Beeston, Nottinghamshire
Beeston is a town in the Borough of Broxtowe, Nottinghamshire, England, it is 3 miles south-west of Nottingham. To its north-east is the University of Nottingham's main campus, University Park. The headquarters of pharmaceutical and retail chemist group Boots are east of the centre of Beeston, on the border with Broxtowe and the City of Nottingham. To the south lie the River Trent and the village of Attenborough, with extensive wetlands.
Toponymy
The earliest name of the settlement was Bestune, recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086. The name derives from the Old English words bēos and tūn. Although the idea that the name derives from the Old English bēo is popular locally, this is impossible as the plural form of bēo would be bēon, resulting in an "n" to historical spellings of the name. The local pastures are still referred to in the name Beeston Rylands.The putative "bee" derivation encouraged the notion of Beeston as a "hive of industry". The bee was adopted as the emblem of the town council. Beehives appear carved in the brick of the town-hall exterior, and in 1959 three bees were included in the coat of arms adopted by Beeston and Stapleford Urban District Council. The College of Arms included long grasses entwined with meadow crocuses in the arms as an alternative canting arms on the likelier origin as "farmstead where bent-grass grows." With the formation of Broxtowe District Council in 1974, the bees were retained on its coat of arms. The bee tradition continues – litter bins and other street furniture in the High Road are decorated in black and gold with a bee symbol on each. There is a sculpture in the High Road of a man sitting next to a beehive, popularly known as the "Bee-man", "the man of Beeston", etc., though officially called "The Beeston Seat." The sculptor was Sioban Coppinger in 1987, modelling a friend, Stephen Hodges, for his "timeless ability to exude calm when all else are succumbing to stress."
History
Domesday
In Bestune at the time of the Conquest, the Saxons Alfag, Alwine, and UIchel held three manors, comprising three carucates of assessed land. Following the Norman victory, these were confiscated and granted to William Peverel, lord of Nottingham Castle, who had in his demesne two plough teams, 17 bond tenants called villeins, unable to leave the estate without the lord's consent, each farming some of arable land, and one ordinary tenant or sochman. Together they had nine plough teams. There were of meadow. The annual yield of the estate was 30 shillings.19th century
Beeston outgrew its village status as a silk weaving centre in the early 19th century. The first silk mill was burnt down in the Reform Bill riots of 1831. With the decline of the silk industry, many former mills gained light industrial uses in the early 20th century. Equipment made by the Beeston Boiler Company is still found all over the former British Empire.Between 1880 and the turn of the century, Thomas Humber and partners made bicycles and eventually motor-cycles and cars at a factory at the junction of what are now Queens Road and Humber Road. At its height it employed 2000, although this ended abruptly in 1907 when the firm moved to Coventry.
In 1882, the orphanage department of a Nottingham-based institution relocated to Beeston, occupying cottages on Imperial Road. By 1886, the facility had expanded to accommodate up to 48 children, with segregated cottages for boys and girls. The orphanage became a certified school in 1885, allowing it to receive children boarded out by Boards of Guardians. In 1943, it was authorised to operate as an Adoption Society and was renamed to Beeston Children's Homes.
20th century
In 1901, the National Telephone Company built a factory in Beeston for telephone materials. This was taken over by the British L.M. Ericsson Manufacturing Co. Ltd. in 1903. Shortly before the transfer, most of the old factory was destroyed by fire and, in the rebuilding, it was extended. A new power station was built. In 1906, a large building was erected, chiefly devoted to cabinet work.Under the Plessey name, these large premises continued as a major source of employment through the 1980s. Plessey became GPT, with GEC's involvement. With the various restructurings of the GEC group and its rebranding as Marconi, much of the site was sold to Siemens along with the private telephone-network side of the business. Siemens sublet much of the site as a business park.
SMS Electronics was formed from a management buyout of the manufacturing facility of Siemens in 2003. It won the Queens Award for Export in 2012 and employs over 200 people. The whole site was acquired by HSBC in 2006 for a mixed-use employment-led redevelopment. In 2007, a building was constructed for Atos Origin.
The Boots campus includes three listed modernist buildings designed by engineer Owen Williams, though they are difficult to see from outside. It also has a later Grade II* listed building by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
Motor manufacture returned to Beeston for a short period in 1987, when the Middlebridge Company set up a small factory in Lilac Grove and produced 77 Scimitar cars. The firm went into liquidation in 1990.
Beeston Maltings was in operation until the late 20th century. The buildings were in Dovecote Lane, opposite the Victoria Hotel, but were demolished in 2012–2013.
21st century
Proposals for a light rail line through Beeston as an extension to the Nottingham Express Transit system were approved by the government in 2009, due to traffic jams. There was some opposition to this by local traders and others along the proposed route, fearing business losses during the construction period. However, a survey in 2004 by Nottingham Express Transit showed strong general support for the scheme. The line opened on 25 August 2015.Monthly deposits of bananas began appearing at intersections in the community in 2023 or 2024, perplexing residents.
Geography
Mid-20th-century suburban development extended the built-up area of Beeston to the former villages of Chilwell to the west and Wollaton and Lenton Abbey to the north. Beeston is separated from Bramcote to the north-west by the Beeston Fields Golf Course. The Broxtowe/City of Nottingham border essentially forms the town's eastern edge. The centre and shopping district lies to the north of the railway line. The mixed residential and industrial area of Beeston Rylands lies to the line's south.Beeston Rylands
The Rylands was originally a small settlement around Beeston Lock, comprising some tens of houses and two pubs. The name now refers to all of the area south of the railway line. The Jolly Angler was originally on the river side of the canal, but has since moved. Beeston began to spread south of the railway line in the late 19th century, when a few Victorian villas were built near the level crossing by the station.Over the first few decades of the 20th century, several housing estates were built to accommodate workers at Ericssons and Boots, both of which had large factories south of the railway line. From 1934 to 1939 a significant development of 900 houses on an 57-acre estate, which was then called Cliftonside, was designed by Alexander Wilson. These estates joined Beeston and the Rylands. Further development after the Second World War filled in the gaps, initially with an estate of council houses and flats, and latterly with private houses and bungalows. The last significant development, in 1970, was Meadow Farm: four roads of timber-framed semi-detached houses between Beech Avenue and the canal. Since then, Beeston Rylands has undergone a small amount of infill development.
Beeston Rylands was historically at risk of flooding from the River Trent to the south. This reduced property values and the size of houses built there, predominantly for the rental market. The last serious flood, in 1947, reached beyond the railway line: most of Queens Road was flooded, as was Nether Street. Enhanced flood defences have reduced the risk of flooding to a probability of once every fifty years. A series of flood-defence improvements, costing £51 million and designed to decrease the expected flood incidence to once in a hundred years, began in 2009 along a stretch of the Trent.
University of Nottingham
The eastern edge of Beeston abuts the University of Nottingham's main campus, through which runs Beeston Lane.Wards
Beeston divides into four wards for local electoral purposes within the borough of Broxtowe: Beeston North, Beeston Central, Beeston Rylands and Beeston West.Beeston's town centre is largely within the West and Central wards. The North ward includes some residential estates north of the A52, including a small part of the Wollaton urban area that falls within Broxtowe. To the west lies Bramcote Hills and the Bramcote ward. The original Beeston/Bramcote boundary is still marked on the A52.
The Beeston Rylands ward has a larger area than the other three wards as it includes unpopulated floodplains of the River Trent and industrial areas, including the part of the Boots campus. The ward also extends north of the railway line to Queens Road and includes the former site of Nottingham Rugby Club.
To the west of Beeston Rylands lies the Attenborough ward; while the Chilwell East ward lies to the west of Beeston West.
A review of ward boundaries in 2000 brought changes to Beeston's western boundary. In the north-west, Beeston Cemetery and the residential streets surrounding it, such as Coniston Road and Windermere Road, as well as the Nuseryman pub and the eastern part of Beeston Fields Golf Course, were transferred to Bramcote ward. Beeston gained some territory from Chilwell in residential streets such as Park Road, Grove Avenue and Cumberland Avenue, and in Nottingham College and the industrial patch between Holly Lane and Wilmot Lane. The original boundary between the old Beeston and Chilwell parishes can still be identified by a road-name change on the site of the Hop Pole pub, from Chilwell Road on the Beeston side to High Road on the Chilwell side.