Eakring
| Eakring | |
| Nottinghamshire | |
|---|---|
 Eakring - Savile Arms | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SK673623 |
| Location: | 53°9’12"N, -0°59’32"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 395 (2001) |
| Post town: | Newark |
| Postcode: | NG22 |
| Dialling code: | 01623 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Newark and Sherwood |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Sherwood |
Eakring is a village in Nottinghamshire, found between Ollerton and Southwell, at the meeting of the along the A617 and the A616 roads.
The village pub is the Savile Arms on Bilsthorpe Road. The Robin Hood Way passes through the village.
Dukes Wood to the south is situated on the top of an escarpment, giving good views over the Trent valley to the east and towards Southwell to the south. Clouds formed by the Cottam Power Station are often seen on clear days to the north-east. A steep hill descends into the village from the south, on which the road passes a large residential training centre for National Grid plc.
History
Eakring Mill was a five-storey brick tower windmill, built at some time after 1840 (SK673628). The sails were removed in 1912 and the mill was derelict by 1936. It was converted to a house c. 1995.[1] A windmill was shown on a map of 1832, located in Mill Hill Field, where two footpaths cross (SK668616) and another windmill shown north of Eakring Brail Wood (SK662614).
The Reverend William Mompesson, the vicar of Eyam during the Plague in 1666, moved to the village in 1670, living there for 39 years, and is buried in the churchyard.
Parish church
The parish church is St Andrew’s. It was built in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and was restored in the early 1880s, when the seating was also replaced. It contains a font bearing the date 1674, and a plaque commemorating the fitting of the tower clock in 1887.[2]
The church is a grade II* listed building.
Drilling of oil during the Second World War
Geological survey
In the late 1930s oil exploration was undertaken by the D'Arcy Exploration Co Ltd, part of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company Ltd. Using geological data from colliery workings, geologists calculated that an anticline was situated under Eakring. A nearby borehole at Kelham had produced oil. Drilling to levels between 7463 feet and 7468 feet had found significant quantities of oil - which turned to be particularly significant when the Second World War and the U-Boat campaign started.
Drilling
Wells also produced oil at Caunton and Kelham Hills. The oil had a specific gravity of 0.86 - which is high grade oil: the United Kingdom typically had on-shore oil reserves which were under-strength. In March 1943, production began at around 100 wells, being coordinated by Philip Southwell, a petroleum engineer from the D'Arcy Oil Company who had liaised with Lloyd Noble, president of Noble Drilling Corporation in Oklahoma. Throughout the operation, the location of the oil field was kept secret. American oil workers lived in the Anglican monastery at Kelham Hall.[3] In total, the oil field produced around 3.5 million barrels of oil throughout the war. In contrast, the Germans had to rely on synthetic oil, manufacture of which largely ceased during 1944 as a result of Allied bombing raids leading to the rapid capitulation of the Luftwaffe. By 1964, the wells had produced 47 million barrels.
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Eakring) |
- Eakring Village
- St Andrew's Church
- Notts history: Eakring
- Map of Dukes Wood from the Wildlife Trust
- Oil:
References
- ↑ Shaw, T. (1995). Windmills of Nottinghamshire. Nottingham: Nottinghamshire County Council. p. 14. ISBN 0-900986-12-3.
- ↑ National Heritage List 1370132: Church of St Andrew, Eakring
- ↑ "History of the Eakring Oilfield". dukeswoodoilmuseum.co.uk. http://www.dukeswoodoilmuseum.co.uk/History.htm. Retrieved 10 December 2010.
- Guy H. Woodward & Grace Steele Woodward (2002). The Secret of Sherwood Forest: Oil production in England during Second World War. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-3433-X.