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Flintham is a village and civil parish in the Rushcliffe district in Nottinghamshire, 7 miles (11 km) from Newark-on-Trent and opposite
RAF Syerston Royal Air Force Station Syerston, commonly known as merely RAF Syerston , is a Royal Air Force station in the parish of Flintham, near Newark, Nottinghamshire. Opened in 1940, it was used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a bomber base during the ...
on the A46. It had a population of 597 at the 2011 Census and estimated at 586 in 2019. The village name was taken by the Ham class minesweeper HMS Flintham.


Amenities

The Grade I listed Anglican church is dedicated to St
Augustine of Canterbury Augustine of Canterbury (early 6th century – probably 26 May 604) was a monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597. He is considered the "Apostle to the English" and a founder of the English Church.Delaney '' ...
and has "a
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nave attached to a
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tower and chancel." It now belongs to the Fosse Group of parishes, with St Peter's Church, East Bridgford,
St Helen's Church, Kneeton St Helen's Church, Kneeton is a Grade II listed parish church in the Church of England in Kneeton, Nottinghamshire, England. History The church was dates from the 14th century. It was restored and partly rebuilt by Ewan Christian between 1879 an ...
, St Wilfrid's Church, Screveton, and St Mary's Church, Car Colston. A service is held about once a month. The village has a primary school, currently closed, a village hall (the old school building), and a cricket pavilion. Its one pub, the ''Boot and Shoe Inn'', is in Main Street. There is also a voluntarily run Flintham Community Shop and a museum of rural life. Several gardens are normally open to the public for a summer weekend each year. Flintham Football Club was founded in 1969, however, it was rebranded 3BFC in 2011 and moved out of the village.


Etymology

The place-name Flintham seems to contain an
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 ...
personal name, ''Flinta'', + '' hām '' (Old English), a village, a manor, an estate or a homestead, so probably, "Flinta's homestead or village". The hard grey rock, flint, does not exist in the neighbourhood.


Heritage

White's ''Directory of Nottinghamshire'' described Flintham in 1853 as:
"a pleasant and well-built village, 6½ miles south-west by south of Newark, including within its parish 637 inhabitants and of rich loamy land, at a rateable value of £3,324, which was enclosed about the year 1780, when were allotted to the vicar, and about to
Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...
, in lieu of tithes, exclusive of which had previously belonged to the said college. The greater part of the parish belongs to Thomas Blackborne Thoroton Hildyard Esq., but Francis Fryer Esq., Richard Hall Esq. and John Clark Esq. have also estates here. The Duke of Newcastle is lord of the manor, which he holds in fee of the King's Duchy of Lancaster, together with several others in this neighbourhood. His Grace has no land here except allotted to him at the enclosure. Flintham Hall, which has been successively the seat of the Husseys, Hackers, Woodhouses, Disneys, Fytches and Thorotons, is now the residence of Thomas Blackborne Thoroton Hildyard Esq. It is a handsome modern edifice, erected on the site of the ancient mansion. It owes many of its present beauties to the late Col. Hildyard."


Hildyard family

Col.
Thomas Blackborne Thoroton Hildyard Thomas Blackborne Thoroton-Hildyard (8 April 1821 – 19 March 1888) was an English Conservative Party politician who sat in the House of Commons in two periods between 1846 and 1885. Thoroton-Hildyard was the son of Colonel Thomas Blackborne T ...
(1752–1814), was MP for . As a colonel in the Coldstream Guards, Thoroton Hildyard served with British forces in the
American War of Independence The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
. Some Account of the Military, Political and Social Life of the Right Hon. John Manners, Marquis of Granby, Walter Evelyn Manners, Macmillan and Co. Limited, London, 1899
He was also a longstanding friend and advisor to John Manners, 3rd Duke of Rutland, to whom he was related. His grandson
Thomas Blackborne Thoroton Hildyard Thomas Blackborne Thoroton-Hildyard (8 April 1821 – 19 March 1888) was an English Conservative Party politician who sat in the House of Commons in two periods between 1846 and 1885. Thoroton-Hildyard was the son of Colonel Thomas Blackborne T ...
(1821–1888), son of Thomas Blackborne Hildyard (1788–1830), also lived at Flintham Hall and was educated at Eton and Oxford. In 1846 Hildyard entered political life as the Conservative Member of Parliament for the southern division of Nottinghamshire. It was a toughly contested election. Hildyard was supported, according to the University of Nottingham, by the 4th Duke of Newcastle under Lyme "in spite of the fact that Newcastle's son, the Earl of Lincoln, was his opponent. Lincoln attacked Hildyard's youth and inexperience, but the 'young squire' still defeated him by a majority of almost 700. Hildyard held South Nottinghamshire from 1846 until 1852. He was re-elected in 1866. He then continued to represent the South Nottinghamshire constituency until his retirement in 1885." The name of the Hildyard family of Flintham was initially Thoroton. Col. Hildyard, father of MP Hildyard, was formerly called Thomas Blackborne Thoroton. The second son of Thomas Hildyard, formerly Thomas Thoroton, took holy orders and became a rector. In 1816 the Rev. Levett Thoroton married in London the daughter of Sir Alexander Cray Grant, 8th Baronet of Dalvey, Elgin, Scotland, and MP. Rev. Levett Thoroton later became a rector in the East Riding of Yorkshire, where his family owned land, but changed his name to Hildyard in 1815 on marrying a Hildyard heiress, the niece of Sir Robert d'Arcy Hildyard, 4th and last Baronet, who died without issue leaving his estate to his niece. Col. Thoroton Hildyard was descended from Mary ( Levett) Blackborne, who was the daughter of Sir Richard Levett, Lord Mayor of London and the widow of merchant Abraham Blackborne, and her second husband Robert Thoroton of Screveton Hall, Nottinghamshire. (Robert Thoroton and his wife Mary became parties to a contentious lawsuit with the Blackborne family heirs — Thoroton vs. Blackborne — over an enormous estate left by
William Hewer William Hewer (1642 – 3 December 1715), sometimes known as Will Hewer, was one of Samuel Pepys' manservants, and later Pepys's clerk, before embarking on an administrative career of his own. Hewer is mentioned several times in Pepys' diary an ...
, longtime friend of diarist and Secretary of the
Admiralty Admiralty most often refers to: *Admiralty, Hong Kong * Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964 *The rank of admiral * Admiralty law Admiralty can also refer to: Buildings *Admiralty, Tr ...
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.)


Myles Thoroton Hildyard

In 2005 the family's best-known representative,
Myles Thoroton Hildyard Myles Thoroton Hildyard (1914–2005) was an English landowner, diarist and historian. He won the Military Cross for his escape from a prisoner-of-war camp after the Battle of Crete. Life He was the eldest son of the barrister Gerald Moresby Thor ...
, landowner and historian, died at Flintham. Hildyard, a Cambridge-educated landowner and historian, won the Military Cross for a daring escape from a prisoner-of-war camp after the Battle of Crete. He also became known for his work at Flintham Hall, a Grade I listed house, which ''The Independent'' noted in its obituary of Hildyard, has been described as "perhaps the most gloriously romantic Victorian house in England." Hildyard became known in the community for his good fellowship. "Flintham was, for the years Myles Hildyard was its guardian," noted ''The Independent'' in its obituary, "a most remarkable place to visit. Not just because of the beauty and richness of its physical surroundings, but also because he himself was so remarkable a person. 'He was, in a way,' writes Antony Beevor, 'the local equivalent of Nancy Mitford's Lord Merlin.' At Flintham he encouraged and received a stream of visitors young and old, who brought lively conversation, stimulation and enjoyment to a house which, when his father inherited, had been a rather forbidding and lifeless place."


Flintham Hall

Flintham Hall is a Grade I listed country house in the Flintham estate, on the western edge of Flintham village. It was built in 1798 on the site of an earlier house bought from the Disney family by Thomas Thoroton in 1789. It was extended in 1820–1830 by the architect Lewis Wyatt for the British Army Colonel. T. Thoroton and again remodelled in 1853–1859 by George Thomas Hine for Thomas Blackborne Thoroton Hildyard. It is built on two and three storeys, 11 bays wide and 3 bays deep with an attached glassed Victorian conservatory. The conservatory, influenced by London's Crystal Palace, is the finest of its type left in England. The Thoroton Hildyard family continues to reside at the Hall. Flintham Hall, now the home of Myles's nephew Sir Robert Hildyard and his wife Lucy, was recently chief location for "Easy Virtue," a movie based on the
Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time'' magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and ...
play. It was also used in ''
And When Did You Last See Your Father? ''And When Did You Last See Your Father?'' is a 2007 British drama film directed by Anand Tucker. The screenplay by David Nicholls is based on the 1993 memoir of the same title by Blake Morrison. Plot While Blake Morrison, his mother, and ...
'', a film starring
Jim Broadbent James Broadbent (born 24 May 1949) is an English actor. He won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his supporting role as John Bayley in the feature film ''Iris'' (2001), as well as winning a BAFTA TV Award and a Golden Globe for hi ...
and
Colin Firth Colin Andrew Firth (born 10 September 1960) is an English actor and producer. He was identified in the mid-1980s with the " Brit Pack" of rising young British actors, undertaking a challenging series of roles, including leading roles in '' A M ...
, directed by
Anand Tucker Anand Tucker (born 24 June 1963) is a film director and producer based in London. He began his career directing factual television programming and adverts. He co-owns the production company Seven Stories. Personal life Tucker was born in Thailan ...
, The village has a circular brick pinfold resembling those at
Screveton Screveton (pronounced locally "Screveeton" or "Screeton") is an English Civil parishes in England, parish and village in the Rushcliffe borough of Nottinghamshire, with about 100 inhabitants, increasing (including Kneeton) to 191 at the 2011 Cen ...
and Scarrington. A windmill stood in Broad Marsh field from 1779 to 1847 ().


Plough Boy's play

Flintham is one of twenty or so places in Nottinghamshire where the local historian Maurice Barley (1909–1991) found evidence of a traditional English Plough Boy's Play being performed. It consists of 151 lines of text and involves seven characters. It was last performed in Flintham in 1925. It was more recently revived by the Foresters Morris Men in September 2014 with schoolboys from Flintham, and performed at Nottingham Castle and around.Photos of Nottingham Castle performance a


References


Notes


External links


"Papers of the Thoroton and Hildyard families of Screveton and Flintham, Nottinghamshire; 1478–2005"
University of Nottingham
Hilyard Family of Flintham Hall, 17th–19th Century, National Register of Archives, nationalarchives.gov.ukFlintham Hall today, Flickr.com
{{authority control Civil parishes in Nottinghamshire Villages in Nottinghamshire Newark and Sherwood