The photograph above shows crowds on the Forest in 1897 attending diamond Jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria (with grateful acknowledgement to www.picturethepast.org.uk).
This theme includes:
- horse racing, the development of sporting facilities, religious gatherings, band concerts, jubilees and coronations, carnivals, Goose Fair.
Posts and articles about Entertainments & Celebrations:
Animals in the Parks (5 May 2016) - Apart from the odd squirrel or blackbird, or duck on a pond, it is not usual to associate parks with animals, but some of Nottingham’s parks and open spaces have […]
Ladies cricket (4 May 2016) - I have been going through some of Judith’s research on letters received by the Public Parks Committee and found an intriguing entry for the 3rd of March 1880; a letter […]
The 1928 move of Goose Fair from the Old Market Square (part 1) (5 April 2016) - By Mick Smith and Jonathan Coope Introduction Goose Fair, the world’s oldest travelling fair, dates back more than 700 years and still thrives today for five days each October on […]
The 1928 move of Goose Fair from the Old Market Square (part 2) (5 April 2016) - By Mick Smith and Jonathan Coope 1927 The fate of the Fair and the market lay ultimately in the hands of the council’s General Purposes Committee, working in close conjunction […]
The 1928 move of Goose Fair from the Old Market Square (part 3) (5 April 2016) - By Mick Smith and Jonathan Coope Goose Fair Re-Launched Despite worries about whether the re-launch of Goose Fair on its new Forest site would be a success, some saw grounds […]
Arthur Shrewsbury: a Nottinghamshire cricketer (3 March 2016) - Arthur Shrewsbury was born in New Lenton, Nottingham on the 11 April 1856 and from the 1880s played for Nottinghamshire. He lodged with his Uncle at the Queens Hotel in […]
24 May in the Meadows: 1913 and 2013 (3 March 2016) - On 24th May 1913, children from the Queen’s Walk school gathered on the Queen’s Walk Recreation Ground to celebrate Empire Day which was also the anniversary of the birth […]
Royal Celebrations (1 March 2016) - On 22 June 1911, Nottingham celebrated the Coronation of George V by a remarkable public demonstration of loyalty. The events began in the City centre as 3,200 men and boys gathered […]
Concerts in the Parks (24 February 2016) - From its opening in 1852, band concerts in the Arboretum were popular events. Not only did they feature prominently in the opening ceremony but were a regular feature of the […]
Cricket: a ritual, spiritual and sporting experience (22 February 2016) - Cricket was a passion in Victorian society that has been described as ‘a ritual as well as recreation, a spiritual as well as a sporting experience’. William Howie Wylie, in […]
The End of the Race Course (16 February 2016) - Horse racing began on The Forest in the late seventeenth century. Originally organised by a group of ‘county gentlemen’, the annual meeting was held during the summer months, but in […]
The Racecourse on The Forest (25 February 2014) - Although the 1845 Enclosure Act allowed for up to 130 acres of land to be allocated as open space, the only places specifically named were the Race Course, the Cricket […]
Bonfire Night on the Forest (8 November 2013) - When we think of festivals celebrated in Nottingham’s parks and green spaces Goose Fair is the annual event we most commonly associate with the Forest. But we shouldn’t forget Bonfire […]
WoLAN (7 August 2013) - Recently WoLAN (Women’s Liberation and After in Nottingham) local history project interviewed Lesley Kershaw (comedian) who performed at Nottingham Pride 2013, this year celebrated on the Arboretum. Tamsin, our Roving Reporter interviewed […]
Arboretum Tea Rooms – 1952 (17 June 2013) - For those who might have assumed the former Arboretum tea rooms were just about tea drinking and bath buns, think again: they were also about dancing! Thanks to Val Wood […]
The Racecourse on the Forest: interview with John Beckett (BBC TV, 2012) (13 June 2013) - John Sergeant interviews Prof. John Beckett, Principal Investigator for The Social World of Nottingham’s Green Spaces project, about the history of horse racing on the Forest in Nottingham, for the […]