Mansfield

Mansfield is a market town and the administrative centre of the Mansfield District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest town in the wider Mansfield Urban Area and the second largest settlement in Nottinghamshire (following the city of Nottingham). Henry III granted Mansfield the Royal Charter of a market town in 1227. The town lies in the Maun Valley, north of Nottingham. The district had a population of 110,500 at the 2021 census. Mansfield is the one local authority in Nottinghamshire with a publicly elected mayor, the Mayor of Mansfield. Mansfield in ancient times became the pre-eminent in importance amongst the towns of Sherwood Forest.

Etymology

According to historian William Horner Dove (1894) there is dispute to the origins of the name. Three conjectures have been considered: the name may have been given to the noble family of Mansfield who came over with William the Conqueror, other sources suggest that the name came from Manson, an Anglo-Saxon word for traffic and a field meaning a place of trade, while others claim the town is named after the River Maun which runs through Mansfield, the town being built around the river.

History

Roman to Medieval period

Settlement dates to Roman Britain times between AD 43 to AD 410. Hayman Rooke in 1787 discovered two Roman villas between Mansfield Woodhouse and Pleasley; a cache of denarii (300-400 Roman Silver Coins were found near King's Mill in 1849). A Roman tessellated pavement was found in one of the Villa’s near Mansfield Woodhouse.

In AD 868 the Danes came into the county and by AD 877 they had complete control over the county. Their occupation left names on the town such as Skerry Hill, Ratcliffe Gate and Carr Bank.

upright=0.6, left, The Roman tessellated pavement found in Mansfield Woodhouse

The Royal Manor of Mansfield was held by the King. In 1042, Edward the Confessor possessed a manor in Mansfield. During the Norman Conquest in 1066, William the Conqueror made Sherwood Forest a Royal Forest for hunting.

Mansfield was recorded as being ''Mammesfeld'' in the Wapentake of Broxtowe and the land of William the Conqueror in the Domesday Book of 1086. William owned ''two carucates, five sochmans, and thirty-five villains; twenty borders, with nineteen carucates and a half in demesne, a mill, piscary, twenty-four acres of meadow and pasture in Mansfield.

In the time of Henry II of England, the king visited what is now known as Kings Mill, staying at the home of Sir John Cockle for a night having been hunting in Sherwood Forest. Sir John Cockle was later known as the Miller of Mansfield. In 1199 the Manor was owned by King John. King John used to visit Mansfield frequently between 1200 and 1216, that he built a residence here. Later, Edward I held a Royal Council in the town. The Manor, then owned by Henry III, subsequently passed to Henry de Hastings. In 1329 Queen Isabella, mother of Edward III, was the Lady of the Manor of Mansfield.William Horner Groves, The History of Mansfield, (1894) retrieved on 5 December 2020.

Market-petition documents of 1227 spelt Mansfield ''Maunnesfeld''. Richard II signed a warrant in November 1377 to grant tenants the right to hold a four-day fair each year; the spelling had changed to ''Mannesfeld''. Mansfield, Skegby and Sutton in Ashfield were the land of the king in 1086 as stated in the Domesday Book.Lady Antonia Fraser, Domesday Book (1992) retrieved on 7 April 2023 There are remains of the 12th-century King John's Palace in Kings Clipstone, between Mansfield and Edwinstowe, and it was an area of retreat for royal families and dignitaries through to the 15th century. It was here that William the Lion of Scotland met Richard I of England (Richard the Lionheart) to congratulate him on his return from the crusades. It was also where Queen Eleanor the first wife of Edward I was taken ill and moved to Harby. King John and Edward I are reputed to have had impromptu parliaments at the Parliament Oak near Market Warsop.

St Peter and St Paul's Church is mentioned in the 1086 Doomsday Book and in 1092 it was passed by William II to Robert Bloet the bishop of Lincoln and Lord Chancellor of England.

Access to the town was by road from the city of Nottingham, on the way to Sheffield. In the town centre, a commemorative plaque was erected in 1988 together with a nearby tree to mark the point thought once to be the centre of Sherwood Forest. The plaque was refurbished in 2005 and moved to a ground-plinth.

Tudor and Stuart periods

In 1516, during the reign of Henry VIII, an act of parliament settled the Manor to Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk.Horner-Groves, W. (1894). The History of Mansfield. F Murray. 1 April 2023

Dame Cecily Flogan in 1521, gave extensive land to the parish church and community in Mansfield in her will. The church at the time was in the hands of Edward VI.

Travellers in the 16th and 17th centuries had several inns and stable yards dating from the medieval period to stop at: the Harte; the Swan, which survives and has a 1490 dating stone; the Talbot; the White Bear; the Ram, with timber from before 1500; and the White Lion. Several timber-framed cruck buildings were demolished in 1929; and in 1973 a local historical society documented another during demolition dated to 1400 or earlier. Other Tudor houses in Stockwell Gate, Bridge Street, and Lime Tree Place were also demolished to make way for development before they could be viewed for listing. Most remaining buildings are from the 17th century. The Swan was rebuilt in 1584, and became a coaching inn in the 1820's/30s.

The Manor was passed to George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury the husband of Bess of Hardwick, Countess of Shrewsbury in 1589, who then passed it to Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury (the 6th Earls son) until his death in 1616. Bess's daughter Mary Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury the wife of Gilbert Talbot became the owner. Finally the Manor was passed to the Dukes of Newcastle and Portland.

Mansfield and surrounding areas in Nottinghamshire became a centre for Nonconformism, separating from the Church of England.

In 1647 George Fox who was originally from Fenny Drayton in Leicestershire lived in Mansfield and worked as a shoemaker for 4 years. George lived in a cottage at the site of St Phillip Neri Catholic Church and ground on Chesterfield Road. It was at this time he started his ministry. George Fox in 1649 was imprisoned in Nottingham for interrupting the service at the church in Mansfield Woodhouse. He became the founder of the (Religious Society of Friends) Quakers. Mansfield became the birth place of the Quaker religion after Fox had a revelation walking past St Peter and St Paul's Church and felt compelled to preach to others. The revelation is mentioned in his journal to which he states 'and as I was walking by the steeplehouse side, in the town of Mansfield the Lord said unto me, that which people do trample upon must be thy food. And as the Lord spoke he opened it to me how that people and professors did trample upon the life, even the life of Christ was trampled upon…'. The 'steeplhouses' meaning the church of St Peter and St Pauls Church. This was during the time of the English Civil War.

There is a Quaker Heritage Trail in the town. The former meeting house was on the site of the bus station. Fox met Elizabeth Hooton at her home Quaker House in nearby Skegby; she is usually considered to be the first person to accept the doctrines of Quakerism.

The Old Meeting House, Meeting House Yard built in 1702

The Old Meeting House (Unitarian church) on Stockwell Gate was built in 1702 and is the oldest nonconformist place of worship in Nottinghamshire. The history of the church is traced back to 1666. During the persecution of Presbyterian ministers (at the time of the Nonconformists Act 1665), eight ministers sought refuge in Mansfield under the protection of Reverend John Firth.

In 1690, during the reign of William III and Queen Mary, Daniel Clay was put in the pillory in Mansfield for disloyalty, for speaking these words: "God dam King William and Queen Mary and yt King James both should and would come again."

Elizabeth Heath founded the almshouses for the poor in 1691. Six were to house Quakers and six members of the established church.

18th century

In 1709 Samuel Brunt left £436.15 to the relief of the poor inhabitants of Mansfield. Faith Clerkson in 1725 and Charles Thompson in 1784 both donated money to educating children in Mansfield. This formulated the beginning of the Brunt's Charity.

Robert Dodsley, who wrote ''The King and the Miller of Mansfield'', was a stocking weaver in the town. His writings were set in the town also. He became one of the foremost publishers of that day, publishing Dr Samual Johnson’s 'London' in 1738. Later, he suggested and helped finance Johnson's '' Dictionary of the English Language''.

In 1750 George Whitefield, one of the founders of Methodism) came to preach in the town. The Moot Hall in the Mansfield Market Place was erected in 1752 by Henrietta Harley, Countess of Oxford and Countess Mortimer.

It was recorded that the Mansfield Workhouse was originally based on Nottingham Road in 1777, housing 56 inmates. It later moved to Stockwell Gate, where the Mansfield Union Workhouse was designed to house 300 people under the Mansfield Poor Law.

In 1790, John Throsby described Mansfield as 'a flourishing and genteel market town, general well built.....and is certainly an ancient place, and some think of high antiquity'.

19th century

In 1851 Lord George Bentinck was commemorated in the Cavendish Monument (Bentinck Memorial) in the Market Place in Mansfield., paid for by public subscription. The monument has a square base and three steps, and the style is Gothic revival It was originally intended to include a figure of Lord George, but there were insufficient funds.

In 1894 William Horner Groves described Mansfield as "one of the quaintest and most healthy of the towns in the Midland counties, is the market town for an agricultural district of eight miles around it. It is the capital of the Broxtowe Hundred of Nottinghamshire, and gives its name to a Parliamentary Division of the county"

20th century

The Carnegie Old Library on Leeming Street was funded and erected in 1905 by the industrialist and philanthropist
Andrew Carnegie. 1905 was also the year that the Mansfield and District Light Railways tram system was opened; it closed in 1932.

Carnegie Old Library, now an arts centre

Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visited Mansfield in 1977, to mark her Silver Jubilee.

Ancient markets

Mansfield is a market town with a 700-year-old market tradition; a royal charter was issued in 1227. The present market square was created after demolition under the Mansfield Improvement Act 1823( 4 Geo. 4. c. xcii). In the centre is the Bentinck Memorial, built in 1849, which commemorates Lord George Bentinck (1802–1848), son of the William Bentinck, 4th Duke of Portland, a local landowner.

upright= 0.6, Buttercoss, West Gate

The nearby Buttercross Market in West Gate, site of an old cattle market and named for the buttercross, has a centrepiece of local sandstone dating from the 16th century. Mansfield District Council closed this section in 2015. Adjacent is Mansfield Library, officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1977 and refurbished in 2012. The West Gate Pump commemorates John Adams bringing the first Methodist service to Mansfield in 1788.

Economy

Town centre

Mansfield has a large market place within its commercial and retail centre.
Queens Walk
Until 2016, there was also market trading at the old Buttercross Market. Among Mansfield's retail outlets is the Four Seasons shopping centre created in 1973–1976, with over 50 units occupied by national chains and phone shops.

Exchange Row

Close to the Market Place is Leeming Street, which houses Mansfield Museum, The Palace Theatre, restaurants, public houses, bars and night clubs.

Westgate

Rosemary Centre, built as a large weaving shed in 1907 by John Harwood Cash and converted to retail in 1984, is a pedestrianised area off the town centre with a covered streetside parade. There are also three outdoor retail parks, two with adjacent branded fast-food outlets. In April 2023, a planning application to demolish the Rosemary Centre to build a Lidl supermarket and another retail unit was approved.

Since 2010, there has been a town-centre Business Improvement District (BID), financed by 2 per cent extra on the rateable value of nearby businesses. Initially, the BID had offices in the Old Town Hall, before moving in 2015 to allow structural repairs.

The BID also offers events to attract visitors and raise awareness, provides security including banning orders and improved shop frontages, Other BID moves have been "gating off" alleyways blighted by anti-social behaviour, improving signage, and enhancing cleansing operations. and in 2013 installed a crowd-funded town centre Wi-Fi internet installation costing £37,000.

In 2012, Mansfield Constituency Labour Party criticised the BID for receiving almost a million pounds in its first three years, with little to show for it.

Regeneration

Mansfield is going through a period of urban regeneration, with new homes being built for a growing demand. Data collated by the Office for National Statistics in 2020 advised that more people are moving from London to Mansfield than any other part of Nottinghamshire.

Mansfield District Council received 20 million of the UK Government's Towns Fund in 2023 to fund the Mansfield Connect project, which aims to regenerate the former Beales Department Store into a multiagency and community hub for the NHS, the Department of Work and Pensions, Nottinghamshire County Council, Vision West Nottinghamshire College and Mansfield CVS. Also in 2023 the council purchased White Hart Street to be able to redevelop it. Plans for a multimillion pound revamp of a derelict site in Mansfield Town Centre have been announced.
The derelict site on White Hart Street is expected to be regenerated to deliver mixed-use affordable homes, revitalise heritage assets into new commercial spaces, and connect the town centre. Proctor and Matthews have been appointed to take the scheme forward at the cost of £16.5 million.

In February 2022 Severn Trent Water shared its £76 million Green Recovery Project for flood alleviation investment for the town, including rain garden areas around the Market Place, a memorial garden at the back of the Old Town Hall and a pocket park with a slide for children in the existing green space on the corner of Walkden Street/Quaker Way. The 76 million was also spent on the memorial garden on Exchange Row, landscaped areas in Mansfield Market Place and Market House Place as part of the Sustainable Urban Drainage System programme to prevent flooding.

The Memorial Garden, Exchange Row, part of the Green Recovery Project

A significant number of new homes and developments have been built or are planned in Mansfield, including High Oakham Park and the Lindhurst development, which is to include 1700 homes, a hotel, health centre, primary school, care home and offices.

A new hotel is expected to be built on the former bus station as planned from 2020 at the cost of £12 Million. Planning permission has been granted but due to the rising costs of inflation the plans are being revised to be cost effective.

In 2019, Mansfield received £25 million for regeneration and development from the UK towns fund, alongside a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant to renovate parts of the town centre.

Reconstruction of King's Mill Hospital, part of which was completed by 2009, is near the MARR road (Mansfield and Ashfield Regeneration Route) which opened in 2004, a bypass route around the town designed to reduce traffic through-flow and improve public access by connecting the A617 at Pleasley to the A617 at Rainworth. In 2009 Mansfield made an unsuccessful bid for city status, appending redevelopment plans for retail, residential and leisure facilities with road improvements gradually being made.

Several regeneration projects planned for Mansfield involved mass demolition, but the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent central-government funding cuts and escalating austerity measures deferred them. Mansfield District Council promoted two new developments: Arrival Square, opened 2008, an office block occupied by the Probation Service by the rail station; and Queen's Place—completed in late 2013—which cost the council £2.4 million. It offered two new ground-floor retail units and six offices in Queen Street between the new transport interchange and the market square.

The Industrial Revolution

Although Mansfield itself does not show signs of coal mining, a few areas near the town still do. Coal mining was the main industry for most of the 20th century. A violent episode in the UK miners' strike (1984–1985) occurred in Mansfield on May Day 1984. Most of the area's miners had voted against a strike, but the local union initially maintained that the strike was official to show solidarity with strikers in other areas. When the coal board granted an extra day of leave after the bank holiday, a group of working miners confronted union officials and violence broke out with striking miners. Mansfield later hosted a breakaway union, the Union of Democratic Mineworkers, which recruited many who had opposed the 1984–1985 strike. The Coal Authority is based in Mansfield, and the larger than lifesize statue ''Tribute to the British Miner'' by Nikolaos Kotziamanis was erected in 2003 to honour the town's mining heritage.

As demand for coal fell, Mansfield's pits wound down and miners had to find other work. The headstocks close to the village of Clipstone are an important local landmark and said to be the highest in Europe. Community groups are trying to preserve them as a reminder of the area's mining history.

Mining subsidence causes problems for properties around Mansfield. A few streets in and around the town form long rows of terraced houses reminiscent of the affordable housing provided for mine workers in the prime of the industry. Many were demolished in 2012 in Pleasley Hill, Market Warsop and elsewhere.

Mansfield Brewery

Mansfield Brewery, once the United Kingdom's largest independent brewery, was best known for Mansfield Bitter, and its advertising slogan "not much matches Mansfield", which was later used as the title of a play by Kevin Fegan set in the town. In the 1980s, the brewery ran adverts referencing the achievements of contemporary world figures such as Ronald Reagan with the slogan "but he's never had a pint of Mansfield". The brewery was acquired in 1999 by Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries, and closed in 2002 with production moving to facilities around the country. Most of the site was redeveloped as housing, while the ornate office building 'Chadburn House' is now office space for businesses, including the local newspaper, and a micro brewery with a cafe and bar.

Mansfield's old-established soft drink manufacturer, R. L. Jones, with brand names ''Sunecta'' and ''Mandora'', was bought by Mansfield Brewery in 1977. A move to a modern factory in Bellamy Road in 1975 released land projected for a high-density housing development known as Layton Burroughs. Mansfield Brewery sold the business in 1988 for £21.5 million to the Scottish drinks company A. G. Barr plc, producer of Irn-Bru, Tizer, and Mandora. At the time the firm employed 400 people. Production ceased there in January 2011 when A. G. Barr moved production to other sites.

Transport

Railway

Mansfield railway station is on the Robin Hood Line, which connects the town with Nottingham and Worksop; the line was opened in 1995. Trains run generally at hourly intervals each way.

The town was originally the terminus of the Mansfield and Pinxton Railway, a horse-drawn plateway built in 1819 and one of the first acquisitions of the newly formed Midland Railway. The Midland used the final section to extend its new Leen Valley line to the present station in 1849.

The Midland Railway extended its Rolleston Junction–Southwell branch to Mansfield in 1871; continued the line north to Worksop in 1875; opened a link from Mansfield Woodhouse to Westhouses and Blackwell in 1886; and completed another link from Pleasley through Bolsover to Barrow Hill in 1890. The locally promoted Mansfield Railway, between Kirkby South Junction and Clipstone Junction, broke the Midland Railway monopoly; it was opened in stages between 1913 and 1916 for goods trains and, in 1917, for Nottingham Victoria– Ollerton passenger trains, calling at a second Mansfield passenger station. Though nominally independent, the Mansfield Railway connected at both ends with the Great Central Railway, which worked the trains. Mansfield had two railway stations: ''Mansfield Town'', the former Midland station on Station Road; and ''Mansfield Central'', the former Mansfield Railway station in Great Central Road, near Ratcliffe Gate. Mansfield & District Light Railways ran a tram service between 1905 and 1932.

Mansfield Central station lost its scheduled passenger services at the beginning of 1956 and Mansfield Town station closed to passengers in 1964, leaving Mansfield without passenger railway service until 1995. During this period, Mansfield was, by some definitions, the largest town in Britain without a railway station. The closest station was Alfreton; between 1973 and 1995, it was named 'Alfreton and Mansfield Parkway' to encourage use as a railhead for Mansfield.

The Midland Railway's 1875 viaduct in White Hart Street is a Grade II listed building.

Road

The M1 motorway lies west of Mansfield. It is from junction 29 at Heath, Derbyshire for traffic from the north and Chesterfield, and from junction 27 at Annesley for traffic from the south.

The A60 road runs north–south through Mansfield, between Nottingham and Worksop. The A617 road skirts around the town, providing a road link eastwards towards Newark-on-Trent as well as westwards towards Chesterfield and the M1.

The A38 road, the longest 2-digit A-road in Great Britain, terminates at Mansfield, and provides the town with a direct link to Derby.

Buses

Buses in Mansfield are operated mainly by Stagecoach from Mansfield bus station, with Trent Barton and National Express also working the area.

The bus station opened in 2013 near the railway station as part of the ''Gateway to Mansfield'' scheme, replacing a 1977 bus station closer to the town centre.

Education

Primary Schools

* Abbey Primary School
* Asquith Primary School
* Berry Hill Primary School
* Crescent Primary School
* Farmilo Primary and Nursery School
* Forest Town Primary School
* Heatherley Primary School
* Heathlands Primary and Nursery School
* High Oakham Primary School
* Holly Primary School
* Intake Farm Primary School
* John T Rice Infants and Nursery School
* King Edward Primary and Nursery School
* Leas Park Junior School
* Mansfield Primary Academy
* Nettleworth Infant and Nursery School
* Newlands Junior School
* Northfield Primary and Nursery School
* Oak Tree Primary School
* Peafield Lane Academy
* St Edmunds Church of England Primary School
* St Patrick's Catholic Primary School
* St Peter's Church of England Primary Academy
* St Phillip Neri and St Bede Catholic Voluntary Academy
* Sutton Road Primary School
* The Bramble Academy
* The Flying High Academy
* Wainwright Academy
* Wynndale Academy

Secondary Schools

* All Saints Catholic Voluntary Academy
* Queen Elizabeth Academy
* Samworth Church Academy
* The Brunts Academy
* The Garibaldi School
* The Manor Academy

Specialist Schools

* Redgate Primary Academy
* The Beech Academy
* Yeoman Park Academy

College and Associated University

* Vision West Nottinghamshire College and associated Nottingham Trent University

Politics

Mansfield is in Mansfield parliamentary constituency, which also includes neighbouring Warsop. Steve Yemm (Labour) has been the Member of Parliament since 2024.

Mansfield has a directly elected mayor, the Mayor of Mansfield, which since 2019 has been Andy Abrahams.

In April 2017, Sophie Whitby was elected to the Mansfield district as a Member of Youth Parliament, on a manifesto that included promoting equality for the LGBT community.

Places of interest

Mansfield Museum, is situated on Leeming Street. The museum opened in 1904. and has been based on its present site since 1938. The museum won ''The Guardian'' Family-Friendly Museum of the Year Award in 2011.

The Quaker Heritage Trail, starts from Mansfield Bus Station. A map and audio guide is found on the Nottinghamshire County Council website.

The Mansfield Heritage Trail starts from the museum and this comes with a map and audio guide.

St Peter and St Paul's Church is a Grade I listed building. The church is mentioned in the Doomsday Book.

The viaduct was built in 1875. And it is grade II listed.

The Old Meeting House built in 1702.

Parks

Titchfield Park, on the same site as the Water Meadows swimming complex, offers large grassy areas on both sides of the River Maun, crossed by two footbridges. It has a bowls green, hard tennis courts, a basketball court, a children's play area, and many flowerbeds.

Fisher Lane Park stretches from the top of Littleworth to Rock Hill. It is popular with dog walkers and kite flyers, and since the installation of a concrete skate plaza, with skaters. In the summer, children's rides and stalls are set up in the park.

Carr Bank Park

Carr Bank Park has a rocky grotto, a bandstand and summer flower beds. It has a war memorial built of local sandstone, dedicated to soldiers killed in action since the end of the Second World War, to complement the original setting unveiled after the First War in 1921.

Other parks in Mansfield are Berry Hill and King George V Parks.

King George V Park

Mansfield is a few miles from Sherwood Forest, a Royal Forest famous for its links with Robin Hood. Mansfield used to have a tree and a plaque mounted on a plinth in West Gate to mark what was the centre of Sherwood Forest. Nearby was a giant metallic feather sculpture dating from 2007. This was named '' A Spire for Mansfield''.

Entertainment

The Palace Theatre in Leeming St is the town's prime entertainment venue. Built as a cinema in 1910 and originally known as the Palace Electric Theatre, it was adapted into a live theatre with a proscenium arch. It was known as the Civic Hall and Civic Theatre before the current name was revived in 1995. With a seating capacity of 534, the theatre is a mid-scale touring venue. It presents a programme of professional and amateur productions and a yearly pantomime.

Mansfield Super Bowl, a 28-lane alley with hospitality, opened in 1991. Facing closure in 2014, it was sold and refurbished in 2015.

The old Carnegie Library, founded in 1905 in Leeming Street, became an arts and performance centre in 1976. It houses a recording studio, meeting room and 100-seat Studio Theatre.

Mansfield also has a large Odeon Cinemas on a new retail and entertainment park outside the town centre. The previous ABC town-centre cinema was used as a snooker centre until closure in 2012; late in 2013 it was converted into a church.
Odeon Cinema and restaurants/bar.

Summer in the Streets

Every year between June and August, Mansfield District Council hosts a ''Summer in the Streets'' festival. This consists of various public events held all across the town over many days, such as children's entertainment, fairground rides in the market square, and hands-on workshops for things like crafts and circus skills.

The festival highlight is a final event in Titchfield Park called Party in the Park. Its range of entertainment includes live music acts by local bands, performances from local dance groups, and activities such as face painting. For 2012 and 2013, this culminating event was cancelled for austerity reasons.

Entertainment history

Mansfield was home to Venue 44, a nightclub that gave birth to the superclub Renaissance which was operated there in 1992–1994 by Geoff Oakes and launched the DJ's Sasha, John Digweed, Nigel Dawson and Ian Ossia to global fame. The building was demolished in 2010.

The Intake, a live-music venue in Kirkland Avenue, closed in 2016. The ''Town Mill'', a former waterside mill on the banks of the Maun at the edge of the town centre, was turned into a pub and live music venue in 2002, but closed in 2010, citing the smoking ban, rising beer prices and recession among its reasons for failure.

On 21 August 2010 the Irish boy band Westlife performed live at Field Mill stadium, home to Mansfield's football team, the Stags. This was the first big-name act to visit the town.

Churches

St Peter and St Paul's Church is a Grade I listed building. It is mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086 and was mostly built by the Normans.

St Johns Church, a Grade II listed building, was built in 1854 and designed by Henry Isaac Stevens. St Mark's Church was built in 1897; the church building is Grade II listed. St Lawrence the Martyr Church on Skerry Hill was built in 1909 and is Grade II listed.

St Philip Neri Church is a Roman Catholic Church on Chesterfield Road South.

A Quaker Meeting House of the Religious Society of Friends is on Rosemary Street.

Sport

Mansfield is home to Mansfield Town FC, known as the Stags or yellows. Relegated to the Conference National after 77 years in the Football League at the end of the 2007–2008 season, Mansfield Town returned to the Football League after winning the 2012–2013 Conference National title. They were promoted to League One (Third Tier) for the first time in 22 years in April 2024. Non-League club AFC Mansfield plays in the Forest Town area of Mansfield.

Mansfield Rugby Club is a rugby union club based at Eakring Road and currently plays in Midlands 1 East, a sixth-tier league in the English rugby union system. It won the Notts Cup for five years in succession and for a record 18 times.

Mansfield Giants is Mansfield's Premier Basketball Club, and has a three-star Accreditation and Club Mark from the English Sports Council. The team plays in the England Basketball (EB2).

Mansfield hosted an annual half marathon for more than 30 years until 2011.

Angling is well supported in the Mansfield district, where ponds remain from the former textile milling industry.

Tennis is catered for by Mansfield Lawn Tennis Club located at the same site since 1883, with two grass courts and four asphalt courts, three of them floodlit. Further hard-surface courts are found in the district at six Mansfield District Council park locations.

Mansfield is home to Mansfield Roller Derby, Mansfield's premier Flat Track Roller Derby league.

Mansfield has two indoor swimming centres and a third, smaller pool attached to a school. These facilities give Mansfield the largest square meterage of indoor water-sports facilities per capita of any town in the United Kingdom with less than 100,000 inhabitants. The town is one of three outlets for the Nottinghamshire County Council Swim Squad, which competes as Nova Centurion. The Rebecca Adlington Swimming Centre at Sherwood Swimming Baths includes a 25-metre pool and an endless stroke-improvement training pool with variable-resistance water flow. The complex uses a ground-source heat pump backed by a biomass boiler burning wood pellets prepared from waste by a local wood yard.

At the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, a Mansfield contestant, Rebecca Adlington, won two gold medals, for 400 and 800-metre freestyle swimming. After her record-breaking success, Adlington was welcomed home to Mansfield by thousands lining the streets to applaud as she passed in an open top bus. This culminated in an appearance at the old Town Hall in the Market Square. Her success boosted swimming interest in the area, leading to expansion of swimming classes to encourage young people to begin swimming. At the 2012 Olympic Games in and around London, Adlington won two Bronze medals again for 400 and 800 metres, the best performance of a generally disappointing ''Team GB'' swimming squad. She retired from competitive swimming in February 2013.

Water Meadows swimming complex in Bath Street, on the site of the former Mansfield Baths, has a gym and a soft-play area for children with an adjoining café, as well as one 25-metre competition pool, two other pools, and a small teaching pool. The leisure lagoon pool has an artificial wave machine operating periodically, and also a slide and a shallow area like a beach. The complex is popular with family groups, and many surrounding schools make use of its facilities.

Mansfield Bowling Club is reputed to have origins in the 1700s. The club played at a bowling green to the rear of the Bowl in Hand pub in the town centre, until relocating into the grounds of Queen Elizabeth's Academy, with a new facility including pavilion opening in 2009.

Cemeteries and crematorium

The main cemetery and crematorium occupy a site accessed from Derby Road, on the southern edge of town near the boundary with Ashfield. They share a car park. In late 2015, Mansfield District Council recognised the need for additional spaces and planning consent was obtained. The older part of the cemetery, fronting Nottingham Road and Forest Hill (the old Derby Road) has on-street parking. Site access on foot can be hard due to the steep slope.

The cemetery was opened in 1857 due to insufficient church graveyard space, the mid-to-late Victorian population growth and several then-new churches built with little or no dedicated graveyard areas. A 10-acre extension was made in 1898. Registered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission as 'Nottingham Road Cemetery', this cemetery contains the war graves of 51 Commonwealth service personnel of World War I and 45 from World War II.

The adjacent ''Mansfield and District Crematorium'', with two chapels seating 35 and up to 80, was set up in 1960. and is a responsibility shared between Mansfield District Council, Ashfield District Council and Newark and Sherwood District Council.

There are other cemeteries on the A60 at Mansfield Woodhouse and at Warsop, and off the A617 at Pleasley Hill.

Media

The local newspapers are the ''Chad'' (formerly ''Chronicle Advertiser'') and ''Mansfield and Ashfield News Journal'', a community newspaper.

Radio stations include Mansfield 103.2, BBC Radio Nottingham and Capital Midlands.

Local television coverage is provided by '' BBC East Midlands Today'' and '' ITV News Central''.

Notable people

* Andrea Adams, BBC broadcaster and journalist.
* Rebecca Adlington (born 1989), Olympic bronze and gold medallist swimmer

* Dorothy Atkinson, actress and singer
* Richard Bacon (born 1975), broadcaster
* John Balance (1962–2004), singer/musician with Coil
* Cassie Bradley, actress raised in Nottingham and Mansfield
* William Chappell (1582–1649), English scholar and clergyman
* James Collinson (1825–1881), Pre-Raphaelite painter
* Kris Commons (born 1983), Celtic F.C. footballer
* Nicholas Crafts (born 1949), economic historian
* Stephen Critchlow (1966–2021), radio, TV and stage actor
* John Darrell (1562–16??), Anglican clergyman known for his puritan views and practice as an exorcist
* Ed Davey (born 1965), British politician, Leader of the Liberal Democrats since 2019
* Craig Disley (born 1981), Grimsby Town F.C. footballer
* Robert Dodsley (1704–1767), playwright and poet, wrote ''The King and The Miller of Mansfield'' and ''Sir John Cockle''
* Wes Dolan (born 1980), actor and singer/songwriter
* Suzanne Eggins, a linguist in Australia
* Watson Fothergill (1841–1928), Victorian architect
* Elspeth Gibson (born 1963), Nottingham-born fashion designer, studied at Mansfield College of Art and Design.
* Harry Harpham (1954–2016), coal miner and MP for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough
* Mark Henderson (born 1957), Tony Award winning lighting designer
* Mark Holmes (born 1960), lead singer of Canadian new wave rock group Platinum Blonde
* Samuel Jebb (1694–1772), English physician and literary scholar
* Rob Kozluk (born 1977), footballer
* Ric Lee (born 1945), drummer with Ten Years After
* Sir Richard Leese (born 1951), local politician in Manchester
* Leo Lyons (born 1943), bassist, songwriter, producer with Ten Years After
* Alexander Malcolm (1864–1956), former member of parliament in New Zealand
* Charles James Martin (1886–1955), artist
* William Martin (1767–1810), naturalist, born in Mansfield 1767.
* John Ogdon (1937–1989), pianist, born in Mansfield Woodhouse
* Steve Ogrizovic, footballer born in Mansfield
* Greg Owen (born 1972), professional golfer
* Carly Paoli (born 1989), opera singer
* Joel Peat, lead guitarist of the band Lawson
* James Perch (born 1985), Mansfield Town footballer
* Tom Scott, YouTuber and former TV presenter
* Sir Charles Seely, 2nd Baronet (1859–1926), British Industrialist
* Alvin Stardust (1942–2014), pop singer, lived in the town when a child
* Richard Sterne (1596–1683), Archbishop of York in 1664
* Steve Ward (born 1957), accoladed as oldest active professional boxer
* John Bainbridge Webster (1955–2016), Professor of Divinity at St Mary's College, University of St Andrews.
* John Whetton (born 1941), track runner
* Helen Wilson (1864–1951), a physician and social purity campaigner
* Oliver Wilson (born 1980), professional golfer
* Dame Glenis Willmott - medical scientist and former Leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party, aged 10 was raised in the town.
* Pollyanna Woodward, TV presenter
* James Graham (playwright), British Playright and Screenwriter.
* George Fox (founder of the Quakers) lived in Mansfield in 1647.

International Relations

Mansfield is twinned with:
* Heiligenhaus, Germany
* Mansfield, Massachusetts, United States
* Mansfield, Ohio, United States
* Reutov, Russia
* Stryi, Ukraine

Geography and climate

Mansfield has a temperate oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb), with a narrow temperature range, an even spread of rainfall, low levels of sunshine and often breezy conditions throughout the year. The closest weather-station records for Mansfield come from Warsop in Meden Vale, seven miles to the north.

The absolute maximum temperature record for the area stands at , recorded in August 1990. In a typical year the warmest day should reach and 12.72 days should reach or higher.

The absolute minimum temperature record for the area is , recorded in January 1987. There is air frost on an average of 59 nights a year.

Rainfall averages 634 mm a year, with 113 days reporting in excess of 1 mm of rain (observation period 1971–2000).

See also

* Cantamus Girls Choir
* Portland College
* Listed buildings in Mansfield (inner area)
* Listed buildings in Mansfield (outer areas)

Notes

References

External links

Mansfield District Council Official site

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Towns in Nottinghamshire
Market towns in Nottinghamshire
Unparished areas in Nottinghamshire
Former civil parishes in Nottinghamshire
Mansfield District