Radford (St. Peter)
RADFORD (St. Peter), a parish, and the head of a union, in the S. division of the wapentake of Broxton, N. division of the county of Nottingham, 1 mile (W. by N.) from Nottingham; containing 10,817 inhabitants. This parish, which was part of the ancient forest of Sherwood, comprises by measurement 600 acres. Various branches of manufacture, similar to those at Nottingham, are carried on to a considerable extent. There are three large bobbin-net manufactories and several smaller ones, the machinery of which is impelled by steam, two bleach-works, three corn-mills, two extensive cotton-mills, and a thread-mill. The Nottingham Gas Company erected works here, on a very large scale, in 1845. The old village is situated on the river Leen; the new one forms a modern suburb stretching from the western limits of Nottingham, on the Derby and Alfreton roads, and containing some spacious streets. A branch of the Grantham canal runs through part of the parish. The Peverel court is held in Radford, to try pleas, and recover debts as high as £50; its jurisdiction extends over the whole of the honour of Peverel, comprising 170 towns and villages in Nottinghamshire, 120 in Derbyshire, and several in the counties of Leicester and York. Broxton Hall and Aspley House, two ancient mansions in the parish, are the property of Lord Middleton. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £3. 9. 4½.; it has a net income of £293, and the patronage and impropriation belong to the Crown: the glebe consists of 57 acres. The present church, a neat structure in the later English style, with a tower at the west end, was built in 1812. New Radford was constituted an ecclesiastical parish in April 1845, under the act 6th and 7th Victoria cap. 37: the district comprises about 30 acres, with a population of 5045. The living is a perpetual curacy in the patronage of the Crown and the Bishop of Lincoln, alternately; income, £150, with a parsonagehouse: the church is in the florid pointed style, contains 1000 sittings, and was completed at a cost of £4400. There are places of worship for Baptists, Independents, Primitive Methodists, and Wesleyans; and a large national school, built in 1841, is supported by subscription. The poor-law union of Radford comprises four parishes or places, with a population of 22,470. A priory of Black canons was founded here about 1102 by William de Luvitot, which at the Dissolution, had a revenue of £302. 6. 10.
Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.