Kimberley is a small suburban town on the fringes of Nottingham. Walking along its main street today you might think it to be largely Victorian, overlain with a rather uninspiring mix of modern development and traffic problems. The history of Kimberley, however, is altogether more feisty and interesting. It arose, probably, as a Saxon settlement, many years before the Norman conquest, and first saw the light of day in records as an entry  in the Domesday survey of 1087. For centuries it remained remote and obscure, with few inhabitants, pursuing the remorseless agricultural grind of early times. As the medieval period progressed, Kimberley acquired and lost great landowners, some of them in dramatic circumstances. William Peverel was probably the mightiest, but there were others, including the Duke of Rutland, Lord Melbourne, and the Earls of Essex. The place changed little over the centuries and might have impacted little on the landscape; by about 1800, however, there were subtle and important breaks with the past. The system of large, open fields, cultivated communally in ‘strips’, had all but disappeared; the turnpike road of 1763 occupied the valley bottom and transport had started to improve. In 1800, the age of railways was yet to dawn, but the Nottingham Canal had reached the fringes of the area, and mining, for centuries an isolated and local activity, had taken its first steps towards operations on an industrial scale. Kimberley arrived at the beginning of a broad industrial awakening, which would change its face forever – the Industrial Revolution. Mining, canals, lace, brick making, religion, beer and railways, all made heavy inroads into the Kimberley landscape, and all left their social footprints on its history. The population mushroomed, poverty and early death were rife, fortunes were made and lost. Kimberley, despite its small size, acquired two competing railways, two competing railway stations, a famously dangerous tramway, a legendary number of beerhouses, many vociferous churches and two large breweries. This small booklet draws together a considerable amount of new research into the complex history of this small town, and attempts to flesh this all out.

A Brief History of Kimberley.

2nd Edition Jan 2002.

A ‘Town Walk’ is also available.

Please see ‘Other Material’