“Plumtree, Past & Present”
May 2002 Meeting Report
Guest Speaker - Sheila Leeds
The May meeting of the Keyworth & District Local History Society was held in the Centenary Lounge, Keyworth, on 3rd May, 2002 when Sheila Leeds presented a talk and slide show on “Plumtree, Past & Present” to a packed room. The talk began with the observation that Plumtree, unusually, still remained the same size that it had over the last several hundred years whilst neighbouring villages like Keyworth, Tollerton, Edwalton, Ruddington and Cotgrave had all mushroomed in size and population to a considerable extent. This phenomenon was attributed to the fact that Plumtree has, in the past, had very few landowners.
In pre enclosure days Plumtree had two owners, the Church and one other landowner. A map of 1774 shows Plumtree with the Church, a windmill, a public house and several houses. The main routes to and from the village were to Keyworth, Flawforth and Bradmore. The public house at the turn of the 18th Century was The Plough, not The Griffin, which wasn’t built until 1843. The population of Plumtree has remained fairly constant since the first national census of 1841, between 200 and 300 hundred inhabitants. During the latter half of the 19th Century the population of Plumtree was greater than that of West Bridgford, Stanton on the Wolds, Edwalton and Tollerton. Today’s population is about 200 residents so the village has actually shrunk slightly. Over the years the occupations of Plumtree’s residents has changed significantly, ranging from agricultural labourers in 1841, to plate-layers in 1881, (when the Midland Railway were building the station for the village, to the present day when very few of it’s residents work in the village.
In 1803 William and John Elliott purchased the Plumtree Estate and the land was destined to stay in one branch or another of the family until 1974 although some of the family connections were rather tenuous. The brothers were responsible for a number of new buildings in the village. The village school was built in 1840, The Griffin public house in 1843 and several cottages. One thing characterised all of these buildings and that is the “Label” pattern of brickwork, which can be seen on the fronts of all these buildings. Oddly, there has never been a large house in the village for the Lord of the Manor. The most imposing building in the Parish was the Rectory. In 1816 a nephew of the Elliott brothers, John Burnside, became Rector of Plumtree. He set about rebuilding the Rectory into the imposing building that it is today, (although it had no electricity or plumbing of any significance until 1936!).
Another building, which benefited considerably from rebuilding work during the latter half of the 19th Century, was the Parish Church. It was considerably refurbished by John Elliott Burnside, then the village landowner, and is now one of the most splendid examples of its type in the County. It was during this refurbishment that Saxon brickwork was discovered in the tower making the church one of the oldest in the Diocese. Another of the owners of the village, William Elliott Burnside, had several new buildings erected and these can all be easily identified as he had his initials, W.E.B. and the date of construction, inscribed on the fronts of all the houses that he had built. Today Plumtree is very much a mix of the old and the new with respect to all these buildings. The Burnside Hall is a reminder of the part that that owner played during his tenure of ownership.
The Estate was put up for sale in 1974 but failed to reach its reserve. It was however eventually sold to a Pension Investment Company who sold it to the present owners, The Duchy of Cornwall, in 1988. Today the oldest part of the village is probably “The Green” but the mix of old and new is, on the whole, quite tasteful with the exception of the telephone exchange which is quite out of keeping with its surroundings. One group of buildings with an interesting name are the Raynor Cottages. These are named to commemorate William Raynor who had, at one time, been a resident of the village. William Raynor achieved fame on 11th May 1857 when, at the age of 61, he became the oldest winner of the Victoria Cross. The action occurred during the Indian Mutiny whilst serving as a Lieutenant with the Bengal Veteran Establishment, Indian Army, Raynor was one of nine men who defended the Magazine for more than five hours against large numbers of rebels and mutineers, until, on the wall being scaled and there being no hope of help, they fired the Magazine. Five of the gallant band died in the explosion and one shortly afterwards, but many of the enemy were killed. Luckily William Raynor was not one of those killed in the action.
Overall the presentation was very informative and very well received.