Ruddington

Ruddington
Nottinghamshire
Ruddington Green
Location
Grid reference:	SK572332
Location:	52°53’35"N, 1°9’-0"W
Data
Population:	7,216  (2011)
Post town:	Nottingham
Postcode:	NG11
Dialling code:	0115
Local Government
Council:	Rushcliffe
Parliamentary constituency:	Rushcliffe
Website:	ruddingtonparishcouncil.gov.uk

Ruddington is a village in the verry south of Nottinghamshire, five miles south of the county town, Nottingham. It had a population of 7,216 at the 2011 Census.

An independent community, residents have previously conducted high-profile campaigns in an attempt to retain the rural identity as a village and prevent it being subsumed into the adjoining suburban districts of Clifton and West Bridgford. It maintains this through a variety of local amenities such as several shops, schools, public houses, community centre, village hall and churches within the village centre.

The name "Ruddington" comes from Old English and means "Rudda's people's estate (or village)".

Parish church

St Peter's Church

The parish church, St Peter's is a 19th century rebuilding of an older church.

The chapel of St Mary dating from 1459 became the parish church when St Peter's Church in nearby Flawford was demolished in 1773.

In 1718 the mediæval building was repaired, and then it was rebuilt in 1824 at a cost of £1,100, except the chancel and steeple, which are the only remaining parts of the ancient fabric. The church was rebuilt by Bell and Roper of Manchester in 1887-1888. It is thought that the font comes from the medieval church at Flawford.

The burial ground was consecrated in 1773, and enclosed with part of the materials of Flawford church.

The pipe organ dates from 1908 and is by Brindley & Foster of Sheffield.

The village and its areas

Ruddington Village

The core built up area is about a mile in diameter. The B680 road from Wilford is the main thoroughfare in the village, and turns off to meet with the A60 on the outskirts. The key shops and facilities are located along the High Street, Church Street and Dutton's Hill roads. The Green is a small village green park area to the south of these. Other parks include the Elms Park football and cricket ground, St Mary's, Vicarage Lane Playing Field, and Sellors' Playing Field which hosts the annual village fair. There is a war memorial and garden within the church grounds, and various museums, hosting insights into the history and heritage of the village.

Residential areas include the Elms Park estate, Manor Park, the newer Wheatley Fields estate, and Brook Hill which is a thin line of ribbon development almost contiguous with Clifton.

The village conservation area, of 50 acres, was first designated in 1970, and stretches from Manor Park, and through the historic centre to more recent buildings on the A60 Loughborough Road.

Ruddington Grange

This is a mainly residential hamlet of around 200 residents which lies half-mile to the north of the village. It is split into two parts by the A60 road and the Grange manor house surrounding grounds, this having been redeveloped in 1988 into the present-day event venue and golf course. The wider Grange area is also home to Ruddington Hall, in use for many years as offices of an IT organisation, and nearby Mickleborough Hill.

Flawford

Also known as Flawforth, this is a 'lost village' once located where present-day Flawforth Lane changes direction at a right angle. Its most notable feature was St Peter's Church which eventually fell into disrepair and was pulled down in the late 18th century, the foundations currently marked out in the ground at the site. Along with the lane and a no through road (Flawforth Avenue), the place-name variations live on in the names of present-day nearby farms.

History

There is evidence of occupation in the area during the Bronze Age. There are 1st century Roman remains of a large villa at Flawford.

In the Domesday Book in AD 1086, Ruddington's population entry recorded around 250 people. Most were involved in agriculture and this way of life changed little for many hundreds of years, the population marginally increasing by the 17th century to only approximately 320. Open field lands were reallocated amongst the inhabitants in 1767.

The first known St. Peter's church dates from the 9th century and was built over the foundations of the Roman villa, this was a shared church also catering to the nearby villages of Edwalton, Plumtree and Keyworth. Alabaster church effigy pieces were found here in 1779 and are presently kept at the Nottingham Castle Museum.

St Mary's was first established in Ruddington village as a manor chapel in around 1292-94 attached to the adjacent manor house (now the Hermitage), the lord of the manor at the time overseeing the building. It was renamed 'St Peter's' after the Flawford church, due to disrepair, was pulled down in 1773-79.

Ruddington's association with the knitting industry had begun by the start of the 19th century after the invention of the knitting frame in Nottinghamshire. The industry attracted new inhabitants and the population grew to 2,500 during this time as an associated extension to lace manufacture. New houses and frameshops, including the site occupied by the present-day Ruddington Framework Knitters Museum were built to provide homes and workspace for the knitters and families. The 1851 census showed that half of the heads of households in the village were involved in the occupation. Framework knitting in the village declined towards the end of the 19th century as steam-powered machines developed and factories provided large-scale competition to the manual methods still being employed by the villagers.

Charles Paget, local Nottingham MP, in 1828 built the Ruddington Grange manor house, which established the hamlet of the same name.

White's Directory in 1853 records George Augustus Parkyns, as the principal owner, and lord of the manor of Ruddington.

Ruddington Hall was built in 1860, by Thomas Cross from Bolton who was a banker and Justice of the Peace, he owned it until his death in 1879. In 1880 an American merchant, Philo Laos Mills. purchased and resided at the hall. He was appointed Sheriff of Nottinghamshire in 1897. It was a hospital during the Second World War until 1980, when it was bought and converted into offices, and is in use today as the head office for a local business.

Sellors' Playing Field was granted to the village in 1947 by Frederick Sellors, the annual Wakes Funfair being held on the site since 1968.

Ruddington expanded further between the wars as new housing estates were built at the edge of the village. The Ordnance Supply and Disposal Depot opened at the start of Second World War and occupied a large area on the southern outskirts of the village. The depot closed in the 1980s and the site was redeveloped in 1993 into Rushcliffe Country Park and Ruddington Fields Business Park.

Museums

Stocking Frame at Ruddington Framework Knitters' Museum

Ruddington is notable for being the home of three museums.

• The Ruddington Village Museum: with authentic Chemists, Ironmongers and Fish and Chip shops from the Edwardian era, all rebuilt part by part inside the building, which was previously the Ruddington Infant and Girls' School.
• The Ruddington Framework Knitters' Museum: complex of listed frameshops, cottages, and outbuildings arranged around a garden courtyard, together with a former chapel, with a working framework knitting machine.
• Great Central Railway (Nottingham), next to Rushcliffe Country Park, a preserved stretch of the former Great Central Railway line which currently runs to just outside Loughborough.

The station here has an historic road transport collection, a miniature railway and other attractions. The railway operates every Sunday and bank holiday Monday from Easter to late October. There are plans to join it to the preserved portion of the railway which currently operates from Loughborough Central to Leicester North as the 'Great Central Railway'.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Ruddington)

• Village of Ruddington
• Ruddington photographic project
• Ruddington Community Network
• Ruddington Parish Council
• stpeters-ruddington.org