"Rushcliffe Villages, Views, Curiosities & Little-Known Places"
April 2003 Meeting Report
Guest Speaker - Geoffrey Oldfield
The April meeting of the Keyworth & District Local History Society was held in the Centenary Lounge, Keyworth on April 4th, 2003. The guest speaker was Geoffrey Oldfield and the meeting was exceptionally well attended. His subject for the evening was "Rushcliffe Villages, Views, Curiosities & Little-Known Places" It may well be that Geoffrey’s well deserved reputation for his knowledge of the subject may have had a significant bearing on the high attendance for the presentation.
The presentation began with a brief history of how the Borough of Rushcliffe came into being. The Borough itself was formed in 1974 as a result of Local Government Reorganisation. The Borough was basically an amalgamation of the former boroughs of Basford, and Bingham. The name Rushcliffe is something of an oddity, in that there is no such actual place of that name within the Borough, nor, as far as is known, has there ever been. The only historical reference to the name Rushcliffe appears to be an Anglo-Saxon Wapentake of that name. We were then informed that the Borough contains around 60 separate Parish Councils representing the many villages situated in the area. The Borough has a population of around 107,600 of which 37,600 live in West Bridgford. The Borough covers an area of 157 square miles and stretches from Stanford on Soar in the South to Flintham in the North and West Bridgford in the West to Elton in the East.
After the short introduction to the region the audience were entertained with an entertaining and informative selection of colour slides, all of which had been taken by Geoffrey. The slides showed the wealth of beautiful locations to be found in the area and the surprisingly large number of buildings of very considerable historic and architectural interest. During the slide show a great many of Rushcliffe villages were illustrated, indeed there could not have been very many that were not illustrated at one time or another. The charming rural nature of the greater part of our locality was particularly evident. The overwhelming impression that arose from Geoffrey’s slides was what a picturesque setting the Borough of Rushcliffe is blessed with. All in all the audience was very well entertained by a speaker whose subject, and knowledge of that subject, struck such a chord.
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