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Until the late 19C The Banks had only a few late
18C and early 19C farm and cottager plots and not much else. No20 Tithby
Road and Nº9 opposite were a small farm complex on the Chesterfield
estate. No 9 is on the site of one of three windmills shown on the 1835
Sanderson Map. The garages of No20 were cowsheds and straightening of
Tithby road in the 1960s took some land from in front of these. On the
north side of The Banks at the Tithby Road end the Victorian development
was on the old Walker farmland and built by James Walker, as one would
expect. The pair of late Victorian detached houses (Nºs7 & 9)
are particularly impressive. Built as Manses for Methodist ministers to
replace the older ones at the bottom of Kirkhill,
they were used as such for over 100 years until the 1980s. The rest of
the Walker farm land was developed in the 1960s to form Melvyn Drive (named
for the son of the developer Frank Sturtivant) and Banks Crescent.
| The older properties on the
south side were initially cottages on the 'waste' with
small plots of land as closes or orchards. Mid 19C infill
and replacement of older cottages followed and a number
of the houses have date stones. No6 is another of James
Walker's detached villas, being similar to Westholme
as is probably number 5
although it has square rather than trapezoid bay windows.
Walker built numbers 24-26 (Banks Cottages) and 28-30
(Grove Cottages) in 1896. Ebenezer House (1911) looks
like another Walker detached villa but it is not quite.
Albert Squires (father of the present owner) built it
for his family with the help of one labourer. He named
the house after the Stone of Help because he thought
the Lord would help him build it. He was a jobbing builder
employed by Walker, so the design may well have come
from the pattern book used for the other villas, albeit
somewhat reduced in size.
On the north side east corner with
Fisher Lane are three interesting houses - a pair of
semi-detached cottages from the mid 19C (Nºs15
and 17) and an Italianate Gothic Revival house (Nº19),
about which nothing seems to be known, from perhaps
the 1850s with fancy stone quoins and arched windows.
The style bears some resemblance to the Wesleyan School
and the Old Court House. Qualified observers think it
was architect designed for either a professional person,
academic or cleric. The 1990's houses on the south side
(Nºs34-38) are infill built on the last of the
famous Victoria plum orchards of Bingham. The style
bears some resemblance to the Wesleyan School and the
Old Court House.
Banks House is an 18C farm still with barns
(one is the boxing club). The garden gate ironwork with lantern
recalls that at the east gate of the church and is likely to be
from about 1850. |
Banks House |
The original part of Banks Cottage (extended in the
1990s) is from the mid 19C. The wood enclosed pump, a ubiquitous feature
of pre-1920 houses in Bingham, but often now gone or hidden from public
view, can be clearly seen. Jebb's Lane is an ancient sunken track, named
for 'Old Jebb' a squatter who erected a cottage on the NE corner (shown
on maps from the 1830s and as late as 1901). Appletrees carries a plaque
recording its date of building 1925 and rebuilding 1990. The architect
John Beetham Shaw built it for his own use in the grounds of his former
house on Long Acre. The modern Beetham Close, on some of the original
Eskdale House land, is named in his memory. The remaining areas of the
Banks contain much late 20C infill. The cemetery was opened by the RDC
in 1881 when the churchyard became full. Opposite the cemetery you can
see some of the few remaining trees of Bingham's famous old orchards.
Until 1974 Fisher Lane was developed only on the
east side. West were orchards except for a builder's yard at the northwest
end. The east side has many interesting properties both in terms of building
style and position. The oldest face south, are end on to the street and
arranged in a traditional strip pattern. The raised ground has led to
some deep foundations. Bingham's only remaining fire insurance plate is
attached to the front of Norton Cottage.
Priory Mews were previously four small cottages.
They were given to the town in the 1940s to form the basis of the youth
club, which was called Baxter House after the donor, Mrs Baxter. When
the youth wing at Toothill School was opened the old club was sold to
convert to the present flats and the cash used to form the Bingham Trust
charity for young people. No11 used to be the Toc H meeting rooms.
| Long Acre House was built by
the architect and builder John Doncaster about 1840
as Providence House. In the late 1800s it was The Chestnuts
and later it became Orchard Close (the name is carved
on a gate pillar capstone at the Doncaster Yard entrance
to the house). The original entrance was from Long Acre
before a cottage was demolished to provide access to
Fisher Lane. It retains an attractive stable block,
now used as offices.
Lushai Cottage dating from the
mid 19C was the home in 1891 of James Prior Kirk, author
of Ripple And Flood in 1897 and the better-known Forest
Folk in 1901. Later he moved to Banks Cottage. Previously
called Brusty Cottage, it was owned in the 1940s by
Col. Johnson (brother of the watchmaker of Cherry Steet)
who had served in India. He may have named it after
the Lushai Hills District of North East India (now called
Mizoram).
The Notts CC web site describes Kirk thus:
James Prior Kirk
1851 - 1922
Writing under the name of James Prior, this novelist
has been called the "Thomas Hardy of Nottinghamshire".
His best-known book is "Forest Folk" - a
tale of Sherwood Forest communities and the 19th century
Luddite Movement.
Jasmine Cottage
was a tied farm cottage to Porchester Farm before
being sold in 1884 to a shoemaker. It probably dates
to the early 1800s.
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Lushai Cottage
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