26 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT 



who live here feel themselves to belong to a province diflferent and distinct 

 from that of Birmingham, Coventry, Warwick and Lichfield. They are 

 not merely Midlanders, but East Midlanders, and their land is essentially 

 that watered by the Trent and its middle tributaries, a region which em- 

 braced the earlier portions of the ancient kingdom of Mercia. 



Then, too, Nottingham is the county town of Nottinghamshire, a dis- 

 tinction carrying special emphasis in a shire in which there is no other 

 large centre. Here the combination of administrative functions, edu- 

 cational and cultural activities, entertainments and shopping facilities 

 together with the transport services are singularly concentrated in one 

 city. County administration, in point of fact, is conducted from the 

 Shire Hall, the buildings of which occupy a single acre in the heart of the 

 city and constitute an independent parish of the county! Yet instead 

 of being centrally situated, Nottingham lies much nearer the southern 

 extremity of the roughly oval-shaped county and this fact, bearing in 

 mind the close juxtaposition of the neighbouring shires, has caused our 

 city to develop important contacts with such centres as Grantham, 

 Loughborough, Derby, Ilkeston and Long Eaton. Local topography, by 

 providing easy routes has undoubtedly encouraged these connections. No 

 less than forty-two trains, excluding goods trains, run daily each way' 

 between Nottingham and Derby and Loughborough respectively. Two- 

 thirds of the trains to and from Derby follow a virtually level track across 

 the Trent and Derwent floodplain, whilst the routes to Loughborough 

 and Leicester are facilitated by the Soar valley and the flat expanse of 

 Ruddington Moor. Since, also, the textile industry of Long Eaton, chiefly 

 machine-lace, grew as an offshoot from that of Nottingham, the close 

 relations between these centres will be obvious. By numerous and fre- 

 quent bus services as well as by rail, Nottingham is connected with the 

 populous districts of the Erewash valley and with such centres as Heanor 

 which he beyond. 



Thirdly, the city of Nottingham is the life centre of a still smaller 

 region or district within which the grouping of such closely related 

 phenomena as the physical environment, human settlements and economic 

 activity are combined to present some form of unity or whole. The 

 extent of this region, which may be termed the Nottingham Region, is 

 shown by the map on page 34 and it will be seen that its limits are drawn 

 irrespective of administrative boundaries and with little reference to 

 natural features. It might well be termed a cultural region. It includes 

 a section of the Trent valley, about sixteen miles in length, from Long 

 Eaton to a point beyond the village of Hoveringham, with the adjoining 

 territories on either side. That to the north extends as far as Mansfield, 

 embracing the basins of the small rivers Leen and Dover Beck, and is 

 bounded on the west by the Erewash valley. South of the Trent the 

 region stretches to the hne of the Leake Hills, on to the high ground of 

 the South Notts. Wolds, and includes part of the Vale of Belvoir. The 

 whole occupies an area of about two hundred square miles and contains 

 about 465,000 inhabitants, nearly 60 per cent of whom belong to the city. 

 The evidence for thus defining the Nottingham Region is provided by 

 a detailed analysis of the geographical conditions and cannot be given in 



