Old Notts Explorers

23 High Pavement. Lady Hutchinson's House, Judges lodgings, County House.

From colonels to judges, from mayors to royalty this place has certainly seen its history with parts dating back to the 1500s!

Grand fireplaces and staircases adorned the property. The property has been deemed unsafe with fallen beams now supported by metal supports aswell as unstable staircases and floors.

A house did exist on this site since at least the 16th century, the timber frame of the 1500s house is said to still exist.

In 1646 it was owned by Colonel Thomas Hutchinson and occupied by Lady Hutchinson, mother of Thomas Hutchinson.

King Charles the first had raised his standard in Nottingham on 22 August 1642. the Civil War had begun. Moving to Shrewsbury the king left the town and Colonel Thomas Hutchinson came out of hiding, he had assumed control of the castle and held Nottingham for the Parliamentarians.

Very little is known of the earlier buildings which occupied this site, it is said that “The plan of the present house, together with surviving structural evidence, suggests that the original building was a timber-framed house of late-medieval plan, having a central hall, presumably with a cross-passage, and a wing at either end”.

The earliest title deed of 23 High Pavement, dated 1710, provides the names of former owners and tenants. The first recorded owner was Humphrey Bonner, an influential alderman of the town, who served as mayor three times, and died in 1613. He sold the house to John Martin, a gentleman, who seems to have died in 1628.

The front of the property was reconstructed in 1728-33 for Samuel Hallowes who had purchased the property in either 1660s or 1670s.

The probate inventory of Samuel Hallowes in 1715 gives a good idea as to the function of 15 rooms: “a hall, kitchen, great parlour, little parlour, ‘backward parlour’, pantry, cellar, brewhouse, garret, ‘inward chamber’, little chamber, maids’ chamber, great chamber, ‘backward chamber’ and the men’s chamber. “

Also in 1728 William Hallowes paid the Corporation £80 for the purchase of the dwelling-house on the east side of his house, apparently for the purpose of creating stables and other outbuildings as well as providing new access to the rear of his house.

In 1771 the property was purchased by John Fellows, owner of a successful silk hosiery business, who resided in the house immediately west of County House. Further alterations were made to the property in 1742. Fellows’ son John inherited the property in 1791, and following his death in 1822, his widow lived there until her death ten years later.

The house was purchased in 1833 after Mrs Fellows’ death for £5,000.

It was again remodelled in 1833 when it was converted into the Judges' lodging by the well-respected architects, Henry Moses Wood and John Nicholson. The building was extended to the east and north-east “in the Regency style, with emphasis on then-fashionable Greek Revival motifs, having ashlar stone walls.”

Consisting of cast-iron Greek Doric columns and a magnificent judges’ dining room on its first floor with grand tall windows through which the judges Aswell as their guests would watch the public hangings at the steps of what we today call “the galleries of justice"! The façade of the Georgian house was updated in keeping with the new extension adding balconies, window surrounds (and possibly extra windows), a decorated eaves course, and probably the hipped roof and chimneystacks were all added at this time.

For a brief period in 1887 it was lived in by Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll (the sixth child and fourth daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert). The lodgings had to be specially furnished for her stay at the expense of the Mayor of Nottingham.

In 1922-23, the magistrates moved the judges’ lodgings to a house in The Park. County House then became the offices of the Clerk of the Peace and of the County Council. The judges’ drawing room over the entrance hall became the Clerk’s office, the breakfast room adjoining became the Belper Library (housing a collection of books donated by Lord Belper), and the large dining room was partitioned off into small offices. The servants’ hall of the 1833 building was adapted as a muniments room, and a second muniments room was added in a new two-storey office wing, constructed in 1930 to the rear of the servants’ hall on the site of the former stables. This early-C20 extension was extended in 1949, with a new suite of three single-storey rooms for the County Archivist.

In 1959-60 the Clerk’s office moved to the new County Hall at West Bridgford, and for the next six years County House accommodated various County Council departments. The former dining room of the 1833 extension was converted for use as a public search room, the old kitchen used as the document-repairer’s room, and the panelled entrance hall as an exhibition space. The building was used by the County Record Office until 1992, and has since been vacant.

In 2009 it was bought by Finesse Collection, the owners of the Lace Market Hotel but the extension of the hotel did not proceed, and it was put into the hands of receivers after a legal dispute. In 2014 it was up for sale again.

Victoria Station remains part 3.
The tunnel.

Mansfield road tunnel at north end of the station. One very interesting location!

From the remains of the Victorian railway through to a somewhat more modern time.

Soot coated ledges, wooden cable runs, the remaining shells of decaying lanterns, shopping trolleys, parts used for what we assume to be student studying and so much more that we didn't fully understand.

we are happy that we can finally add to our catalogue of Victoria station explores after so long!

This tunnel really is a walk through time.