NG3 July/August 2020

Woods of Mapperley
by Bob Massey
While looking up information on Mapperley
it struck me just how many of the areas road
names have something to do with trees;
Wood Lane, Coppice Road, Corporation Oaks,
Elm Avenue, Chestnut Grove, Elm Bank,
Woodborough Road, Springwood Gardens,
Beech Avenue and Hazel Grove, to name but a
few. These road names are all that remain as
clues to Mapperley’s ancient past.
cut down for building and ship construction.
When they were gone, the land at the top of the
present Coppice Road was turned into pasture
for sheep.
The Basford and Algarthorpe woods once
continued all the way to Mapperley, covering
a larger part of the north western slope of the
present town.
Before the 1850s Mapperley was a wind swept,
inhospitable place in winter with nothing but a
few farm buildings, a couple of houses and the
early brick works. Most people who worked in
the area lived elsewhere and walked to work
each day. There was only one road and this was
little more than a track across the hills.
The area did have trees a plenty as it was still
part of Sherwood Forest at the time. Some
of these trees had grown naturally but many
had been planted and maintained to provide
a timber supply for the ever increasing needs
of Nottingham. The trees also formed a wind
shield, breaking up the strong winds that blew
across the hill top, to shelter the few houses
and farms.
Going further back to the middle ages, Mapperley
hills were covered with trees. As early as the
14th century wood was being harvested from
Mapperley forests. In 1336 Robert de Crophill
sold to William de Amyas “half an acre which
lies in the Wodefield.”
In 1335, Red Lane was described as leading
from the Forest to the Coppice, and being
described as the wood of Nottingham (the one
that supplied Nottingham’s timber). At the time
it provided the main source of Nottingham’s
fuel. The trees were cut down and used, lawfully
and unlawfully, in the days before coal was
commonly used. There was no-one to see you
taking the trees in this wild and uninhabited
area.
The present Coppice Road led to the Coppice
which was well stocked with oaks. These were
North of this was the wood of Arnold, from
which Hugh de Neville, in 1221, gave two cart
loads of wood each week to the Hospital House
of Saint John in Nottingham.
Thorney wood itself covered the plains from
Mapperley to Woodborough. On the southern
slope was the Gedling wood, and the Marshall
hills. During holiday times Nottingham people
went nutting and blackberrying.
Thoroton, the historian, wrote that; “The soil is
generally of the most fertile in England, except
a great part of the Forest of Sherwood, which
was the most pleasant, but by the abominable
destruction of woods is now much otherwise.”
With the need for bricks during the industrial
revolution due to the increased building, trees
disappeared at an alarming rate. The cleared
areas made good growing land and farms
sprang up to fuel the ever growing population
with food rather than timber.
What was once a scene of wilderness was in
marked contrast to the present town.
I am researching the history of Mapperley and would be very pleased to hear from anyone with
more details or information. Email: bob.m.massey@gmail.com or post via NG5 magazine.