One of the things that makes Wetherspoons unique is that each of their pubs names derive from a snippet of history of the town in which they are based.
The budget pub chain has a reputation of renovating old buildings, and these are the stories the buildings hold.
These are the stories behind each of the region’s pubs and how they turned into boozers after, in some cases, a long history:
The Ernehale, Arnold
Arnold was recorded in the Domesday Book (1086) as Ernehale – a name historians believe means eagle’s nest.
The building now occupied by the pub was built back in 1904 to house the Lenton & Nottingham Co-operative Store.
All Co-ops were based on the principle of profit-sharing known as ‘the divi’ or dividend). Customers were given tokens or tickets with each purchase, and were repaid a percentage of the money they had spent, the remaining profits being invested.
Early Co-ops also provided an alternative to the ‘tommy-shops’ (company stores) supplying poor goods at high prices. The Co-ops commitment to social improvement considerably benefitted working people in towns and cities throughout Britain.
Woodthorpe Top, Mapperley
This popular Mapperley pub can be found on the junction of Woodthorpe Drive and Woodborough Road. Head further down Woodthorpe Drive and you will pass Woodthorpe Grange, a grade II listed house built in 1874. The house was acquired by Nottingham City Council in 1921, and the estate was converted into Woodthorpe Park.
The Woodthorpe Top was once Woodthorpe Grange Motors, the successor to Hopcroft Motors, for whom this single-storey building was erected after the Secondary World War.
Immediately in front of these premises is the Mapperley War Memorial, paid for by public subscription and erected shortly after the First World War. The Gothic style memorial stands on a triangular island of land given by Lord Carnavon.
The Free Man, Carlton Hill
The site of this building was once part of the long-gone Foxhill Farm.
To the rear of the building stood the Standhill Brick Works, with its tall chimneys.
Until 1939 the Post Office was housed in the building next door, before becoming the Toby Jug public house – which closed its doors for the last time in the noughties.
It was the Anglo-Saxons who later settled in the area around 600AD and gave Carlton – and this popular pub – its name.
Coerl is the Anglo-Saxon word for a freeman, while ‘ton’ or ‘tun’ means an enclosed settlement. Together, Coerl and tun signify that the early settlement (recorded as Carentune or Karleton) was a small enclosure occupied by the free tenants of the lord of the manor.
