In the 30 years since the start of the year long 1984–85 Miners’ Strike the stance of the Nottinghamshire miners has always courted controversy. For some it was (and still is!) in the Nottinghamshire coalfield that the ‘heart and soul’ of strike-breaking could be found, their image being stained for eternity because of the links with 1926 and the breakaway ‘Spencer Union’.

However, when the evidence is assessed, the image of a coalfield of ‘natural blacklegs’ can be challenged and a picture painted of a moderate mining trade union acting within its own understood custom and practices against what was viewed as a national union acting in a dictatorial fashion.

Dr David Amos from the University of Nottingham has published a book, The Nottinghamshire Miners, the UDM and the 1984–85 Miners Strike: Scabs or Scapegoats?, based on the findings from his research degree, where he tries to dispel some of the myths and folklore which surround the Nottinghamshire miners and the 1984–85 strike. Dr Amos’s book is available from the author, c/o Old Bestwood Winding House, Bestwood Country Park, Park Road, Nottingham NG6 8ZA, price £13.99 plus £2.50 p&p.

Sarah Seaton, News Editor

On Sunday 11 May 2014 the Nottinghamshire County Council Library Service will be hosting its second annual Local History Fair at Mansfield Central Library.

It will build on the success of the first such event in 2013 when 30 local history societies and heritage groups from across the county converged on Mansfield and were joined by storytellers, children’s activities, and demonstrations of local crafts such as spinning and lace making. It was a real family day out and over 300 people came along to make links with local history.

A whole floor of Mansfield Library will be devoted to to the fair which will also extend throughout the library. Mansfield Library is open to the public on Sundays between 11a.m. and 3p.m., and there is also free parking on Sundays in the Four Seasons multi-storey car park next door.

There will be live demonstrations of local crafts, storytelling, talks and other local history presentations by heritage groups — continuing to establish the Great Nottinghamshire Local History Fair as an important showcase for local history in Nottinghamshire, where local societies will find a forum to promote their work, attract new members, sell their publications, and share expertise and experiences with other groups.

Email Helen Fox for more information.

Sarah Seaton, News Editor

Will Slate, one of the many young men who served in World War I.

The Trent to the Trenches campaign is a project that commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Great War and is jointly led by Nottinghamshire County Council, Nottingham City Council Museums, Experience Nottinghamshire, Nottingham University, Nottingham Trent University, The East Midlands Cadet Forces Association and Nottinghamshire Heritage Forum.

The challenge was to write a poem, diary or letter home to loved ones about life in the front line trenches of France and Belgium and more than 450 school pupils from primary and secondary schools in the county took part.

The NLHA contributed £200 towards the total prize money which was given out as Amazon book tokens. John Parker, Chairman of the NLHA, handed out some of the prizes to participants and the judging panel consisted of our vice-chairman, Chris Weir, with David Belbin, English lecturer at Nottingham Trent University; Angela Berry, of the Western Front Association Remembrance Society and Charles Walker, deputy editor of the Nottingham Post.

John Parker said ‘Nottinghamshire Local History Association is pleased to be able to support our colleagues in the Trent-to-Trenches partnership in their project to encourage young people at local schools to create inspirational pieces of writing to commemorate the events, people and experiences of the Great War in the form of a poem, a diary entry or a letter home. It is important that we work to get young people involved in and aware of their own heritage and local history and the Great War commemorations are an ideal opportunity to explore the transforming effect the war had on the World in general and on Nottinghamshire in particular.’

Sarah Seaton, News Editor

Sherwood Foresters’ Website

This month we look at two interesting websites. With the Great War Centenary almost upon us the first website is very relevant at the moment. The 7th (Robin Hood) Battalion, The Sherwood Foresters (Nottingham and Derbyshire Regiment) website is a work in progress run by Gary Wood, James O’Hara and Stuart Wilson.

There are two main elements to the site: the first a database containing details of officers and men who served in the battalion, and the second a publication of its history which is due out later this year. If anyone has information on family members who may have served in the 7th Battalion and would be happy to share copies of documents or photographs, please get in touch with them via the website at www.therobinhoods.org.uk.

The second website is one that I am sure many of you have already used — Google Books. A simple search for Nottingham turned up gems such as James Orange’s 1840 directory for Nottingham, The Visitations of the County of Nottingham in the Years 1569 and 1614 and The Date-book of Remarkable and Memorable Events Connected with Nottingham amongst many. There are many fiction classics on this website and you can build up your own library of books to consult whenever you choose. Whatever your interest, you will find something here and often for free. Please note that not all books on this website are complete to read, some may also show excerpts or reviews with pointers on where you can buy them. I for one have used this site extensively for research projects, it is brilliant. To get onto the site go to books.google.com.

Sarah Seaton, News Editor

The NLHA has been running for decades but little is known about the people behind the organisation. Over the forthcoming issues we will be delving into the lives of some key committee members: in this issue we meet Chris Weir.

Chris Weir talks about his early days in local history…

I have always been interested in history, but especially local history. I remember being inspired by W.G.Hoskins. His Making of the English Landscape revealed to me a whole new world of fields and farms, deserted mediaeval villages, hedgerow boundaries, enclosure patterns, place names and old maps. It was a world that was on our doorstep. It didn’t even mean a 30 mile hike through mountain peaks, it was all there on a stroll around Laxton, through the Leicestershire byways or cycling past Nottinghamshire’s fields and farms. Then I read  W.E.Tate’s The Parish Chest and began to discover the delights of overseers’ accounts, vestry minutes, parish registers and other parish records that brought local communities to life.

For 40 years I have been lucky enough to have worked in Archives. My first post was as a ‘Miscellaneous Archives Clerk’ with Nottingham City Archives. The Archives service was on South Sherwood Street in the basement of the old Central Library. Occasionally Keith Train would pop in to do research for one of his Thoroton articles or research for a lecture, and Dick Iliffe and Wilf Baguley used to visit to find material for their ‘Victorian Nottingham’ books

Then, in 1976, myself and Freda Wilkins–Jones, the Nottingham City Archivist, transferred to the County Records Office on High Pavement. Here the service grew to meet the demands of growing interest in local and family history and in 1993 the service moved into purpose-built premises on Castle Meadow Road, Nottingham.

My links with the Nottinghamshire Local History Association go back to the 1980s when I used to attend committee meetings in the basement of an office building on Mansfield Road. In those days it was called the Nottinghamshire Local History Council. I remember, from those days, Philip Lyth, Geoffrey Oldfield, Laurence Craik, John Heath, Vernon Radcliffe and others who conducted many lively conversations and debates! At this time I became a local history tutor for the University Adult Education Department and WEA. My first class was at Lambley where, after 3 years, the group produced Lambley: A Village Study and formed a local history society that still flourishes today.

Philip Lyth, the President of the Local History Council, was especially encouraging to me as a new arrival back in the 1980s. I had produced a manuscript on the Nottinghamshire countryside, ‘A Prospect of Nottinghamshire’ (1986) and with his support it was taken on by the Council and became a published book. The foreword was by Myles Thoroton Hildyard. Philip and I visited Flintham Hall to discuss the foreword with Myles. This proved a daunting occasion and I was immediately in Myles’ bad books when I parked my car in front of the Hall instead of round the back!

Over the years I have written a number of books, including Bygone Nottingham (Phillimore); Nottingham: A History (Phillimore); The Nottinghamshire Heritage (Phillimore); Jesse Boot of Nottingham (Boots Company); Wilkinson: The Story of The People’s Store, 1930–2005 (Wilkinson Company); Village & Town Bands (Shire); As Poor As A Stockinger (Nottinghamshire County Council); and The Walker’s A–Z (self-published).

In recent years I have become interested in community history and in trying to create opportunities for young people to engage with local history. I have organised two heritage competitions for young people and two youth heritage conferences. All of these have been with the invaluable support of the Association. I also secured, for Nottinghamshire Archives, a Heritage Lottery grant to fund a project for 17 young people to preserve a major collection of information on First World War memorials (the Wakefield Collection) which will become available next year. I am currently working on a publication for the County Council in the Turning Back The Pages series on ‘Nottinghamshire & World War 1’.

I retired from the Archives at the end of December so I was delighted to be asked to come onto the Association’s committee and hope that I can support its various activities and projects. The Association has a long tradition of encouraging history and heritage and I look forward to being part of its future.

Charlie Peace

I hope that many of you recently took up the offer of two for one tickets to see the Charlie Peace play. When I give talks on the subject of common lodging-houses in Narrowmarsh, Nottingham occasionally members of the audience would refer to Charlie Peace, the villain who stayed there for a while. During my extensive research of the Narrowmarsh area, I never once came across Mr Peace, so when I met Michael Eaton MBE, the award winning playwright who penned the recent production of Charlie Peace: His Amazing Life and Astounding Legend which ran at the Nottingham Playhouse 4–19 October, I took the opportunity to see the play and learn more about Charlie’s life. It seemed that Charlie lived under a different name whilst in Narrowmarsh, hence the lack of records for him, also he was in the town between censuses (1871–1881) so he was not recorded. A newspaper report in the Nottingham Guardian dated 8 December 1876, entitled ‘The Sheffield Murder’ gave his aliases as George Parker, Alexander Mann and Paganini. The writer of the article assumed that he would be lying low until he was forgotten about and then head for a port and overseas, some who knew him believed him to still be in Sheffield, but Charlie had made his way to Narrowmarsh to lodge with a Ma Adamson, who does not appear in the census either.

Charlie Peace and his executioner

During my research on the area there were people who gave false names to avoid being identified, in the 1881 census both Isaac Newton and William Wallace were recorded as living in lodging-houses in Narrowmarsh and were never again identified on censuses before or after. The newspaper description of Charlie was given as:  ‘thin and slightly built, 46 years of age but looks ten years older, five feet four or five inches high, grey (nearly white hair), beard and whiskers, (the whiskers were long when he committed the murder, but may now be shaved off), has lost one or more fingers on left hand, cut mark on back of each hand, and one on forehead, walks with his legs rather wide apart, speaks somewhat peculiarly, as though his tongue was too large for his mouth, and is a great boaster’. Charlie was eventually caught in London after committing many burglaries. Michael Eaton believes that Charlie may have carried out many in Nottingham that were not attributed to him — a worthy research project for anyone with an interest. A book on The Common Lodging-houses of Narrowmarsh is due to be published next year thanks to the Nottinghamshire Local History Association, please check their website  for updates.

Sarah Seaton, News Editor

Lincoln Castle Excavations

For those who live in the north east of the county, an interesting discovery has been made at Lincoln’s Norman Castle whilst archaeological excavations were being carried out there ahead of renovation work. Archaeologists working on a previously unknown church discovered a limestone sarcophagus. As the find was very delicate the archaeologists from FAS Heritage had laser scans done of its entirety and further exploration work with an endoscope revealed that it contained an adult skeleton. When the sarcophagus lid was removed it revealed the body of a young man in his 20s and around his feet were the remnants of his leather boots or shoes. This footwear was made from single pieces of leather held to the feet using thongs. The skeleton showed no signs of living a harsh life and it has been assumed that he may have been a member of the clergy. Evidence of pottery fragments suggests that the date is circa 10th or 11th century, although no radiocarbon dating has been carried out on the bones as yet and a more accurate date will hopefully be given once this occurs. A facial reconstruction of the skull will also be carried out. Eight other burials have been found nearby and further exploration will be carried out to see when they died, if they were a family group and if the young man was a local Lincoln lad or one of the Anglo-Danish hierarchy appointed throughout the Danelaw. The £19.9m Castle Revealed project will see the building of a new centre to house the Magna Carta and a tower to give access to the castle walls. These recent finds will also go on display when it is completed in 2015.

Sarah Seaton, News Editor

Cuckney St Mary’s Church. Photograph: Joseph Waterfall.

A new local history group has emerged following the passions of local history enthusiasts in and around the Cuckney area. The Battle of Hatfield Investigation Society (BOHIS) was formed by Joseph Waterfall and Paul Jameson. Their aim is to investigate an alleged mass grave underneath St Mary’s Church in Cuckney and beyond to ascertain the age and possible identity of the burials. Circa 200 skeletons were reported to be there by workmen placing concrete reinforcement plinths under the church in 1951.

Professor Maurice Barley visited the site whilst the work was in progress; however, most of his information regarding the finds came second hand from the contractors working on the site and from the Reverend W.E Ashworth Lound who was the incumbent at the time. A plan to have the skeletons examined by an expert fell though for reasons unknown and it is unclear as to whether Barley ever  saw the skeletons himself as in his report on the occurrence in the 1951 volume of the Transactions of the Thoroton Society he states ‘the skeletons, said to be those of young males, lay very close, indeed jostled with each other in the trenches’. This appears to indicate that he may not have actually seen them for himself or at least had a very limited view. He also wrote that ‘the first remains met with were about one foot below the present level of the church floor, and in places they were found as much as seven feet down’. No finds were made to indicate a time period or the reason for the internments. There was no evidence to suggest that any of the skeletons had met with a violent end, Barley reported that only the lower parts of the bodies were encountered and the whole of the skeletons were not exposed.

As the grave is situated underneath the church’s foundations it predates the building which is circa 12th century. St Mary’s Church is set within the inner bailey of Thomas de Cuckney’s motte and bailey castle. The castle was built during The Anarchy in the reign of King Stephen (1135–1154). In their 1992 report English Heritage described the skeletons as occupying three or four communal graves; trenches were dug north to south so that their bodies could be laid with their feet to the east. This may signify Christian burials, but it may also mean that those who buried them were Christians, rather than those who were buried, King Edwin was after all a converted Christian. The burials that were exhumed during the work in 1951 were reinterred in a fresh communal grave but its whereabouts and records are as yet unknown. English Heritage believe that the skeletons were from a skirmish during the Maudian Rebellion (The Anarchy) but over the years there has been a growing number of historians who believe that these skeletons could belong to the army supporting King Edwin of Northumbria during the Battle of Hatfield in 633 against King Cadwallon of Gwynedd and Penda of Mercia. On 12 October 633 Edwin lost his life there, along with his son and heir Osfrith who was killed just before him; Edwin’s head was allegedly cut off though by Cadwallon who displayed it on the ramparts of York’s city walls following the ravaging of the land of the Northumbrians. Edwin’s surviving men moved his body to nearby woods burying it there until it was safe to move again. Later it was taken to Whitby Abbey for burial where Edwin’s niece Hilda was the abbess. Back in Nottinghamshire legend says that the site where his body had lain became a holy site and a wooden chapel was built there which became known as Edwin’s Place, or Edwinstowe, ‘stowe’ meaning high or holy place, hence ‘Edwin’s holy place’. During the reign of King John a hermit was paid to live and pray here until the service was ceased under the rule of Henry VIII and the dissolution of the monasteries. In 1912 the sixth Duke of Portland erected an iron cross and a tablet to mark the site.

When the Venerable Bede wrote of the ’fierce battle fought on the plain called Haelfelth’ he may have been referring not to the village of Hatfield Chase in Doncaster, where the battle has long been thought to have taken place, but to the greater administrative area of Hatfield which extended into Nottinghamshire. Sanderson’s Map of 1835 clearly shows Hatfield Grange and other Hatfield buildings alongside the small parish of Cuckney. The Doncaster site was favoured by William Camden, a seventeenth century English historian, possibly due to a lack of knowledge of the Nottinghamshire site, and over time his hypothesis became widely accepted as fact. There is more circumstantial evidence to support the battle site being at Hatfield, Nottinghamshire, and the Doncaster claim is little more than its name, although there are still many supporters who believe that Doncaster is the site of the battle. The BOHIS have a great challenge ahead of them but Cuckney’s offerings, combined with Edwin’s holy place, plus the possibility of a mass grave, seem tantalising clues to an event that until recently was all but forgotten. One of the society’s first quests, after gaining all permissions from relevant parties, would be to locate the bones that were reinterred and also, if permission is granted, to see how far outside of scheduled areas the mass grave extends and see if they can excavate and date the skeletons. They are still trying to locate further photographic evidence and any memoirs of those who attended the discovery at the time.

There is also growing speculation that the recently discovered Staffordshire Hoard, made up of remnants from a battle (the valuable parts of swords and other pieces of armoury stripped off for ease of transport), was loot taken by King Penda of Mercia after his defeat of King Edwin of Northumbria after the Battle of Hatfield in 633. The Staffordshire Hoard dates to this time period and would fit well into the rest of the circumstantial evidence of Penda or his followers returning to Tamworth or thereabouts, which was at that time the capital of Mercia, but there is no conclusive proof.

The society is currently in talks/working with Mercian Archaeological Services CIC, the Diocese of Southwell, the Parochial Church Council, Nottinghamshire County Council, English Heritage, the Council for British Archaeology, the Welbeck Estate and the Heritage Lottery Fund. They aim to begin their quest March 2014, if funding and permissions are sanctioned. If you would like to join the BOHIS or have any information that you think may help them you can contact them through their website at www.battleofhatfield.webs.com or email them on hcp1995@sky.com.