The history of Hyson Green: The 'shopping centre in Nottingham with a few houses'

There are several theories as to how it got its name

Hyson Green is known for being a multi-cultural neighbourhood - but centuries ago the area was part of Sherwood Forest. Jamie Barlow takes a look at how the city suburb has become what it is today.

As photographic historian Graham Woodward explains, Hyson Green's land used to be of poor quality and was known as the Lings.

"It was very little value - it was completely undeveloped. There's a map of the area from around about 1813 that shows it was just fields."

There are several theories as to how the area became known as Hyson Green.

One stems from a man called John Ison who built some houses in the early 1800s and named them Ison Green.

Another suggestion is that the original Cricket Players Inn, which opened in Radford Road, in 1824, and was later demolished, served Hyson tea.

Local historian Chris Weir, 71, says it was a popular area in this era.

"It was the early 1800s when it became a place to visit," says Mr Weir, who lives in Mapperley.

"Nottingham people were crowded together and there were a lot of slums in places like Narrow Marsh.

"Nottingham was becoming overcrowded. There weren't really that many places to go within walking distance.

"One of them was to Ison, or the Green, where people could go bowling or run around a bit and perhaps listen to a band.

"They needed to be walkable because, for the working people of Nottingham, they weren't going to be affording wagons."

Housing was built for people working in the hosiery industry that began to take off in the late 18th century.

The city was known for its hand-knitting and stocking-making, as Mr Weir explains.

He says: "A lot of the pioneers of the inventions of the machinery, improvements to the machinery, were based in or around Nottingham.

"But it needed people to work the frames and then it needed women and girls to do embroidery and seaming.

"These people needed somewhere to live but not too far from Nottingham because a lot of the trade was controlled by large hosiery firms that were based in Nottingham but they needed space for workers and initially these were domestic.

"So houses started to be built in places like Radford and Lenton.

"Because of the expansion of housing, builders realised there was going to be expansion and they began to cash in on it and started to build low-rise tenements if you like.

"Often you had to have a top storey put onto an ordinary house, or cottage, where you could house the stocking frames and have wide windows to let in the light.

"You would get these stocking frame cottages in places like Hyson Green and Radford because this is where there was space.

"They began to take off very quickly."

As the area developed it became a thriving shopping high street - and there were a number of cinemas.

Mr Woodward, 68, of Wollaton, says: "When you look at some of the directories you get a fantastic concept of shopping.

"You can't describe Hyson Green unless you focus on the shops. If you went to look Hyson Green up in the Oxford English Dictionary it would probably say 'a shopping centre in Nottingham with a few houses'.

"That's really what it was. Between the top of Radford Road, the southern end of Radford Road, and the northern end, by 1890 there were 180 shops along the road."

He adds: "There was a Co-op store down there. On the southern part of Radford Road there was also a Woolworths and quite a large Boots store. They've all gone."

The Grand Theatre, Radford Road, opened in 1886 and began showing films as a cinema in 1910. It closed in 1956.

"It was one of the earliest theatres in Nottingham. It's quite an interesting theatre but it was never very successful as a theatre, that was the problem with it," says Mr Woodward, who used to live in Hyson Green and went to the Forest Fields Grammar School.

"It was out of town and I think you have got to try and put yourself in the time of when it was - transport and everything.

"If you lived in the city, and most wealthy people lived in the town, it was not the easiest place on the planet to get to."

There was also the Boulevard Electric Palace, in Radford Road.

"It opened in 1910, it had seating for 700 people. It was a lot but then they were popular.

"It was one of the first suburban cinemas in Nottingham. It showed silent films - it had a ladies' orchestra to accompany the films. It closed as a cinema in 1956 and then it was used for bingo for a while. Then it was demolished in the Seventies," adds Mr Woodward, who is a member of the Nottingham Civic Society.

Some of the original houses made way for the Hyson Green Flats, built in 1965.

They were seen as a new beginning after the clearance of so many old and sub-standard terraced properties.

"There was a massive Caribbean community in Hyson Green, they used to have what they called blues parties there," says Mr Woodward.

"I went to some parties in Hyson Green in the late 1960s, early 1970s - they knew how to party, they were something special.

"People came from all over the city to experience these reggae parties on a Friday night and Saturday."

The Hyson Green Flats were constructed in blocks, but, by the 1980s, the upkeep was costing the city a fortune.

Consisting of more than 500 flats, they were not without some problems. Rioters battled police and set cars alight at the flats in 1981 and the residents’ housing association battled the council to improve conditions.

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"There was a lot of animosity towards the residents of Hyson Green at that time, the dilapidated state of the flats compounded the problem.

"They (the riots) were particularly vicious in Hyson Green," says Mr Woodward.

"They were not just rebelling against society and the fact that they were being badly treated, the people were just dumped there.

"Nothing was happening to them, nobody was doing anything to help them to improve their situation. They'd been taken out of these slum houses and put into these flats which were now almost worse than the houses that they'd been put in. No wonder people rioted."

The flats were eventually demolished in the late 1980s and residents were moved to other parts of the city after they were knocked down.

The city council sold the site to Asda for £3m and the supermarket is still there today.

Hyson Green is still a busy shopping area which is now served by the tram network built through the area.