Awsworth today is a dormitory area for a collection of nearby conurbations, including the City of Nottingham itself. Until quite recently, it had major traffic problems, but walking along ‘The Lane’ today, it’s not hard to transport yourself back a couple of hundred years to the tiny hamlet of past times, surrounded as it was, on all sides, by rural England. Of the three places featured on this site, the history of Awsworth is probably the most interestingly obscure. Its difficulty reflects the paucity of surviving records. Its landowners thought little about it, and committed even less to paper, which is a pity, as through the mists of time it’s possible to glimpse a fascinating story. The origins of Awsworth go back at least to Saxon times, and it first sees the light of recorded day as an entry in William the Conqueror’s Domesday book of 1087. After that, as the centuries progressed, it came under some dramatic influences: Lenton Priory, whose Prior was executed during the Dissolution, the Lords Cromwell, the Babbington family, which met disaster after plotting against Elizabeth, the Sheffields of Butterwick, the Willoughby family of Risley, the Earl of Stamford and more.

Awsworth had some interesting early industry with its 17th century glasshouse, and by 1800 the portents generally were of a more industrial future. The Erewash and Nottingham canals had reached the area, and mining, for centuries an isolated and local activity, had taken its first steps towards operations on an industrial scale. The Industrial Revolution was on the march, and the whole area reached the dawn of a broad industrial awakening which would change its face forever. Mining became Awsworth’s mainstay, employing both its men and its children. It was hard, dangerous, and by modern standards, brutal and distressing work. As time wore on, small and hard won improvements in the lot of the common man became a broader front. Non conformism began to make inroads; a Victorian public conscience began to develop; education improved dramatically, and technical improvements, then as now, completely revolutionized the way of life.

This booklet draws on considerable recent research. Awsworth was always a small ‘manor’, and in some cases its immediate surroundings have been included for the sake of clarity. Nearby Babbington for example shares a linked association with the Babbington family, and the area’s complex railway system only makes sense if looked at as a whole.

A Brief History of Awsworth.

First edition 2006.