Out with the old: Nottingham survived the 1960s with much of its finest architecture surprisingly intact. So why, despite paying lip-service to conservation, is the council demonstrating such indifference to the city's historic buildings?

Apollo, Sept, 2005

Years ago I met the elderly aunt of a friend, who told us about a frightening experience in her childhood. Cycling along a country road near Newark, she was alarmed by a noise and a bright light overhead, which made her ride into a ditch: 'It was a Zep--looking for Nottingham!' I do not know if that Zeppelin ever found its target, although Nottingham was in fact bombed during World War 1. Rather more destruction was created by the Luftwaffe in World War II but, as with so many other British cities, the damage done to Nottingham in the twentieth century was largely self-inflicted. After the war, the ineffably named Maid Marion Way was driven through the urban fabric to create a gulf between the city centre and the Castle. Soon after, more old streets were sacrificed to create the vile, introverted Broad Marsh shopping centre. And another horrible shopping centre was created on the site of Victoria Station on the old Great Central Railway--a trunk line which burrowed under the city and which--if post-war British governments had not been so car-obsessed and stupid--could now be handling Continental trains from the Channel Tunnel.

Nevertheless, Nottingham remains a city of great interest. St Mary's, the parish church, is one of the wonders of England and the subject of one of the finest etchings by the great F.L. Griggs (Fig. 1). And then there is the Castle, which, standing on its mound, heralds the city to the visitor arriving by train. It is, in fact, a baroque palace and, as such, unique in England, for it was rebuilt by the Duke of Newcastle in the 1670s and the walls are encrusted with heavy rustication and Mannerist aedicules. Unfortunately, the interior was burned out in 1831 by Nottingham's citizens unhappy with the then duke's opposition to the Reform Bill. Converted into the city's art gallery and museum in the 1870s, it has a collection that deserves to be better known.

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What else? There is the County Hall in High Pavement by James Gandon, who went on to embellish Dublin with magnificent classical buildings; there is a Roman Catholic cathedral by Pugin; entertaining rumbustious gothic-cum-Tudor late-Victorian buildings by the local architect Watson Fothergill; and a grand classical 1920s Council House by another bright local boy, Cecil Howitt (Fig. 3). Then there are the architectural treats in the vicinity, such as Wollaton Hall, the glorious Elizabethan house by Robert Smythson which the city council had the wit to acquire in the 1920s. Rather different is the Boots Factory at Beeston, but it is rightly famous because of the pioneering and powerful factory buildings of the 1930s, all concrete and glass, by that brilliant and bloody-minded engineer Sir Owen Williams. And then there is the University, paid for by Jesse Boot, which is remarkable for its post-war colleges: modern-classical architecture by McMorran & Whitby, amongst others, placed in a pastoral landscape.

So there is much for Nottingham to be proud of. And clearly the city wishes to undo some of its worst mistakes. The Broad Marsh Centre is to be rebuilt, and, as an internal Council report insists, 'the new development must not repeat the mistakes of the 1970s shopping centre in being designed as a mega-structure which completely disregarded the long-established street pattern ...'. The Old Market Square in front of the Council House--from which the market, along with the famous Goose Fair, was foolishly ejected in the 1920s--is to be improved, as are the surroundings of the railway station, a jolly piece of late Victorian terracotta arcading. And there is talk of trying to minimise the destructive impact of Maid Marion Way and reconnect the Castle and its grounds with the centre.

Even so, given Nottingham's recent history, one might have thought that the city council would cherish the historic buildings that survive, but this does not seem to be the case. Indeed, what is depressing is that the one central area that largely escaped post-war redevelopments is now again under some threat. This is the Lace Market, an area of streets north of the parish church that is filled with many substantial nineteenth-century lace warehouses as well as Georgian houses (Fig. 2). Once derelict, it has seen imaginative regeneration in recent decades and is now the most interesting and enjoyable part of the city--and a conservation area. Yet, despite all the positive actions, a number of buildings in the Lace Market remain derelict and one in Pitcher Gate, a (listed) town house of c. 1700 is actually proposed for demolition (a tenth of Nottingham's 971 listed buildings are regarded as 'At Risk').

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Then there are damaging proposals for new buildings. A particular worry is the plan for building The Pod (Fig. 3), a large hotel with restaurant and shops which is to replace a number of buildings in Fletcher Gate that, although derelict and unlisted, nevertheless make a positive contribution to the character and appearance of the conservation area (as the jargon goes). The design for the new building is by Benson Forsyth, architects of the new National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, and, although interesting, is uncompromisingly aggressive. More to the point, the hotel is to be twice the height of most buildings in the Lace Market and will thus challenge the dominance of the Wrennian dome of the Council House on the skyline. Yet this project is supported by the city council, although it has provoked local opposition and, along with other proposals, greatly concerns English Heritage. Unfortunately, EH--acutely conscious of being unloved by the present government--is anxious not to seem to oppose every new development supported by the local authority. It does, however, sensibly reiterate the government's own planning guideline (PPG 15), which advises that 'The destruction of historic buildings is in fact very seldom necessary for reasons of good planning; more often it is the result of neglect, or of failure to make imaginative efforts to find new uses for them or to incorporate them into new development.'