Nottingham, Pentrich and South Wingfield Revolution walk
This urban walk visits sites associated with the planning of the rebellion, activities of government agents, preparations by the authorities to suppress the rising and the aftermath. This is Walk 1 of the Pentrich and South Wingfield Revolution group.
A
Nottingham walk
posted on 25/04/22 by Pentrich Revolution Group. Last update : 21/06/22
Description
Start: The Council House, Market Square, Nottingham.
(S/E) Start on the Market Square, facing ‘the lions’. Walk up the left side of Exchange Buildings along Long Row to High Street. (A) Walk up Pelham Street to Carlton Road, turn left up George Street, walk to the end to Parliament Street. (B)
(1) Turn right down Parliament Street, walk to the corner with Broad Street. To your left is Glasshouse Street. (C) Walk on along Lower Parliament Street (formerly Coalpit Lane), until you reach Heathcote Street on your right. (D)
(2) Walk down Heathcote Street, turn right, cross Goose Gate, turn left into Stoney Street. Turn left into Woolpack Lane. (E) Turn right at the bottom of Woolpack Lane into Belward Street, walk to the next turning on your right Barket Gate. (F)
(3) Continue ahead down Bellar Gate, into Hollowstone, stop before the road junction with the eighteenth century Plumtre Hospital across the road. (G) Walk back up Hollowstone, past St Mary's Church, along High Pavement to the Galleries of Justice. (H)
Walk on across Weekday Cross, to Middle Pavement. (I) Turn right, down Bridlesmith Gate. (J) Walk on to High Street, turn left to return to the Market Square and the end of the walk. (K) (S/E)
Waypoints
- S/E : km 0 - alt. 46 m - Market Square - Tourist Information Office
- 1 : km 0.57 - alt. 48 m - Victoria Centre
- 2 : km 0.94 - alt. 49 m - Goose Gate
- 3 : km 1.39 - alt. 35 m - Bellar Gate
- S/E : km 2.32 - alt. 46 m - Market Square
Useful Information
Urban walk. Care needed when crossing roads.
Car Park: The Forest ‘park and ride’. Take the tram to the Market Square.
Start: The Council House, Market Square, Nottingham.
Pdf file : https://pentrichrevolution.org.uk/groupf...
More information at Pentrich and South Wingfield Revolution walk here
Always stay careful and alert while following a route. Visorando and the author of this walk cannot be held responsible in the event of an accident during this route.
During the walk or to do/see around
Formerly the racecourse in 1817, the Forest was where the Pentrich marchers expected to meet thousands of fellow rebels from the Midlands and North. A few hundred gathered at most, as it became clear that the planned rising was a trap by the authorities. The walk visits sites associated with the planning of the rebellion, activities of government agents, preparations by the authorities to suppress the rising and the aftermath.
(A) Near the existing site of the Tourist Information Office on your right was the Police Station where magistrates waited from Sunday 8th June, to give their orders to the special constables, 15th Hussars, 95th Regiment and Yeoman Cavalry, already knowing the insurgents’ plans from their spies. County magistrate Rolleston rode here from Watnall to report the rebels were at Eastwood. At the corner of High Street and Pelham Street was The Blackamoor's Head, a coaching inn where William Oliver, government spy and agent provocateur, stayed on 6th and 7th June 1817.
(B) Facing you is the Victoria Centre, where there were streets of poor working class tenements and pubs. At one, the Three Salmons, the committee who planned the rebellion met on 25th May, including three informers agent provocateurs. Oliver, Henry Sampson from Bulwell and George Crabtree from Leeds. All were unknown to each other. Sampson, a framework knitter and former Luddite, was paid £2 2s a week for information by Enfield, the Town Clerk.
(C) To your left is Glasshouse Street where the Sir Isaac Newton public house was sited, long associated with framework knitters and their union and accused of being linked to Luddites.
(D) On this corner was The Plough public house. Joseph Weightman rode here from the meeting at the White Horse in Pentrich on 8th June. He was told those in Nottingham and Yorkshire were also ready to rise. Weightman stayed the night at the pub and reported back to Pentrich the next day.
(E) William Stevens, a needle maker, who played a leading role in the planning of the rebellion, lived in Kings Place, off Woolpack Lane. A neighbour, William Simpson, was a leading member of the Framework Knitters union. Sampson was reporting meetings with Simpson and Gravenor Henson, the leader of the union, to the Town Clerk from 1815. Sampson befriended Jeremiah Brandreth, possibly involving him in Luddite activity and the uprising because of his military experience. At the bottom of the street, on your left, is Hockley Mill, Richard
Arkwright's first cotton mill before he moved to Cromford. Derbyshire.
(F) Barker Gate is given as the site of The Punch Bowl public house in Oliver’s report to the Home Office. Here a group met to prepare the uprising on 6th June with Oliver. John Holmes accused Oliver of being a spy but John Stevens led the majority in believing Oliver.
(G) Bellar Gate was the location of The Rose Inn. A group of woolcombers was arrested here on 9th June, on suspicion of being implicated in the rising. Near here, on the site of former Red Lion Square, lived Jeremiah Brandreth and his family in Butchers Close, now Poplar Street, after they were removed from Sutton in Ashfield.
Gravenor Henson lived near here and Francis Ward, another leader of the union, lived on Hollowstone. The authorities had accused both Henson and Ward of being ‘General Ludd’ and were keen to implicate them in plans for rebellion and treason. Both were arrested before the Pentrich Rising and not released from prison until after it was over. This did not stop the government sending police to Nottingham to arrest Francis Ward, with John Holmes, William Cliffe and Samuel Hayes, accusing them of being involved in the rebellion. They were imprisoned with no charges made, since Habeas Corpus was suspended. Ward was released in November 1817 after protests in Parliament at his unjust imprisonment; He was awarded £600 compensation.
(H) Formerly Shire Hall, twenty eight of the Pentrich revolutionaries were imprisoned here after 10th June before being taken to trial in Derby.
(I) On your left on former Drury Hill was the Golden Fleece public house meeting place of the Hampden Club in May 1816. Thomas Bacon of Pentrich was sent from here as a representative to Manchester, a collection being made to pay his expenses. Continuing down Low Pavement is Enfield House, home of the town clerk Henry Enfield who helped both plan and suppress the rebellion.
(J) At the corner with Bottle Lane, Waterstones bookshop, is the former site of The Nottingham Review offices, the radical newspaper that supported calls for reform was read at Hampden Club meetings at the White Horse in Pentrich.
(K) Across the Square, on Angel Row, the army took over Bromley House to garrison troops in 1819, as fears of insurrection continued long after the Pentrich events.
