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Map sources for Beeston, Nottinghamshire at grid reference SK5236

Beeston is a town in the county of Nottinghamshire, England some 3 miles (5 km) south west of the centre of Nottingham.

Although typically regarded as a suburb of the City of Nottingham, it lies just within the separate Borough of Broxtowe. From 1935 until 1974 Beeston was paired with the town of Stapleford (2 km to the North West) in Beeston and Stapleford Urban District Council. Beeston is in the Broxtowe constituency for UK general elections.

Contents 1 Geography 2 History 2.1 Domesday 2.2 More recent history 3 Transport 4 Built environment 4.1 The Land Societies 4.2 Other development 5 Shopping, restaurants, pubs and cafés 6 Sport 7 Trivia 8 References 9 External links

Suburban development of the mid twentieth century means that the built up area of Beeston is now continuous with the former villages of Chilwell to the west and Wollaton to the northeast, although Beeston is still separated from Bramcote to the northwest by the Beeston Fields Golf Course. There are two main areas of the town. North of the railway that runs through the town lies the main part, including the main shopping district. Southwards lies the mixed housing and industrial area of Beeston Rylands. Beeston Rylands was historically more at risk of flooding from the River Trent to the south, and this has meant that property here was less desirable, and led to more modestly sized houses being constructed, originally mostly for rental. The last serious flood was in 1947 and reached far beyond the railway line, most of Queens Road was flooded as was Nether Street. The construction of recently strengthened flood protection^[1] has effectively removed the flooding threat to Beeston Rylands, although houses remain cheaper than comparable property in Beeston.

The eastern edge of Beeston abuts to the main campus of the University of Nottingham. Although most of the University is within the City of Nottingham boundaries, the student self catering flats of Broadgate Park, owned by private company UPP, are partly within the borders of Beeston. Beeston also has a large population of postgraduate students, who tend to prefer its quieter atmosphere to that of the Nottingham areas of Dunkirk and Lenton where many undergraduates live.

	North: Ilkeston
West: Long Eaton, Stapleford, Derby	Beeston	East: Nottingham, University of Nottingham
	South: River Trent, Clifton

In Bestune, at the Conquest, Alfag, Alwine, and UIchel, the Saxons had three manors consisting of three carucates of land assessed, which was taken from them, and given to William Peverel, the lord of Nottingham Castle, who had in his demesne, or chief manor estate, 2 plough teams, there being 17 bond tenants, called villeins, who where unable to leave the estate without the lord's consent, and yet each cultivating, say, 15 acres of arable land, and 1 ordinary tenant, called a sochman, who together had 9 plough teams. There were 24 acres of meadow, and the annual value of the estate was 30/–.

Beeston grew from its village status with its development as a silk weaving centre in the early nineteenth century. The first silk mill was burned down (along with Nottingham Castle) in the Reform Bill riots of 1831. With the decline of the silk industry, many of the former mills moved to light industrial uses in the early twentieth century. Equipment produced by the Beeston Boiler Company is still to be found all around the former British Empire.

In 1901 the National Telephone Co., Ltd. established a factory there for making telephone material. This was taken over by the British L.M. Ericsson Manufacturing Co., Ltd., in 1903. Shortly before the transfer, most of the old factory was destroyed by fire, and in the rebuilding it was extended. A new power station was built. In 1906 and 1907 a large new building was erected, chiefly devoted to cabinet work. The old factory building covered an area of 63,000 sq. ft., and the cabinet factory 70,000 sq. ft., whilst the power station had an area of 7,000 sq. ft., making a total covered space of 140,000 sq. ft. Under the Plessey name these large premises continued to be a major source of local employment through the 1980s. Plessey became GPT (now Marconi) with GEC's involvement. The site is now occupied by Siemens, and now Ericsson, after their take-over of Marconi in early 2006.

The pharmaceutical and retail chemist group Boots has its headquarters on a campus 1km southeast of Beeston. This site is partly within the boundaries of the City of Nottingham. The grade 1 listed modernist buildings on Boots campus - designed by engineer Owen Williams - are very difficult to see from any public highway.

Between 1880 and the turn of the century, Thomas Humber and his partners were making bicycles and eventually motor-cycles and cars at a large factory at the junction of what is now Queens Road and Humber Road. At its height it employed 2000 although this came to an abrupt end in 1907 when the company moved all operations to Coventry.

Motor manufacture returned to Beeston for a short period in 1987 when The Middlebridge Company set up a small factory on Lilac Grove and produced 77 Scimitar cars. The company went into liquidation in 1990.

Other wide-reaching local companies include Myford lathes and the internet firm Webfusion (then Hosteurope and now part of PIPEX Communications).

The Royal Mail's main sorting office for the Nottingham area (NG) is sited on the eastern edge of the town at Padge Road. This main building includes a corner section for handling the local distribution of Beeston mail. The sorting office has taken over the processing of mail from the Derby area, becoming a regional sorting office and distribution centre. Post typically leaves the site headed for Doncaster, the Princess-Royal Delivery Centre in London, or East Midlands Airport.

The Nottingham and Derby Road was turnpiked in 1758-9, and dis-turnpiked in 1870. A branch of the Nottingham and Ashby Turnpike Road, usually called the Sawley branch, went through Beeston. In 1831 an advertisement of the four-horse coach from Nottingham to Birmingham states that the coach calls at Beeston daily at 8.30 a.m., and in the opposite direction at 3.30 p.m.

The Canal from the River Trent, via Nottingham and Lenton, to Langley Mill, was completed in 1802. A branch canal from Lenton chain to Beeston Cut was made by the Trent Navigation Company under an Act passed in 1794, and it involved the necessity for the weir at the Rylands to hold up the water to supply the canal through to Trent Bridge.

The Midland Counties Railway from Nottingham to Derby through Beeston was opened on 30 May 1839. Today Beeston also has good rail transport links with Beeston served by Midland Main Line services to Leicester and London St Pancras and local services.

Frequent bus services operate to Nottingham, Nottingham East Midlands Airport, Derby, Loughborough and other local towns, operated by Trent Barton and Nottingham City Transport; ample free car parking is available.

Proposals have been approved by the Government to build a light rail line through the town as part of the new Nottingham Express Transit system. These are motivated in part by traffic jams on local roads during rush hour periods. There has been some local opposition to the scheme, as local traders fear that during the work to construct the line, business would be adversely affected. However, surveys by Nottingham Express Transit also show strong local support for the scheme^{[citation needed]}.

Beeston has a number of historic buildings, including its manor house and parish church of St. John the Baptist. The church dates from the 11th century but was largely rebuilt in 1843 by Sir George Gilbert Scott. Both are included in a conservation area which extends to include some characterful older houses in West End.

Information on Beeston Parish Church on the Southwell Diocesan History Project website

An act was passed for inclosing lands in the parish of Beeston, and in 1809 the Commissioners stated that the lands amounted to 822 acres, to be made tithe free, and the ancient inclosed lands and homesteads liable to tithe was £687 2s 29d. They then proceeded to fix the width of the roads. The Nottingham and Derby turnpike road was fixed at fifty feet. Wollaton road, then called Cowgate, was thirty feet. The Inclosure not only altered the appearance of part of the parish from a moor growing poor grass, to cultivated fields with hedges, and thereby increasing the food supply, but it relieved farmers from the annoyance of having to hand over the tenth of their product in kind.

Some lands on or near to Bramcote Moor, but in Beeston parish, were inclosed in 1847, by provisional order of the Inclosure Commissioners.

Before the introduction of gas generally in the parish there was a limited supply from the Mill to separate houses. The Church was first lit with gas in 1857. The Public Lighting Act was adopted at a Vestry Meeting on 13 November 1862. The opposition to lamps in the streets was strong, and the effigy of an active promoter of it was carried on an ass round the village and hung on a lamp-post, and but for police interference would have been burned. In 1861 gas was supplied from Nottingham, and for street lamps in 1872. Beeston was connected to the mains water supply in 1876.

The crenellated listed building of the Anglo-Scotian Mills remains on Wollaton Road to the north of the town centre. It is a solitary reminder of the former dominance of silk and lace mills on the local skyline. The buildings have been converted into a series of appartments that are currently for sale by their developer.

A rare survival is the G H Hurt & Son Shawl Factory, which is occasionally open to the public. Shawls are produced on knitting machines and hand finished in much the same way as they have been for centuries. The factory contains examples of knitting frames from the 17th century.

Lost industrial buildings include the rebuilt silk mill and the looming bulk of the Neville Works mill on the boundary with Chilwell (later occupied by the Myford lathe factory).

Following the enclosure of the land surrounding Beeston in 1809 the area of St. John's Grove was allotted to the vicar of the parish church. In 1878 the land was acquired from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners by the Beeston Land Society, a group of citizens, who divided the land out into 28 plots of between three-quarters and one acre and set out the wide straight streets. The majority of the houses are of Edwardian and late Victorian origin. The Land Society set conditions for the developers including no public houses, and strict building lines which ensured that properties were set back a consistent distance from the road. The St. John's Grove Estate is now a conservation area.^[2]

Shortly after 1878, the Imperial Park Land Society and it sister organisation Beeston Building Society were founded. Together, they aimed to assist the development and financing of relatively superior housing, centred on what is now Imperial Road, north of Newton Street, adjacent to the St John's Grove development and bounded on the north by North Street. The early model was saving by a group of subscribers and the allocation of funds as they accumulated by the drawing of lots, in turn for each of them to build a house.

This initial success was repeated when, in 1881, a syndicate acquired land from George Fellows, of the banking family that had its home at Belle Vue, now Beeston Fields Golf Club. The Belle Vue Land Society was formed to develop this land using similar methods to Imperial Park. The development lay to the north and formed a continuation to Imperial Park. Denison Street formed its northern extreme and Montague Street defined its eastern limit.

Some areas originally developed by the Land Societies have been spoiled where original plots have been subdivided and more modern properties built in styles not in keeping with some of the original buildings. Many of the properties in the Imperial Park and Bellvue Estates have lost their original elegance with the lowering of chimney stacks, inappropriate replacement of windows and doors with modern PVCu, the loss of hedged fronts to brick walls or fencing, and paving over front gardens for parking.

A particularly fine Methodist Church was constructed by the architect W.J. Morley of Bradford on Chilwell High Road in 1902. Its landmark spire is now visible for miles around since the demolition of several large mill buildings in the 1990s. The front of the building is floodlit at night which contributes to light pollution.

Rylands was originally a small settlement around Beeston Lock, comprising some tens of houses and two pubs, although the name now refers to all of the area south of the railway line. The Jolly Angler was originally on the river side of the canal, but has since moved. Beeston began to spread south of the railway line in the late 19th century when a few Victorian villas were built near the level crossing by the station. Over the first few decades of the 20th century, several estates were built to house the workers at Ericssons and Boots, both of which had large factory sites also south of the railway line, and these estates joined Beeston and Rylands. Further post-WWII development filled in the gaps, initially with an estate of council houses and flats, and latterly with private houses and bungalows. The last significant development was in 1970 of Meadow Farm, now the four roads of timber-framed semi-detached houses between Beech Avenue and the canal. Since then Beeston Rylands has had only a small amount of infill development, although the Ericsson/Siemens site has recently been acquired for mixed-use development.

Beeston has a reputation throughout Nottingham for the quality and vibrancy of its local culture, a reputation reflected in the wide selection of pubs, bars, and shops to be found here. Beeston's main rather grim shopping area is situated around the High Road, much of which has been pedestrianised. Many chain stores have branches in Beeston, and there are also a large number of high-quality local shops, including specialist east Asian and Mediterranean.

Beeston is perhaps best known for the sheer variety of its traditional local boozers. Of particular note is the Victoria Hotel, which bans mobile phones and has no piped music. There are also large numbers of takeaways and several restaurants, offering a wide selection of food including Chinese, Thai, and Indian cuisine. Many cafés are to be found around the main shopping centre,

"The Square"- the centre of Beeston- is a 1960s shopping development, most of which is pedestrianised. A £1.4m redevelopment in the Broadgate area was completed in late 2006.^[3]

The shopping centre is cut in two by Wollaton Road which has a very high volume of traffic. The lighting of the square contributes to local light pollution. A large area south east of the shopping centre is under demolition in 2006 in preparation for a Tesco superstore and the fire station is also due for re-location to a new site on Hassocks Lane.

Until 2006, Beeston was home to Nottingham Rugby Club, which has now sold the land in the south of the town and moved to share the pitch at the Notts County ground. The town has a thriving sporting community, with a growing youth football club in Beeston Centurions. ^[4]

• The name inspired the character of Mr Beeston, the school headmaster in the long running BBC radio programme—King St Junior—a tale set in an everyday junior school.
• The bins that are located on the High Road are decorated in black and gold, with a symbol of a bee on each. This refers to the "Bee" in "Beeston".
• There is also a sculpture on the High Road of a man sitting next to a bee hive. Again, this is another reference to the "Bee". The sculpture is popularly known as the "Bee-man", "the man of Beeston", "The Beekeeper" or "Bee King". Some people are known to affectionately call him "George".
• Famous Beeston residents include the 19th century bare-knuckle boxer William "Bendigo" Thompson and the fashion designer Sir Paul Smith]], who attended Beeston Fields grammar school whilst growing up.
• Sir Neil Cossons (Chairman of the English Heritage) grew up in Beeston, attending Church Street School, where his father was the headmaster. One of his first jobs was working as a railway porter at the station.
• A cottage on the north side of Anglo-Scotian Mills was reputed to have the tallest domestic chimney in England^{[citation needed]}. Its length was necessary to reach over the roof of the Mill. Although the cottage has been demolished for several years, the chimney can still be seen attached to the wall of the Mill.
• Mahatma Gandhi visited 5 Linden Grove in Beeston on October 17, 1931 to see his nephew, a student at University College, Nottingham.
• In the late 1990s, United Utilities built the UK’s largest "run-of river" hydro-electric plant at Beeston Rylands Weir. The power generated supplies enough electricity for 2,000 homes.
• A Paternoster lift still survives in E block at the Ericsson site in Beeston Rylands.
• Soul singer Edwin Starr lived in the area and died there in 2003.^[5]

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ http://www.broxtowe.gov.uk/index-relative_nov/planning/planning_conservation/conservation_beeston/conservation_stjohns.htm
3. ^ http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=195917&command=displayContent&sourceNode=134241&contentPK=16175897&folderPk=78486&pNodeId=133951
4. ^ http://www.clubwebsite.co.uk/beestoncenturionsyfc
5. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/2911673.stm

1. ↑  - Population statistics from Broxtowe Borough Council

• Exploring the History of Beeston
• Beeston Civic Society
• Beeston Local History Society
• Broxtowe Borough Council
• History of British Ericsson Company
• Beeston Community Website
• The Beeston Express Local Newspaper

Online Community Forum

• http://www.urtown.co.uk

Coordinates: 52.91891° N 1.22807° W