Brief History of Kimberley

Kimberley is a small suburban town on the fringes of Nottingham. 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 a remote and obscure agricultural hamlet. As the medieval period progressed, it 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. By about 1800, 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. The age of railways was yet to dawn, but the Nottingham Canal had reached the fringes of the area, and mining had taken its first steps towards operations on an industrial scale. Kimberley had 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 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 is the paperback version of a booklet which was considerably updated and revised in 2013. It contains a good deal of recent research and additional material. It also includes material previously not covered, notably a brief consideration of Babbington.