Nottingham Audio Tour: Bulwell Heritage

Stops on this tour

lock_open 3 free previews · 0 unlock with purchase

1. location_on

   1

   Old Townhall

   play_arrowPreview
   Ahead of you is a red-brick Victorian hall with a neat five-bay front, an arched open porch carried on short columns, and a curled Dutch gable crowned by a round window. Bulwell…Read moreShow less

   Ahead of you is a red-brick Victorian hall with a symmetrical five-bay front, an arched open porch on short columns, and a curving Dutch gable topped by a small round oculus window.

   Bulwell grew fast in the early eighteen seventies, powered largely by brickmaking, so the new local board of health decided it needed a proper headquarters and chose this spot beside the River Leen. In fact, they moved with surprising confidence and managed to hold one meeting here before Nottingham annexed Bulwell on the first of November, eighteen seventy-seven... a very tidy bit of municipal drama. Even so, the building itself did not reach full completion until eighteen ninety-four.

   Look at the front and you can see the ambition. The middle section has a loggia, basically an open porch, with Corinthian columns - the fancy classical kind with leafy capitals. Above it are round-headed openings with quatrefoils, those four-lobed shapes that look a bit like carved stone flowers. If you glance at the photo in the app, the street view helps show that formal Victorian face.

   This place then reinvented itself repeatedly: Bulwell Public Hall for concerts and variety shows, then a cinema, then dance nights, and after the Second World War, the Embassy Ballroom. The interior image on your screen hints at that life, with the old hall and stage frame, called a proscenium arch. Later came offices, a furniture showroom, the Take Five Theatre School of Dancing, and since two thousand and twelve, Bulwell Fight Factory. Town hall to boxing gym is quite a career.

   This building survives by refusing to stay only one thing.

   When you're ready, continue on to St Mary the Virgin and All Souls, and I'll pick up the story there.

   Open dedicated page →
2. location_on

   2

   Old Townhall

   play_arrowPreview
   Ahead of you is a red-brick Victorian hall with a neat five-bay front, an arched open porch carried on short columns, and a curled Dutch gable crowned by a round window. Bulwell…Read moreShow less

   Ahead of you is a red-brick Victorian hall with a symmetrical five-bay front, an arched open porch on short columns, and a curving Dutch gable topped by a small round oculus window.

   Bulwell grew fast in the early eighteen seventies, powered largely by brickmaking, so the new local board of health decided it needed a proper headquarters and chose this spot beside the River Leen. In fact, they moved with surprising confidence and managed to hold one meeting here before Nottingham annexed Bulwell on the first of November, eighteen seventy-seven... a very tidy bit of municipal drama. Even so, the building itself did not reach full completion until eighteen ninety-four.

   Look at the front and you can see the ambition. The middle section has a loggia, basically an open porch, with Corinthian columns - the fancy classical kind with leafy capitals. Above it are round-headed openings with quatrefoils, those four-lobed shapes that look a bit like carved stone flowers. If you glance at the photo in the app, the street view helps show that formal Victorian face.

   This place then reinvented itself repeatedly: Bulwell Public Hall for concerts and variety shows, then a cinema, then dance nights, and after the Second World War, the Embassy Ballroom. The interior image on your screen hints at that life, with the old hall and stage frame, called a proscenium arch. Later came offices, a furniture showroom, the Take Five Theatre School of Dancing, and since two thousand and twelve, Bulwell Fight Factory. Town hall to boxing gym is quite a career.

   This building survives by refusing to stay only one thing.

   When you're ready, continue on to St Mary the Virgin and All Souls, and I'll pick up the story there.

   Open dedicated page →
3. location_on

   3

   Leen Valley

   play_arrowPreview
   On your left, look for the broad green sweep of the Leen Valley: a long grassy hollow carved by the River Leen, with the water threading through the wider Nottinghamshire…Read moreShow less

   On your left, look for the broad green sweep of the Leen Valley: a long grassy hollow carved by the River Leen, with the water threading through the wider Nottinghamshire landscape.

   This valley did more than decorate a map. For years, it drove Bulwell and its neighbors with two stubborn trades: hosiery and coal mining. One kept people clothed, the other kept the engines of industry fed... not a bad workload for one river corridor. If you glance at the image in the app, you can see how that old industrial route now opens out as parkland and recreation space. Light manufacturing still carries on, but the valley has shifted steadily into Nottingham’s commuter belt. Its reach is bigger than many people realize, linking places like Annesley, Bestwood Village, Newstead, Papplewick, Linby, Hucknall, Bulwell, Sherwood, Basford, Lenton, and Nottingham itself. Leen Valley also names a Nottingham council ward and a housing estate in the city’s north. In the twenty eleven census, that ward counted ten thousand, seven hundred and two residents.

   Open dedicated page →