A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



In 1579 the causeway against Sneinton Ford 

 was presented by the Mickletorn jury to be in 

 need of gravelling, ' for when the waters be out, 

 it is so deep worn it doth overthrow pack- 

 horses.' ' Alderman Clarke, again, was pre- 

 sented in 1593 f r 'encroaching his clue hedge 

 in the sandy lane that 2 packhorses could not 



meet.' 7 



The road from Nottingham to Loughborough 

 was long 'almost impassable,' an Act of Par- 

 liament being passed in 1738 for its repair. 8 

 On the road between Worksop and Warsop, a 

 post-chaise has been known to take three hours 

 to travel 8 miles.' ' Time was when the roads 

 near (Worksop) were almost impassable to com- 

 mon carriages, and vehicles almost hidden by the 

 depth of the ruts and the hollowness of the 

 roads.' 10 In 1 766 that part of the Great North 

 Road between Newark and Bawtry was amended 

 by legislative direction, being diverted from its 

 ancient course across the forest, so as to pass 

 through Retford. 11 Great improvement indeed 

 was noticeable in the roads towards the close of 

 this century, and the inauguration of the epoch 

 of macadam, owing to greater attention being 

 given to surveying. This improvement, how- 

 ever, as a writer of the period points out, did not 

 apply to those roads which traversed the clay and 

 coal districts, where there was much heavy car- 

 riage. 12 Municipal, no less than county vigilance, 

 was concerned with this matter, which it was 

 impossible to dissociate from its influence on 

 commerce. 



Passing to the era of the canals, we find their 

 construction coincident with the expansion of the 

 mineral resources of the country, 13 a feature of 

 the development of this means of communica- 

 tion being the adaptation of existing waterways 

 to its purposes. To such adaptations the Trent, 



" We are here furnished, says Mr. Stevenson, with 

 early evidence of the use of the packhorse as a mode 

 of commercial traffic ; Rec. of the Boro. of Not!, iv, 

 1 88. Indispensable as it was to the conduct of the 

 wool, malt, and other industries of the county, we find 

 this picturesque method of transport attracting the in- 

 variable attention of historian and topographer. From 

 one of these we learn of the ' packhorses whose tinkling 

 bell was the signal that whichsoever of the carriers' 

 trains came first to a wider space should remain there 

 until the other had passed by ' ; Holland, Hist. Worksop, 

 8. As many as sixty packhorses in a drove might be 

 met with at one time on a Notts, highway ; Wake, 

 Hist. Collingham, 42. 



' Stevenson, op. cit. 238. 



' White, Notts. (1864), 44. 



8 Ibid. 



10 Holland, Hist. Worksop, 8. 



" White, Notts. (1864), 44. 



" Lowe, Agric. Notts. 53. 



" 'The passage of the Nottingham Canal through 

 the liberties of Eastwood, Newthorpe, Cossal, Trowell, 

 and Wollaton (at all of which places pit-coal is gotten 

 in abundance), facilitates trade ' ; Blackner, Hist. 

 Notts. 15. 



' the key to the trade of Nottingham,' 14 and the 

 Erewash gave their names, providing under their 

 new aspect a greatly-extended outlet for the 

 famous malt of the county. 16 



At the present time there are two canals in 

 the county, the Nottingham and the Grantham, 

 the boats engaged in the traffic of both being 

 155 in number. 16 The first of these canals, 

 which runs for a distance of about 15 miles 

 from the Cromford Canal 17 at Langley Mill to 

 the Trent at Nottingham, was constructed under 

 an Act of Parliament in 1792, purchased by the 

 Ambergate, Nottingham, and Boston and Eastern 

 Junction Railway Company under an Act of 

 Incorporation in 1846, and finally leased by the 

 latter company (now the Nottingham and Grant- 

 ham Railway and Canal Company) to the Great 

 Northern Railway Company for 999 years from 

 i August 1 86 1. 18 



Four railway systems traverse the county, 

 those of the Midland, Great Northern, North 

 Western, and Great Central Companies. 



The mineral activities of the county have 

 mostly been on a limited and local scale, with 

 the exception of those connected with the coal 

 industry, which will be dealt with later on, and 

 the traffic in gypsum, which is at least as ancient 

 as it is full of interest, in view of its subsidiary 

 trade of the mediaeval alabasterman or image- 

 maker. 19 The Permian limestone is largely 

 quarried in the county for building, yielding a 

 rough-hewn stone for outer walls, and being also 

 extensively worked for lime-burning. 20 The 

 basal limestone of the Lias formation yields lime 

 and hydraulic cement of noted quality at Barn- 

 ston. 21 The county is well provided with sand, 

 that for mixing mortar being taken from the 

 Bunter and from the sandy seams of the Trent 

 gravel. 22 Moulding-sand, for iron-founding, is 

 yielded by the Bunter Lower Mottled Sand- 



14 Deering, Nottinghamia, 91. 

 " Lowe, A grit, Notts. 1:2-3. 

 " Par/. Rep. Cost of Living, 1908, p. 349. 



17 This canal, the construction of which was 

 authorized in 1789, is now practically derelict ; ibid. 

 64. 



18 Rep. Com. Canals, 1908, p. 221. 



19 Rec. Boro. Nott. iii, 492. 



" Midland Naturalist, \, 171. 



11 Each bed of limestone possesses peculiar proper- 

 ties ; the desired properties in the cement are there- 

 fore obtained by blending the different beds. 



" A considerable traffic in sand from the Bunter 

 bed was formerly carried on at Nottingham by itine- 

 rant vendors, one of whom, named Ross, made an 

 excavation, now closed, 306 ft long, and containing 

 upwards of two hundred chambers ; Carr, GeoL 

 Notts. 20. 



Harrison, in his ' Survey ' (1636), writes of ' very 

 good quarries of stone near Worksop for building and 

 limestone for the making of lime not only for necessary 

 uses in building, but especially for the manuring of 

 grounds' ; White, Dukery Rec. 133. 



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