Situated
about four miles north of Nottingham, there's been a settlement
in Hucknall for around 1,400 years. I have heard two versions
of why the town came by its name, and like most placenames, both
of them are derivations of what it was supposedly called.
Anglo-Saxons called it – either ‘Occa’s Knoll’,
knoll being an Old Saxon word for place, or ‘Oak-en-hall’,
meaning place of the Oak.
Over the
years, Hucknall grew into a thriving market town. Its focal
point being the parish church of St Mary Magdelene, built by
the Saxons and completed after the Norman Conquest, although
much of what you see today was restored in the Victorian era.
The church
has two famous landmarks: a memorial to bare knuckle fighter
Ben Caunt, and in its crypt, the remains of George Gordon, the
6th Lord Byron – poet, freedom fighter and bon viveur in
general.
Hucknall’s
industry once thrived, providing work in three local coal mines,
textiles, and aircraft engineering in the form of a large Rolls
Royce factory, the latter being the only one to survive.
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| Bomber |
During World
War Two, Swiss-born Luftwaffe pilot Franz Von Werra made an
ambitious attempt to escape from the Hucknall area where he
was working on the land whilst held captive as a PoW.
Posing as
a Dutch pilot he got as far as the cockpit of a Hurricane fighter
parked at the aerodrome but was caught in the nick of time –
just before chocks were away! His exploits can be seen in the
feature film, ‘The One That Got Away’.
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| Robin
Bailey, actor |
Hucknall
has also produced a few famous sons, including the aforementioned
Lord Byron, actor Robin Bailey and composer Eric Coates, well
known for the Dambuster’s March.
This was composed in honour of RAF Bomber Command who blasted
the German Mohne and Eder damms – with a little help from
Barnes Wallis’ revolutionary bouncing bomb!
Now read about the pubs in
Hucknall
Nottingham Drinker is the bi-monthly Nottingham
CAMRA newsletter available free in over 150 outlets (pubs, libraries
and tourist information centres in Nottingham and the surrounding
areas).
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