13 February 1718 – 24 May 1792), was a British naval officer. He is best known for his commands in the American War of Independence, particularly his victory over the French at t ...
'' and the ''White Lion'', as well as three beerhouses, perhaps recently opened as a result of the
Beerhouse Act 1830 The Beerhouse Act 1830 (11 Geo 4. and 1 Will 4. c. 64) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which liberalised the regulations governing the brewing and sale of beer. It was modified by subsequent legislation and finally repealed i ...
. The ''Gleaner'' (''sic'') public house was not to make its first appearance, in a directory, until 1876. Its application, as a beerhouse (together with the ''Forest Tavern''), for a spirit licence having been refused in 1861. Partly as a result of disillusionment with the 1832 Reform Act, radicalism raised its head again in the shape of the
People's Charter of 1838 Chartism was a working-class movement for political reform in the United Kingdom that erupted from 1838 to 1857 and was strongest in 1839, 1842 and 1848. It took its name from the People's Charter of 1838 and was a national protest movement, w ...
, as textile workers saw real electoral reform, which the Charter proposed, as a means whereby their standard of living might be improved. One of the Nottinghamshire organisers of
Chartism Chartism was a working-class movement for political reform in the United Kingdom that erupted from 1838 to 1857 and was strongest in 1839, 1842 and 1848. It took its name from the People's Charter of 1838 and was a national protest movement, w ...
was a Calverton man called George Harrison (1798–1871) who was a farmer and Primitive Methodist preacher. He had already, in June 1835, strongly objected, at the annual
vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...
meeting, to the dissenters and "the parish at large" supporting St. Wilfrid's against their will, by means of the
church rate The church rate was a tax formerly levied in each parish in England and Ireland for the benefit of the Church of England parish church, parish church. The rates were used to meet the costs of carrying on divine service, repairing the fabric of the ...
. It was this Harrison who invited the leader of the Chartists,
Feargus O'Connor Feargus Edward O'Connor (18 July 1796 – 30 August 1855) was an Irish Chartist leader and advocate of the Land Plan, which sought to provide smallholdings for the labouring classes. A highly charismatic figure, O'Connor was admired for his ...
to Calverton on Monday 25 July 1842. It may have been thought that a meeting of Chartists was less likely to be broken up by the authorities in the countryside, than in the town of Nottingham. The Chartists' own newspaper ''
The Northern Star ''The Northern Star'' is a daily newspaper serving Lismore, New South Wales, Australia. The newspaper is owned by News Corp Australia. ''The Northern Star'' is circulated to Lismore and surrounding communities, from Tweed Heads to the north ...
'' described, in extravagant terms, the arrival of O'Connor by train from Derby, and his progress in a carriage procession along Mansfield Road, picking up delegations from suburbs and villages along the way till at last, around 2 pm, Calverton was reached. O'Connor made a long speech at "Bonner Pool" to a crowd, which the newspaper estimated at five thousand, and then a tea-party was served in a marquee "in a beautiful pasture bounded by a splendid wood". There followed an evening of singing, dancing and games, during which time a supposed government spy was pointed out and questioned. O'Connor spent the night in Calverton and the following morning, he set out for more speech-making in Mansfield. Four weeks later ''The Northern Star'' reported that, on Monday 22 and Tuesday 23 August 1842, there had been skirmishes with the village constable and a general withdrawal of labour by workers in Calverton, but the Battle of Mapperley Hills, on that Tuesday 23 August, perhaps saw the zenith of Chartism in Nottinghamshire, and the working class began to focus instead on opposition to the
Corn Laws The Corn Laws were tariffs and other trade restrictions on imported food and corn enforced in the United Kingdom between 1815 and 1846. The word ''corn'' in British English denotes all cereal grains, including wheat, oats and barley. They were ...
and the high price of bread. The General Enclosure Act of 1845 had required that provision should be made at enclosure for the landless, in the form of "field gardens" or allotments, limited to a quarter of an acre, and this will have been prompted by the fear of civil unrest amongst the poor. Calverton had already been enclosed, but there is evidence that in 1845 this "cottage garden system" had just been introduced to the village, and that frame-workers were cultivating rented allotments. In that year allotment tenants paid their first half–yearly rent to Calverton farmer Mr. William Ward, who provided them with a free supper, prepared by Samuel Fletcher at the ''White Lion''. Not only were the poor more likely to be happier having a stake in the land, but it was hoped that landowners would have to pay less in the form of the poor-rate, if landless workers in the village were able to grow their own food. In 1851, at the same time as the
census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...
(which had found 1,427 person in 302 houses), there was a census of 'Accommodation and Attendance at Worship.' This is often referred to as the '1851 Religious Census' and it revealed both the popularity of religion and the variety of options, both established and
nonconformist Nonconformity or nonconformism may refer to: Culture and society * Insubordination, the act of willfully disobeying an order of one's superior *Dissent, a sentiment or philosophy of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or entity ** ...
, for the prospective Calverton worshipper. Samuel Oliver, vicar of St Wilfrid's parish church (''q.v.'') claimed an average attendance of forty-seven in the morning, 132 in the afternoon and 133 at evening service. The Methodists appeared to be a state of some disarray at the time. There was a Primitive Methodist Chapel, which had been erected about 1783 for the Calverton Roeite sect (''q.v.''), but had been taken over from them in 1848. This building was used by the Reformed Methodists in the morning (seventy worshippers), as well as by the Primitive Methodists both in the afternoon (90) and in the evening (150). There was also a Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, erected on Mansfield Lane in 1815, which could muster only twenty-five in the evening; Matthew Shepherd, the steward, explained that the low number attending was due to "the agitation in the connexion having caused a division here". The New Methodists had built a place of worship in about 1820, but had sold it the
Baptists Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compe ...
in 1832 and the minister, Samuel Ward, for the Particular Baptist Chapel, claimed a congregation of 120. The relatively recently formed
Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...
(or Mormons ) held services in a building that was "not used exclusively for worship" and the elder, Thomas Lester, claimed an average of forty in the afternoon and fifty-seven in the evening. There was no mention of the Roeite sect (''q.v.''), in the census, some thirty years after the death of its founder, John Roe, in 1823. This religious census of 1851 was never repeated, not because of doubts about its accuracy, but probably because it was felt to have shown the popularity of the dissenters. Although the 1832 Reform Act had extended the franchise, only sixty male land-, or lease-holders out of Calverton's population of 1,427, were eligible to vote in the South Nottinghamshire by-election of 1851 and twenty of them were not even residents of the parish. Two Calverton voters lived as far away as
Bishops Waltham Bishop's Waltham (or Bishops Waltham) is a medieval market town situated at the source of the River Hamble in Hampshire, England. It has a foot in the South Downs National Park and is located at the midpoint of a long-established route betwee ...
in Hampshire. Of the sixty eligible, just forty-six actually did vote. While Calverton voters preferred Sydney Pierrepont (the future Earl Manvers) to the tenant farmers' candidate William Barrow of Southwell by twenty-eight to eighteen, it was actually the latter who was narrowly elected for the constituency. Prior to 1800,
education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
for the less well-off was generally restricted to the occasional
charity school Charity schools, sometimes called blue coat schools, or simply the Blue School, were significant in the history of education in England. They were built and maintained in various parishes by the voluntary contributions of the inhabitants to ...
. Calverton was fortunate to benefit from a bequest of a Nottingham hosiery manufacturer, and village native called Jonathan Labray, who died a bachelor in 1718. His trustees arranged to pay the master of a day school and to allow him use of a house and four tons of coal per year. In 1835, sixty two males were taught; some paid for by the endowment, and some by weekly payments of one penny for reading and one penny for writing. There was also another school where twenty-five girls were taught at the expense of their parents. An infant school was started in 1833 for forty-four males and thirty-seven females, supported by subscription and pennies per week. This school seems to have moved into a purpose-built structure at Burnor Pool in 1846 which became the National School in 1852. Children not taught in these schools might have had some instruction in one of the three
Sunday school A Sunday school is an educational institution, usually (but not always) Christian in character. Other religions including Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism have also organised Sunday schools in their temples and mosques, particularly in the West. Su ...
s; one attached to St Wilfrid's, one to the Methodists and the last to the Baptists. The earliest reference yet found to Calverton cricket was on Monday, 24 October 1836, when neighbouring Woodborough beat the village by 38 runs, in a two-innings match played at Woodborough (67 and 71, 50 and 50). The first mention of cricket ''in'' Calverton (and the earliest scorecard), was on Monday, 30 September 1844, when members of the two brass bands of Calverton and Woodborough met each other, and the home side won by six wickets (47 and 42, 41 and 49 for 4 ). The teams, including star player, Calverton tailor Cornelias Hind (aged 39), afterwards enjoyed a supper of roast beef at the ''Admiral Rodney''. Before football became popular, the cricket season ran from April to October and, at a time when stockingers and others could control their hours of work, Monday was a popular day for fixtures. A Calverton Cricket Club had been formed by 1852, as there is a report of a club dinner at the ''Gleaner'' beerhouse on ' Whit-Tuesday' (8 June) of that year. In July 1855 a match was played between a team consisting of eleven members of the Hind family, and the rest of the village. The village won by twenty runs. A second eleven is noted in 1856, and there is a scorecard of 1860, showing that a team of juniors beat Woodborough by eight runs. Calverton's most celebrated Victorian cricketer was
Wilfred Flowers Wilfred Flowers (1856–1926) was a professional cricketer who played for Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club between 1877 and 1896. Cricket career born 7 December 1856 in Calverton, Nottinghamshire, England, Flowers was a slow bowler, who bow ...
(1856–1926) who was born in the village in December 1856, and who played in eight
Test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film), ...
matches and in 442 first-class matches for
Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...
. In November 1880, by arrangement with the 6th Duke of Portland,
Hucknall Hucknall, formerly Hucknall Torkard, is a market town in the Ashfield district of Nottinghamshire, England. It lies 7 miles north of Nottingham, 7 miles south-east of Kirkby-in-Ashfield, 9 miles from Mansfield and 10 miles south of Sutton-in ...
began to take a supply of water from a 200' deep
borehole A borehole is a narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water ( drilled water well and tube well), other liquids (such as petro ...
, on the Old Rufford Road (A614), opposite the Watchwood Plantation. A
pumping station Pumping stations, also called pumphouses in situations such as well drilling, drilled wells and drinking water, are facilities containing pumps and equipment for pumping fluids from one place to another. They are used for a variety of infrastru ...
sent 330 gallons per minute from the borehole, through six miles of eight-inch pipe, south-west to a reservoir at Hucknall which held 400,000 gallons. This allowed Hucknall to have twenty gallons of water per person per day, and was at a time when Calverton was without any piped water at all (''q.v.''). The population of Calverton had risen dramatically since the start of the century (see table), but the hosiery industry was beginning to show signs of decline because of changes in fashion and because manually operated stocking frames were becoming outdated. In Nottingham, the population increased because of the rise of
lace Lace is a delicate fabric made of yarn or thread in an open weblike pattern, made by machine or by hand. Generally, lace is divided into two main categories, needlelace and bobbin lace, although there are other types of lace, such as knitted o ...
manufacture, more advanced steam–powered frames, and by migration from villages like Calverton, following the passing of the Nottingham Enclosure Act of 1845, which at last had permitted housing and industry in the former common fields of the town. In 1881 the census recorded, in a population of 1246, a total of 294 workers in clothes-making (everything from hosiery to hats, shawls and gloves), while ninety-six were engaged in agriculture. In January 1898 Sir Charles Seely bought the Sansom Wood Estate in Calverton from the 6th Duke of Portland. The Seely family were coal owners and had bought the
Babbington Babbington is a hamlet in Nottinghamshire, England. It is located 2 miles south of Kimberley, close to the M1 motorway. It is part of Kimberley civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local gov ...
pits (Cinderhill, Broxtowe, Kimberley and
Bulwell Bulwell is a market town in the City of Nottingham, in Nottinghamshire, England. It is south-west of Hucknall and to the north-west of Nottingham. The United Kingdom Census 2011 recorded the population of Bulwell at 29,771 which amounted to o ...
, ''inter alia'') in 1870, so it is probable that the Calverton land purchase was intended for extractive, rather than agricultural purposes. In May 1898 the ''
Manchester Times The ''Manchester Times'' was a weekly newspaper published in Manchester, England, from 1828 to 1922. It was known for its free trade radicalism. From 1828 to 1847, the newspaper was edited by Archibald Prentice, a political radical and advocate ...
'' noted that Sir Charles was renting 80 acres of land to the Parish Council for allotments, 'at a trifle over 31 shillings' (£1.55 per year) per acre, in addition to a recreation ground of four acres, at a nominal rent of 6d ( p). By the time of the death of
Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...
in 1901, the population of the parish had declined slowly to 1,159.


The twentieth century

The rural exodus of the nineteenth century slowed in the early twentieth, partly because of temporary prosperity in agriculture, and Calverton's population fell slightly to 1,101 in 1911 and 1,040 in 1921 then rose to 1,058 in 1931. There was no decennial census in 1941 because of the Second World War, but by 1951, at the end of the final decade in which Calverton could justly be called a rural village, the population had increased to 1,304 in 431 households. As noted above, Calverton was without a supply of piped water and the existing supply was often insufficient for the village's population. In addition, in dry seasons, it had to be carted long distances to water cattle. In June 1900, Basford RDC accepted Sir Charles Seely's offer to provide a water supply for Calverton. A reservoir, pumping station and caretakers' house were to be built at his expense, and 10,000 gallons of water per day would be supplied to the village from a borehole, for £87 per year. The reservoir and pumping station were on the site of present-day Waterworks Cottage, off Longue Drive. The first reference to a Calverton football team, so far found, was in November 1903, when the draw was made for the second round of the Notts. Shield Competition and Calverton St. Wilfrid's were drawn to play Carlton St. Paul's at home. In 1908 Calverton St. Wilfrid's were disqualified from the Competition for multiple offences, including fielding four ineligible players, and the Secretary of the club, F. Dovey, was suspended from playing or football management. In the 1906 General Election, 346 (male) villagers were eligible to vote in the, erstwhile, Newark constituency, which was about 31% of the total Calverton population. This is to be compared with the 60 villagers, or only 4%, who were eligible in 1851 (''q.v.''). The increase was a consequence of the Second and Third Reform Acts of 1867 and
1884 Events January–March * January 4 – The Fabian Society is founded in London. * January 5 – Gilbert and Sullivan's ''Princess Ida'' premières at the Savoy Theatre, London. * January 18 – Dr. William Price atte ...
. The poorest men were still unable to vote by reason of a property qualification, not abolished until
1918 This year is noted for the end of the First World War, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, as well as for the Spanish flu pandemic that killed 50–100 million people worldwide. Events Below, the events ...
. The last census before the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
had found 1,101 inhabitants in 275 households. Certain surnames predominated; there were 114 with the surname Meads, 63 were called Binch, 50 Cooper and 50 Worthington. Villagers were soon being called up to fight in the war, and when the Calverton Co-op failed in their attempt to prevent William Loyd-Meads from being conscripted, they were said to have lost their last male employee. By the war's end, Calverton had lost 33 men (over 6% of the male population); the names of the dead are listed on a memorial in the church. After the war, as a result of the "Homes Fit for Heroes" campaign, a
Housing Act Housing, or more generally, living spaces, refers to the construction and assigned usage of houses or buildings individually or collectively, for the purpose of shelter. Housing ensures that members of society have a place to live, whether i ...
was passed to allow the building of
council housing Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council estates, council housing, or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011 when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in so ...
. In 1920 Basford RDC made plans for houses in the village for rent, which would cost £1,300 to build. Calverton councillor Charles Collyer (1877–1953) was shocked at the price and pointed out that the average rent in the village was only 2s 6d (p) per week. It is not known how many houses were built, but the population increased from 272 households in 1921 to 305 households in 1931, so perhaps less than thirty houses in the decade. Plans for a railway, to improve transport in the agricultural districts of Nottinghamshire, which would join
Lowdham Lowdham is a village and civil parish in the Newark and Sherwood district of Nottinghamshire between Nottingham and Southwell. At the 2001 census it had a population of 2,832, increasing to 3,334 at the 2011 Census. Two main roads slicing thro ...
to a point near
Blidworth Blidworth is a village and civil parish approximately five miles east of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 4,457. Its history can be traced back to the 10th century, although many of t ...
, and which would serve
Epperstone Epperstone is an English village and civil parish in mid-Nottinghamshire, located near Lowdham and Calverton. It had a population (including Gonalston) of 589 at the time of the 2011 Census. Many inhabitants commute to work or school in Notting ...
, Woodborough, Calverton and Oxton were proposed in 1919 by the Notts. War Agriculture Committee. Possibly because there was already a line from
Rolleston Rolleston may refer to: Places * Rolleston, Queensland, Australia * Rolleston, Leicestershire, England * Rolleston, Nottinghamshire, England ** Rolleston railway station * Rolleston on Dove, Staffordshire, England ** Rolleston Hall * Rolleston, ...
to
Mansfield Mansfield is a market town and the administrative centre of Mansfield District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest town in the wider Mansfield Urban Area (followed by Sutton-in-Ashfield). It gained the Royal Charter of a market tow ...
, via Southwell, the plans came to naught. The 1930s brought significant change to the village. Electric light arrived in 1930, with the erection of just a dozen street lights in October of that year. The supplier may have been the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Electric Power Company. By 1939 however the number of overhead electric cables was considered "a menace", and requests were made that new ones should be routed underground. In August 1932, Nottingham Corporation's water engineer expressed disappointment that so few applications for mains water were being received from villages, because they appeared satisfied with their existing "unwholesome" borehole supplies. In Calverton, where pipe-laying was nearly complete, only 125 had signed up for mains water, out of 308 houses. In July 1935, at a time when outdoor swimming was becoming nationally popular and lidos were being built by local councils, the Spring Water
Lido Lido may refer to: Geography Africa * Lido, a district in the city of Fez, Morocco Asia * Lido, an area in Chaoyang District, Beijing * Lido, a cinema theater in Siam Square shopping area in Bangkok * Lido City, a resort in West Java owned by MN ...
, a 75 feet by 30 feet outdoor pool, was opened on Moor Lane as a private enterprise by two village business men, Messrs. P. Bagguley and A. Roden. Equipped with a diving board, changing facilities and a café, the lido was fed by a natural spring delivering 300 gallons a minute. A Lido Social Club was formed in 1947 which, by 1950, had 1,100 members. In June 1937 a new cricket pavilion was opened by James Seely (1901–1956) in the same week (as he noted), that he had attended the ceremony of ground-breaking in connection with the new colliery (''q.v.''). The cricket ground itself had been provided by his grandfather Sir Charles Seely in 1910. Although it was in 1937 that the first shaft of the mine was sunk, it had been as early as 1910 that borings had taken place at Oxton,
Thurgarton Thurgarton is a small village in rural Nottinghamshire, England. The village is close to Southwell, and Newark-on-Trent and still within commuting distance to Nottingham. It is served by Thurgarton railway station. According to the 2001 cens ...
and elsewhere, to more accurately determine the extent of the concealed Nottinghamshire
coalfield A coalfield is an area of certain uniform characteristics where coal is mined. The criteria for determining the approximate boundary of a coalfield are geographical and cultural, in addition to geological. A coalfield often groups the seams of ...
. As a result of the borings, it was expected that coal could be worked profitably in the area, as was already being done at
Gedling Gedling is a village in the Gedling district, in Nottinghamshire, England, four miles northeast of Nottingham city centre. The population at the 2011 census of the ward was 6,817 and 111,787 for the district. Gedling was recorded in the Dome ...
. In 1921, George Spencer of the Notts Miners Association had asserted that coal was "known to exist" at Calverton. Work started on the colliery in June 1937 with the Seely family's Babbington Colliery Co. beginning the sinking of the shaft that would enable ventilation and "man-riding" to the workings at
Bestwood Bestwood Estate is a large council estate located to the north of the city of Nottingham, England. Based on the 2011 census, its population is 4,719. There is also a ward of the City of Nottingham called Bestwood, which at the time of the 2011 ...
colliery. In 1938, the Babbington Colliery Co. was taken over by the Bestwood Coal and Iron Company which was soon renamed B. A. Collieries Ltd. At about the same time Charles Collyer (who was by now chairman of both Basford Rural Council and the Calverton Parish Council, as well as a Calverton poultry farmer) was in discussions with the Ministry of Health to borrow money to provide sewage disposal works for the village. At that time there were no disposal facilities at all, and the possibility that the mine owners, B.A. Collieries Ltd., might wish to build a colliery village of 500 houses and boost the population from an estimated 1,200, made the talks more urgent. The 527m mine-shaft was completed early in 1939 and by September of that year, various buildings and twenty-two houses of a proposed colliery village had been built, to a design by
Geoffrey Jellicoe Sir Geoffrey Allan Jellicoe (8 October 1900 – 17 July 1996) was an English architect, town planner, landscape architect, garden designer, landscape and garden historian, lecturer and author. His strongest interest was in landscape and gard ...
. The
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
then brought further work to an abrupt halt. In 1940 the Trent Fishery Board, a precursor of the
Trent River Authority The Trent River Authority was one of 27 river authorities created by the Water Resources Act 1963 (1963 C. 38). It took over the powers of the existing Trent River Board and was given additional duties to monitor water quality and protect wate ...
, opened the Calverton
Fish Farm upright=1.3, Salmon farming in the sea (mariculture) at Loch Ainort, Isle of Skye">mariculture.html" ;"title="Salmon farming in the sea (mariculture">Salmon farming in the sea (mariculture) at Loch Ainort, Isle of Skye, Scotland Fish farming or ...
with the aim of breeding thousands of fish to stock rivers and still waters around the country. The farm consisted of sheds containing hatching trays and sixty-three ponds in nine units of seven ponds each. The water supply to the ponds was from a spring, by means of a borehole five hundred feet deep. In December 1941, some 12,000 fish, including
carp Carp are various species of oily freshwater fish from the family Cyprinidae, a very large group of fish native to Europe and Asia. While carp is consumed in many parts of the world, they are generally considered an invasive species in parts of ...
and
bream Bream ( ) are species of freshwater and marine fish belonging to a variety of genera including '' Abramis'' (e.g., ''A. brama'', the common bream), '' Acanthopagrus'', ''Argyrops'', '' Blicca'', '' Brama'', '' Chilotilapia'', ''Etelis'', '' L ...
, were brought from the lake at Highfields Park. The farm was already hatching out
salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...
and
trout Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', ''Salmo'' and ''Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salmoni ...
, and hoped to be fully stocked by 1942. On 13 October 1940, a
Fairey Battle The Fairey Battle is a British single-engine light bomber that was designed and manufactured by the Fairey Aviation Company. It was developed during the mid-1930s for the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a monoplane successor to the Hawker Hart and Hi ...
aircraft of No. 300 Polish Bomber Squadron, then operating from RAF Winthorpe, was returning from a raid on
Boulogne Boulogne-sur-Mer (; pcd, Boulonne-su-Mér; nl, Bonen; la, Gesoriacum or ''Bononia''), often called just Boulogne (, ), is a coastal city in Northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department of Pas-de-Calais. Boulogne lies on the ...
. Control of the aircraft was lost in fog, and it crashed in woods close to Whinbush Lane (). A memorial was subsequently erected to the three Polish airmen who were killed. In the Second World War the village lost eight men, and their names appear on a brass memorial, in St Wilfrid's Church (''q.v.''). Work resumed on the mine after the war, and at the sinking of the new shaft in January 1946, B.A. Collieries Ltd. chairman Claude Lancaster M.P said that it was estimated that beneath the surface there might be 125 million tons of coal, which if one thousand men were to produce a million tons every year, would provide employment for 125 years. This was to be the last privately sunk shaft, before the coal industry was
nationalised Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
on 1 January 1947 and became the property of the
National Coal Board The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "v ...
(NCB). Since government plans to take the industry into public ownership were a Labour Party manifesto commitment of the post-war election, it seems possible that the sinking of the coal-winding shaft by B.A. Collieries Ltd, ''before'' nationalisation, was to ensure the payment of compensation. In 1949 Councillor Collyer foresaw the development of Calverton from a village of 1,250 people to a "satellite town" of 8,000 by 1960, and he said that the NCB were asking that two thousand miners be housed in the village. The final depth of the new shaft was reached in June 1952 and, on 24 September of that year, Calverton Colliery was officially opened by the Minister for Coordination of Transport, Fuel and Power Lord Leathers. After ventilation and other equipment had been installed, coal winding began in March 1953. Following the colliery opening, two housing developments were created; the Colliery Estate bounded by Mansfield Lane, Crookdole Lane and Park Road East, and the Council Estate bounded by Park Road, Lee Road and Flatts Lane. In the 1950s the population of Calverton rose sharply from 1,304 in 431 households in 1951, to 5,658 in 1,545 households in 1961. This suggests that some 1,100 houses were built in the period. The ''Yorkshire Post'' reported, in February 1954, that collieries in the
Mexborough Mexborough is a town in the City of Doncaster in South Yorkshire, England. Situated between Manvers and Denaby Main, it lies on the River Don close to where it joins the River Dearne, and the A6023 road runs through the town. It is contiguous ...
area were being affected by men leaving for Calverton, because they had been promised new houses. The increase in population necessitated the rapid provision of more school places, and in 1955 Manor Park mixed primary school was opened, followed by William Lee mixed junior school in 1956. In 1957 Colonel Frank Seely School was the next to open. When, in 1960, Sir John Sherbrooke junior school opened its doors, Manor Park became a school for infants only. In the 1970s and early 1980s the colliery employed some 1,600 workers, but by 1988 this figure had fallen to 1,000, of whom 300 lived in the village. By September 1993, the number had been further reduced to 648, of whom 148 lived in Calverton. Traditional cottage-based frame-working had died out by the mid- twentieth century, but the link between the village and the hosiery industry was retained, through the presence of a
Courtaulds Courtaulds was a United Kingdom-based manufacturer of fabric, clothing, artificial fibres, and chemicals. It was established in 1794 and became the world's leading man-made fibre production company before being broken up in 1990 into Courtaulds ...
factory on Main Street. The destruction of this factory by fire in 1991, finally ended Calverton's association with the textile industry. In 1992 British Coal (the successor to the NCB), had announced that the colliery would close, and in November 1993 it raised its offer of redundancy payments to £7,000 per man, on condition that the mine shut down immediately. This was to dissuade workers from opting for a review procedure which would delay matters. This offer was accepted, and the mine shut on 19 November. In December 1994
RJB Mining RJB may refer to: * Radio Bernese Jura * Rajbiraj Airport, Nepal, IATA airport code * Ring junger Bünde * rj basket schools edit by ew {{disambig ...
(now UK Coal) bought the core mining activities of the English coalfields from British Coal for £814 million and reopened four collieries, one of which was Calverton. Less than five years later however, on 9 April 1999, RJB Mining announced the closure of the colliery, citing 'deteriorating geological conditions...(which)... have made it unviable', and production of coal in the village finally ended, a week later, on 16 April. In the 1960s, further housing had been built in the village, within the boundaries of Crookdole Lane, Bonner Lane, and Park Road East and by 1971 the village numbered 6,283. In the late 1970s and 1980s, there was more housing at the bottom of Bonner Hill and George's Lane and by 2001 there were 6,903 inhabitants in 2,771 households. Since the closure of the colliery, Calverton has assumed the character of a large
commuter village A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...
.


The twenty-first century

The 2011 census found 7,076 inhabitants in 2,987 households. A total of 76.8% of these households owned their accommodation outright, or with a mortgage or loan. This compares with 63.4% for England as a whole. In April 2015, the High Court dismissed a legal bid by Calverton Parish Council to quash a "joint-core strategy" drawn up by
Nottingham City Council Nottingham City Council is the local authority for the unitary authority of Nottingham in Nottinghamshire, England. It consists of 55 councillors, representing a total of 20 wards, elected every four years. The council is led by David Mellen, of ...
,
Broxtowe Borough Council Broxtowe refers to a number of geographic entities, current and historic, in Nottinghamshire, England: * Broxtowe, Nottingham, a housing estate in Apsley ward, within the City of Nottingham * Broxtowe (UK Parliament constituency), the constituency ...
and
Gedling Borough Council Gedling is a village in the Gedling district, in Nottinghamshire, England, four miles northeast of Nottingham city centre. The population at the 2011 census of the ward was 6,817 and 111,787 for the district. Gedling was recorded in the Domes ...
, in September 2014, with regard to the building of houses. The parish council had argued that the joint plan was based on a flawed report issued by an inspector, but the High Court said that the inspector had taken an approach that was "both sensible and appropriate" in reaching an evidence-based conclusion that, to meet housing need for the area, some development on
green belt A green belt is a policy and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or green wedges, which hav ...
land would be necessary. The effect of the ruling is to allow the plans of Gedling Borough Council, to build perhaps one thousand new homes in the parish up, to the year 2028. In consequence, by that time the population of Calverton parish might approach 9,500.


Church of St. Wilfrid

St
Wilfrid Wilfrid ( – 709 or 710) was an English bishop and saint. Born a Northumbrian noble, he entered religious life as a teenager and studied at Lindisfarne, at Canterbury, in Francia, and at Rome; he returned to Northumbria in about 660, and ...
's church seems to date, for the most part, from the fourteenth century, when it may have been reconstructed with material from an older building. The
nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...
and tower were rebuilt in 1760–63, and over the west door is a commemorative stone 'Mr. Pugh, Vicar, Saml. Pugh, Ino.Barrett, Church Wardens, Wm.Barrett, mason'. In 1835 the
chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...
was reconstructed, and in 1881 the whole church was restored. An organ chamber was built in 1888 and an annexe in 1962. The nave has the somewhat unusual form of a wide parallelogram 42 feet 8 inches long and 37 feet 2 inches wide, of one span and with no traces of any arcades. The chancel arch is not in the centre of the east wall of the nave, but about five feet nearer to the north side. This has led to the suggestion that when the building was rebuilt in the 1760s, the south wall of the nave was moved further south to enlarge the building. On the west wall of the ringing chamber, at second-storey level, is a sandstone carving, on its side, of a man apparently digging, while on the west wall of the clock chamber, at third-storey level, is a collection of nine sandstone panels believed to represent the occupations of the seasons. Seven of these stones are
voussoir A voussoir () is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, which is used in building an arch or vault. Although each unit in an arch or vault is a voussoir, two units are of distinct functional importance: the keystone and the springer. The ...
-shaped, and may have formed part of a band of ornament nine inches wide on the architrave of an arch in the earlier pre-fourteenth century building. Similar depictions of country activities may be seen on the fonts at
Burnham Deepdale Burnham Deepdale is a village on the north coast of the England, English county of Norfolk. Burnham Deepdale is in the civil parish of Brancaster, along with Brancaster Staithe. The three villages form a more or less linear settlement, continuou ...
in Norfolk, and Brookland in Kent. Carved into the capital of the north jamb is a small, 3" by 4", panel containing a three-quarter length depiction of a bearded bishop together with another figure. It is perhaps St
Wilfrid Wilfrid ( – 709 or 710) was an English bishop and saint. Born a Northumbrian noble, he entered religious life as a teenager and studied at Lindisfarne, at Canterbury, in Francia, and at Rome; he returned to Northumbria in about 660, and ...
himself, either with a newly baptised convert or, as the freeing of slaves was a distinguishing feature of the bishop's career, in the act of
manumission Manumission, or enfranchisement, is the act of freeing enslaved people by their enslavers. Different approaches to manumission were developed, each specific to the time and place of a particular society. Historian Verene Shepherd states that t ...
.


William Lee

Although contemporary documentary evidence is lacking, the parish traditionally claims William Lee, inventor of the stocking frame, as its own. The
Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...
historian
Robert Thoroton Dr Robert Thoroton (4 October 1623 – c. 21 November 1678) was an English antiquary, mainly remembered for his county history, ''The Antiquities of Nottinghamshire'' (1677). Life Thoroton belonged to an old Nottinghamshire family, which took it ...
asserted in his 1677 history of the county that Lee was a native of Calverton, while
John Aubrey John Aubrey (12 March 1626 – 7 June 1697) was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He is perhaps best known as the author of the ''Brief Lives'', his collection of short biographical pieces. He was a pioneer archaeologist, ...
in his ''Brief Lives'', written between 1669 and 1693, thought that he was born in
Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
; and
Charles Deering Charles Deering (July 31, 1852 – February 5, 1927) was an American businessman, art collector, and philanthropist. He was an executive of the agricultural machinery company founded by his father that became International Harvester. Charles's s ...
in ''Nottinghamia Vetus et Nova'', published in 1751, claimed that Lee was of Woodborough. Calverton's claim is probably the strongest, as the Lee surname appears in parish registers of the time and a William Lee "the elder", whose death was recorded in 1607, bequeathed a gold ring to his eldest son, William, who may have been the inventor. There is little evidence that William Lee was ever curate in the parish or even in Holy Orders. Aubrey appears to be first to describe him as a "poor curate", while Thoroton only mentions a Cambridge M.A. degree, and even this is disputed. Lee might of course simply have acted as a lay
reader A reader is a person who reads. It may also refer to: Computing and technology * Adobe Reader (now Adobe Acrobat), a PDF reader * Bible Reader for Palm, a discontinued PDA application * A card reader, for extracting data from various forms of ...
as a pragmatic response to staffing needs, and read services "plainlie, distinctlie and audiblie" without preaching or interpreting, as had been laid down by Archbishop Parker in 1561. The vicar of Calverton throughout the period was a James Revell. The
myth Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...
s surrounding Lee, including the supposed reasons for the invention, a girl-friend or wife and an alleged refusal by Queen Elizabeth to grant a patent, seem to stem from a volume of 1831 called ''History of the Framework Knitters'' by
Gravener Henson John Gravener Henson, (1785 – 15 November 1852) was a workers' leader from Nottingham, England, and a historian of the framework knitters. E. P. Thompson saw him as one of three outstanding figures in the early English working-class movement. E ...
(1785–1852), a prominent workers' leader of the time. Henson stated that he had got the greater part of his information about Lee from certain "ancient stocking makers" who all gave a similar account, and that the authenticity of the story is 'in some measure confirmed by the arms of the London Framework Knitters, which consist of a stocking-frame without the woodwork, with a clergyman on one hand and a woman on the other, as supporters.' Some of the myths were made visual in
Alfred Elmore Alfred Elmore (1815–1881) was a British history and genre painter. Life Alfred Elmore was born in Clonakilty, Ireland, the son of John Richard Elmore, a surgeon who retired from the British Army to Clonakilty. His family moved to London, ...
's familiar oil painting of 1847, ''The Origin of the Stocking Loom'' in the
Nottingham Castle Museum Nottingham Castle is a Stuart Restoration-era ducal mansion in Nottingham, England, built on the site of a Norman castle built starting in 1068, and added to extensively through the medieval period, when it was an important royal fortress and ...
. There seems little doubt, however, that a William Lee ''did'' invent the stocking frame, since a partnership agreement between William Lee and George Brooke of 6 June 1600 exists in the archives of the Historical Manuscript Commission, and this agreement describes the invention. Failing to find much enthusiasm in this country for his ingenuity, Lee went to
Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine in northern France. It is the prefecture of the Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one of ...
and set up stocking frames there, and is believed to have died in France, in obscurity, in about 1615. By the end of the seventeenth century however, stocking frames, perhaps the most complex piece of machinery employed in the pre-industrial age, were in widespread use in England and elsewhere.


John Roe and the Roeite sect

The Roeites, John Roe's Society or Reformed Quakers (sometimes disparagingly, Deformed'' Quakers'), were a group of
dissenting Dissent is an opinion, philosophy or sentiment of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or policy enforced under the authority of a government, political party or other entity or individual. A dissenting person may be referred to as ...
Protestants, which married and buried its members, as the Quakers did, and which flourished for a while in Calverton. Their original meeting house was a converted barn, close to the junction of Woods Lane and Dark Lane, where a large tree now stands. (). John Roe (1725–1820), who founded the sect, may have been of the same family as Robert Roe, the "oppressed Quaker" of Epperstone, who had been in trouble in 1669 for holding illegal religious meetings, and of Richard Roe the clockmaker of the same village. As early as 1759, John Roe had written about his religious beliefs and of his reactions to the preaching of dissenters who came to Calverton, but it was not until about 1780, when he was in his mid-fifties, that he established his sect. He may well have been prompted by unhappiness with the vicar James Bingham since, in 1778, he had been cited (as John Rooe , basket-maker) for non-payment of tithes, together with Thomas Hinde, tailor, and Bartholomew Lee, farmer. He ''must'' have been encouraged by the provisions of the recently passed
Nonconformist Relief Act 1779 The Nonconformist Relief Act 1779 (19 Geo. III c. 44) was Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. The Act allowed any Dissenter to preach and teach on the condition that he declared he was a Christian and a Protestant; took the Oaths of Allegianc ...
which freed dissenting ministers from the need to subscribe to the
Thirty-Nine Articles The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion (commonly abbreviated as the Thirty-nine Articles or the XXXIX Articles) are the historically defining statements of doctrines and practices of the Church of England with respect to the controversies of the ...
of the
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
, formerly required by the
Act of Toleration 1689 The Toleration Act 1688 (1 Will & Mary c 18), also referred to as the Act of Toleration, was an Act of the Parliament of England. Passed in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, it received royal assent on 24 May 1689. The Act allowed for f ...
. The Roeites' presence in the village evidently caused a degree of bad feeling, because Calverton schoolmaster Joseph Morley, writing to the ''
Nottingham Journal The ''Nottingham Journal'' was a newspaper published in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, in the East Midlands in England. During that time, the paper went through several title changes through mergers, take-overs, acquisitions and ownership changes. ...
'' in 1787, was moved to declare that:
...their religion in short, is a heap of inconsistencies promiscuously jumbled together, and their preaching an invariable compound of railing, absurdity, billingsgate and blackguardism...John Roe, their founder, holds himself as the only true prophet since the days of the Apostles, and he bitterly inveighs against all denominations, and d—ns the world in a bag...and I need not hesitate to aver that the wickedness, blasphemy and abomination delivered from Roe's pulpit are without parallel.
A peculiarity of the group was the custom of marrying its members after partners had been selected, not by courtship, but by a jury of twelve drawing lots. This was "to know precisely the will of Heaven concerning their matrimonial union" (''vide''
cleromancy Cleromancy is a form of sortition (casting of lots) in which an outcome is determined by means that normally would be considered random, such as the rolling of dice, but that are sometimes believed to reveal the will of a deity. In classical civ ...
). The idea was so extraordinary that even the German poet and philosopher
Friedrich von Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friendsh ...
, in far-away
Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
, was moved to write about it, and lamented in a 1781 article, ''Arme jugend van Calverton!'', about the lack of sentimentality and passion in the arrangement. The Roeites however contended that they had the right to marry, as well as to perform any religious duty, under the
Act of Toleration 1689 The Toleration Act 1688 (1 Will & Mary c 18), also referred to as the Act of Toleration, was an Act of the Parliament of England. Passed in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, it received royal assent on 24 May 1689. The Act allowed for f ...
. The Marriage Act of 1753 had tightened the existing ecclesiastical rules, providing that for a marriage to be valid it had to be performed in a church and after the publication of banns. However,
Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
and, crucially,
Quakers Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...
were seemingly exempted from its provisions (
Catholics The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
and other dissenting groups were ''not'' exempt), and it may be that John Roe believed, for this reason, that this Act did not apply to his "Quaker-like" group. On 1 May 1780 John Roe went through a marriage ceremony, in the meeting house, with Isabel Morris, of the parish of St Mary, Nottingham. Later Elizabeth Morris (sister to Isabel) was similarly joined with Thomas Bush. On 20 April 1785 the churchwardens of St Wilfrids accused Isabel Morris (using her maiden name, rather than "Mrs Roe"), before the Church Court at
Southwell Minster Southwell Minster () is a minster and cathedral in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, England. It is situated miles from Newark-on-Trent and from Mansfield. It is the seat of the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham and the Diocese of Southwell and N ...
, of having three illegitimate children and Elizabeth Morris ('Mrs Bush') of having one such child. The ostensible reason must have been that the illegitimate offspring would become a burden on the parish. The two mothers failed to appear at Southwell to answer the charges, and in February 1786 letters of excommunication against them were issued by the vicar, James Bingham. On Sunday 5 March the curate of Calverton, Ephraim Rogerson read out the order in church. As the two women did not apply to have the excommunication lifted within forty days, the
Archbishop of York The archbishop of York is a senior bishop in the Church of England, second only to the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and the metropolitan bishop of the province of York, which covers th ...
asked the Crown to issue writs of '' excommunicato capiendo'' to the Civil Courts to imprison the women, and they were taken to the county gaol, without any prospect of ''ever'' being released. Although no child of the sect seems to have actually become chargeable to Calverton parish, "Mrs Roe" and "Mrs Bush" had effectively, been sentenced to life imprisonment in the Nottingham county gaol. The matter had got out of hand, and reports began to appear in the press which expressed disquiet about the affair and the way in which the animosity between the dissenters and the Established Church was "disgraceful in this enlightened age". It was reported that, in the village, neighbours set fire to the fences of the Roeites, interrupted their services by blowing horns and firing guns, killed John Roe's cow, "broke his trees" and even threw dirt at the congregation when passing them in the street. John Roe's brother William wrote from Farnsfield to
Lord George Gordon Lord George Gordon (26 December 1751 – 1 November 1793) was a British politician best known for lending his name to the Gordon Riots of 1780. An eccentric and flighty personality, he was born into the Scottish nobility and sat in the Hous ...
, of the Protestant Association, appealing for his help (Gordon had himself been excommunicated) and the M.P. John Courtenay, who was later to write ''Conduct of the Dissenters in England'' (1790), raised the matter in Parliament, as a general feeling of unease about the issue began to become apparent. A legal counsellor in 1788 gave his opinion that if the writs had been correctly issued, there seemed no possibility of them being released from prison, unless their marriages could be made out to be
Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...
, or their Roeite marriages could be made legal by a new
Act of Parliament Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the Legislature, legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of ...
. In August 1790
Lord Kenyon Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (5 October 1732 – 4 April 1802), was a British politician and barrister, who served as Attorney General, Master of the Rolls and Lord Chief Justice. Born to a country gentleman, he was initially educated in Ha ...
, the Lord Chief Justice said that they could be released if they did penance, but the two sisters were not at all penitent and refused. Eventually, in 1798 after ''twelve years'' imprisonment, it appears that "Mrs Roe" and "Mrs Bush" were allowed to escape and return to Calverton, when part of the gaol was being rebuilt. The Quaker writer
William Howitt William Howitt (18 December 1792 – 3 March 1879), was a prolific English writer on history and other subjects. Howitt Primary Community School in Heanor, Derbyshire, is named after him and his wife. Biography Howitt was born at Heanor, Derbysh ...
attended one of John Roe's services, and described the converted barn amongst the orchards. A very plain chapel with loft, pulpit and seats (not at all like a
Quaker meeting house A Friends meeting house is a meeting house of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), where meeting for worship is usually held. Typically, Friends meeting houses are simple and resemble local residential buildings. Steeples, spires, and ...
, thought Howitt), and a congregation of thirty slumbering, while Roe, attended by Isabel, provided a "droning commentary" on the transfiguration. John Roe, a small man with long white hair, combed in flowing locks on his shoulders, continued to preach in the converted barn, and died at the age of 94 on Sunday 2 January 1820. The Roeite sect did not long survive the death of its founder and, although White's ''Directory'' of 1844 reported a "small meeting house", there was no mention of the sect in the Religious Census of 1851.


''Calverton Crosse''

There are two references in wills to a "Calverton Crosse", presumably a ''now lost'' village standing cross. Village crosses were free-standing upright structures, usually of stone, which were mostly erected during the medieval period. There are two extant examples in the nearby village of
Linby Linby is a small village and civil parish in Nottinghamshire, England. The nearest town is Hucknall which is immediately to the south-west. The village grew up around the mills on the River Leen, from which Linby's name is derived. Small strea ...
. In 1499 Thomas Belfin (or Belfyn) of Calverton, amongst various bequests to the church of St Wilfrid, including a rood loft, bequeathed 6s 8d (34p) to the cross; ''Item lego fabricæ crucis de le ston in parte occidentali vilæ de Calverton vjs viijd'' (Item I leave to the fabric of the stone cross at the west part of Calverton village 6s 8d). In ''Testamenta Eboracensia'', the 1545 will of Richard Willoughbye, alderman of Nottingham, contains the sentence, 'To Wilyame Willughebie, my sone... a garden sette at Calverton Crosse in the tenor of John Godbere...' The former location of the cross is not known, and in general the very survival of such crosses since the
Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
has been much influenced by local attitudes and religious sentiment. Many seem to have been destroyed by iconoclasts during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the site was allegedly in the west part or side of Calverton (''parte occidentali''), it is perhaps plausible that it stood at the junction of Main Street and George's Lane/Old Mews Lane. The date of its removal and the fate of the stones remain obscure, but it is tempting to speculate that some of them may form parts of nearby dwellings.


Salterford

The
manorial Manorialism, also known as the manor system or manorial system, was the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of Europe, notably France and later England, during the Middle Ages. Its defining features included a large, sometimes forti ...
history of Salterford is complicated and incomplete, and traces of any possible former settlement are not now evident, but its name is still represented, on larger scale maps, by Salterford Farm and by nearby Salterford Dam on the Dover Beck.() In the Domesday survey, it is recorded as belonging to Osbern son of Richard and being six ''bovates'' (perhaps 90 acres) of "waste", which may have meant that it was uninhabited or uncultivated, or both. It is referred to in the 1330
Assize rolls The courts of assize, or assizes (), were periodic courts held around England and Wales until 1972, when together with the quarter sessions they were abolished by the Courts Act 1971 and replaced by a single permanent Crown Court. The assizes ex ...
as ''Molendin de Salturford'' so that a watermill must have been built there by that time. In the early Tudor period it seems to have belonged to a family of landowners called Revell who sold the land, with a pond, to Thomas Hockynson (or Hutchinson) in 1551. The 1589 perambulation of Sherwood Forest includes Salterford Dam as a landmark on the boundary of the royal hunting ground, so evidently the dam (or body of water confined by an embankment ED, was already there as a source of water for a mill by the Dover Beck. A correspondent of the ''
Nottinghamshire Guardian The ''Nottinghamshire Guardian'' was a newspaper in Nottinghamshire, England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest ...
'' writing in 1883 referred to a manor house at Salterford, said by Dr Thoroton to have been occupied by Sir Thomas Hutchinson (1587–1643) father of the
roundhead Roundheads were the supporters of the Parliament of England during the English Civil War (1642–1651). Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I of England and his supporters, known as the Cavaliers or Royalists, who ...
Colonel John Hutchinson. The site of this manor house was supposed to have been ploughed up in the making of flood meadows by the 5th Duke of Portland (1800–1879). The Revd T. Woollen Smith (vicar of Calverton) in replying to this correspondent referred to a scribbled note, of 1760, in the parish register, probably written by Revd Maurice Pugh. There were two burials in June 1614 of women who had been (wrote Pugh), '' ...inhabitants of a house yt stood at Salterford Dam now a Rabit Warren 1760 it looks like some plague. There was a corn mill there and a manor house within a Mote near the Dam head the Mill below it some distance served wh Water by a cut from ye Dam''. Despite Pugh's assertion, the 1609 map of Sherwood Forest, while listing "Mr Randall Barton" and "Mr Hutchinson" as freeholders of both "Saunterforde Manor" and "Saunsham Woods", had showed no habitations or buildings of any kind. In 1662 Colonel Hutchinson sold the manor of Salterford to William Willoughby of
Hunsdon Hunsdon is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England. It is around east of Ware and north-west of Harlow. The population of the village taken at the 2011 Census was 1,080. See also *Baron Hunsdon *Hunsdon Airfield *The Hundred Pa ...
in Hertfordshire. Five years later the manor (including "ground where a mill lately stood") was sold to two London gentlemen and, soon after that, in 1676 Humphrey Jennens, the
ironmaster An ironmaster is the manager, and usually owner, of a forge or blast furnace for the processing of iron. It is a term mainly associated with the period of the Industrial Revolution, especially in Great Britain. The ironmaster was usually a large ...
of
Erdington Erdington is a suburb and ward of Birmingham in the West Midlands County, England. Historically part of Warwickshire and located northeast of central Birmingham, bordering Sutton Coldfield. It was also a council constituency, managed by its o ...
, was authorised by the Sherwood Forest Court to enclose nearby Sansom Wood. In January 1709 Charles Jennens (son of Humphrey and father of the celebrated Charles Jennens) sold the land to
John Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle John Holles, Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, KG, PC (9 January 1662 – 15 July 1711) was an English peer. Early life Holles was born in Edwinstowe, Nottinghamshire, the son of the 3rd Earl of Clare and his wife Grace Pierrepont. Grace was a d ...
. In July of that year Salterford was being rented to a warrener called John Bagulie of
Blidworth Blidworth is a village and civil parish approximately five miles east of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 4,457. Its history can be traced back to the 10th century, although many of t ...
. By 1716 Salterford belonged to Lord Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford, as it had evidently been bequeathed to his
wife A wife (plural, : wives) is a female in a marital relationship. A woman who has separated from her partner continues to be a wife until the marriage is legally Dissolution (law), dissolved with a divorce judgement. On the death of her partner, ...
, who was the only child of the late Duke. In 1721 Salterford was being leased at £20 p.a. to Samuel Wilkinson of Calverton as a rabbit warren, with permission also to make brecks (''q.v. '') to take three crops. It seems that Samuel Wilkinson was the son-in-law of the vicar, Revd Maurice Pugh and was receiving letters from him concerning the tithes for corn, sheep, and even rabbits, up to 1750. The enclosure map of 1780 shows that the vicar had been awarded the area at the junction of Salterford Lane and the Old Rufford Road, "in lieu of tithes", while "Sansome Warren" covered the area where now there are woods and ponds. The Revd T. Woollen Smith noted in 1883 that he had spoken to a man who, as a boy, 'remembered... seeing remains of an old manor house when the present Salterford dam was being made'. Salterford may well have originated as a place where salters used a ford, at a low-lying point on the trackway through the forest, now known as the A614 or Old Rufford Road. It seems however to owe its continued existence in the records to the construction of a mill, at an early time, a few hundred metres away, at the point where the Dover Beck enters Calverton parish. It appears to be the only place in the parish where there was sufficient water power to turn the wheel of a mill and it is therefore to be associated with other ancient mills on that river, such as those formerly at Oxton,
Epperstone Epperstone is an English village and civil parish in mid-Nottinghamshire, located near Lowdham and Calverton. It had a population (including Gonalston) of 589 at the time of the 2011 Census. Many inhabitants commute to work or school in Notting ...
and
Gonalston Gonalston is a small village in Nottinghamshire lying just to the north-east of Lowdham and almost upon the A612 trunk road that runs from Nottingham to Southwell. Gonalston comprises of arable and pasture land in about equal portions, inter ...
. While there may have been a miller's house, at Salterford, to accompany the water-mill, documentary evidence for a Manor House or settlement at the location is lacking. This may well have been simply a landholding, given a collective name in the taxation records, without a central, nucleated settlement ever having existed.


Demographics

At the 2011 census, the parish of Calverton had a resident population of 7,076, of whom, according to the
Office for National Statistics The Office for National Statistics (ONS; cy, Swyddfa Ystadegau Gwladol) is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the UK Parliament. Overview The ONS is responsible for th ...
:


Bus services

Trentbarton Trentbarton operates both local and regional bus services in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire, England. It is a subsidiary of the Wellglade Group. History In October 1913, Trent Motor Traction Company was foun ...
* The Calverton: Nottingham – Sherwood – Daybrook – Arnold – Calverton NottsBus * 747: Oxton – Calverton – Lowdham


References


External links


Calverton Website

Calverton Parish Council

Calverton Twinning Association

Calverton Medical Practice
{{authority control Villages in Nottinghamshire Civil parishes in Nottinghamshire Gedling