Southwell ( , ) is a minster and market town, and a civil parish, in the district of Newark and Sherwood, in Nottinghamshire, England. It is home to Southwell Minster, a grade-I listed structure and the cathedral of the Anglican Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham. The population of the town was recorded at 7,491 in the 2021 census.
History Toponymy The origin of the name is unclear. Several sites claim to be the original "well", notably at GR where a plaque has been placed; in the Admiral Rodney pub; on the south side of the Minster, known as Lady Well in the 19th century; and one by the cloisters called Holy Well. Norwell, north-east, may support the idea of a pair of "south" and "north" wells, although no wells are known to exist. There was a complex relationship with the two; Norwell being owned by and contributing to the Prebends of Southwell, the place name possibly given to help distinguish this.
In most of Nottinghamshire, Southwell is pronounced "SUH-thull", with a voiced "th" and a silent "w". Southwell's own residents tend to pronounce it as it is spelt.
Early history The remains of an opulent Roman villa were excavated beneath the Minster and its churchyard in 1959.Daniels, C.M., "Excavations on the site of the Roman Villa in Southwell, 1959", Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire, Vol. 70, 1966, pp. 13–33. Part of a mural from the excavation is displayed in the Minster. It is one of three of its type found in the territories of the Corieltauvi (or Coritani) tribes – along with Scampton in Lincolnshire and Norfolk Street in Leicestershire. A stretch of the Fosse Way runs on the far bank of the River Trent, with evidence of Roman settlement at Ad Pontem ("to the bridge" or "at the bridge"), north-west of the village of East Stoke. There is no clear evidence of a road between Ad Pontem and Southwell. Other evidence of Roman settlement includes the use of Roman bricks in prebendary buildings around the Minster, remains of a ditch or fosse discovered at Burgage Hill in the 19th century, and possibly Roman remains beneath the Church Street site of the recently vacated Minster School.
The Venerable Bede records a multiple baptism in the "flood of the Trent" near "Tiovulginacester" by Paulinus in the presence of Edwin of Northumbria, whom he had converted to Christianity in 627. There is disagreement on the location of Tiovulginacester, but Paulinus certainly visited it and may have founded the first church in Southwell.
Remains of Eadburh, Abbess of Repton and daughter of Ealdwulf of East Anglia were buried in Southwell's Saxon church.Rollason, D.W., "List of Saints' Resting Places in Anglo-Saxon England", Anglo-Saxon England 7, 1978, p. 89 Eadburh was appointed Abbess under the patronage of King Wulfhere of Mercia; she appears in the Life of Guthlac and is thought to have died about AD 700. Her remains were buried or translated to Southwell Minster and revered there in the Middle Ages. The only reference is in a Pilgrims Guide to Shrines and Burial Places of the Saints of England supposedly written in 1000: "There resteth St. Eadburh in the Minster of Southwell near the water called the Trent."
Eadwy of England gave land in Southwell to Oskytel, Archbishop of York, in 956; this charter being the first dated reference to Southwell. In 1051 Archbishop Ælfric Puttoc died at Southwell, which indicates that the archiepiscopal residence and church might have been established by then."Colleges: The collegiate church of Southwell." A History of the County of Nottingham: Volume 2. Page, William ed. London: Victoria County History, 1910. 152–161. British History Online Retrieved 27 February 2021. A tessellated floor and the 11th-century tympanum over a doorway in the north transept are evidence of construction of the Minster after this time. The Domesday Book (1086) gives detail of an archiepiscopal manor in Southwell.
A custom known as the "Gate to Southwell" originated after 1109, when the Archbishop of York, Thomas I, wrote to each Nottinghamshire parish for contributions to building of a new mother church. Annually at Whitsuntide, the resulting "Southwell Pence" were taken to the Minster in a procession from Nottingham, headed by the Mayor and followed by clergy and lay people bound for Southwell's Whitsun Fair. The Pence were paid at the Minster's north porch to the Chapter Clerk. The "gate" in the name of Southwell Gate means "street", as in many East Midland and North-Eastern street names. The custom in its original form persisted well into the 16th century. It was revived in 1981 by the Dolphin Morrismen, but imposition of traffic-management costs forced the organisers to abandon it in 2014. It is survived by the Gate to Southwell Festival, a broad musical event held annually since 2007, except 2020; now held in early July on a site near Southwell and at various venues in the town.
Geoffrey Plantagenet was ordained a priest at Southwell in 1189. On 4 April 1194, Richard I and the King of Scots, William I, were in Southwell, having spent Palm Sunday in Kings Clipstone. King John visited Southwell between 1207 and 1213, ostensibly to hunt in Sherwood Forest, but also on the way to expedition to Wales in 1212.
1300–1800 The Saracen's Head was built in 1463 on land gifted in 1396 by Archbishop Thomas Arundel of York to John and Margaret Fysher. When built, the first floor overhung the roadway in the style of the time.
In 1530, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey stayed at the archbishop's palace in Southwell for a few months. The Cardinal had been arrested after failing to secure an annulment between King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. The Cardinal was ordered to London by Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland for treason and became ill along the way.
In 1603, King James VI of Scotland passed through Southwell on his way to London to be crowned King James I of England.Bailey T., Annals of Nottinghamshire: History of the County of Nottingham, including the Borough, Vol 2 (1853), p. 544.
During the English Civil War, King Charles I spent his last night as a free man in May 1646 in the Saracen's Head (then the King's Head), before surrendering to the Scottish Army stationed at nearby Kelham. The town, the Minster and the Archbishop's Palace suffered under Oliver Cromwell's troops, as they sequestered the palace to stable their horses, broke monuments, and ransacked graves for lead and other valuables. In 1793, there were still iron rings in the walls to secure the horses. By end of the war the Archbishop's Palace was in ruins apart from its Great Hall. It is reputed that Cromwell also stayed at the King's Head.
A bridewell, built on the Burgage in 1656, was enlarged in 1787 to become a county prison. There is evidence that a house of correction was built in 1611, so that the bridewell may itself have been an enlargement.
Mary Ann Brailsford was baptised at Southwell in May 1791 and Matthew Bramley at Balderton in 1796.
19th century and later
By 1801, the population was 2,305. In 1803, Lord Byron stayed with his mother in Burgage Manor during holidays from Harrow and Cambridge; she rented the house. By that time, he had become 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale, but the family home, Newstead Abbey, still required repairs which they could not afford.
Lord Byron wrote a poem in 1807, called Epitaph of John Adams, of Southwell - A Carrier, who Died of Drunkenness; it includes the following reference to the town:
"JOHN ADAMS lies here, of the parish of Southwell, A Carrier who carried his can to his mouth well: He carried so much, and he carried so fast, He could carry no more-so was carried at last; For, the liquor he drank, being too much for one, He could not carry off,--so he's now carri-on."
The Bramley cooking apple was first seeded in Southwell, by Mary Ann Brailsford in 1809. Martin, J. (2004), "Mary Ann Brailsford", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: OUP, Vol. 7, p. 289. Henry Merryweather, a local nurseryman then 17 years old, saw potential and cultivated it from cuttings.Merryweather, Roger. 1982, The Bramley: A World Famous Cooking Apple, Newark and Sherwood D.C., Nottinghamshire. The apple is widely used and renowned for its acidic taste and for cooking into a smooth purée. One local football club, Southwell City, is nicknamed "The Bramleys" and the town's library is called the Bramley Centre. In March 2009, a stained-glass window was placed in Southwell Minister to mark the apple's bicentenary.
The town was late in getting a permanent theatre; this was in the yard of the former Cross Keys. In 1816, two large rooms on the first floor of premises of James Adams, a whitesmith, were converted for use as a theatre. The first company to use it was that of Joseph Smedley.
The Diocese of Southwell was established in 1884, with Southwell Minster becoming its cathedral church. As established, the diocese included both Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, but a new Diocese of Derby was formed in 1927 to encompass the part of the Diocese of Southwell in Derbyshire. In 2005, the diocese was renamed the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham.
Geography Location and population The town lies on the River Greet; it is located west of Newark-on-Trent, north-east of Nottingham, south-east of Mansfield and south-east of Worksop.
The population of the town was recorded at 7,491 in the 2021 census.
Town districts The historic town centre is based around the cathedral area, but nearby outlying communities grew and eventually were subsumed into the town.
The Prebendage was the heart of Southwell centred on the Minster and the surrounding prebendary properties Burgage was north of the cathedral, around Burgage Green, traditionally hosting burgage properties Hightown was to the north-west along Westgate, along the main shopping street East Thorpe and West Thorpe were hamlets on either side of these areas; St Catherine's Well, at the extremity of West Thorpe, was formerly noted for treating rheumatism.
Localities Separated further afield from the core urban area, but within the civil parish are the following places:
Normanton, a hamlet on the east side of the River Greet positioned around Corkhill Lane; it hosts a sizeable garden centre business Maythorne, a hamlet around a listed former silk mill north of the town, alongside the River Greet Brackenhurst, an agricultural campus for Nottingham Trent University, lies to the south Brinkley is a hamlet to the south-east, along Fiskerton Road.
Economy The town is something of an oddity in North Nottinghamshire, being visibly affluent compared with neighbouring Newark-on-Trent and Mansfield. Agriculture and coal have seen the fortunes of the other two fluctuate over the years, while Southwell has remained a place where wealthier Nottinghamians like to reside. It appeared in the Sunday Times shortlist of Best Places to Live 2017 for the Midlands region.
As well as shops and services throughout the town centre, other economic sectors include Brackenhurst, an agricultural campus for Nottingham Trent University, while a small industrial estate is to the east of the town.
Governance
As the site of an Anglican cathedral, the town is sometimes mistakenly described as a city and indeed was treated as such in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. However, in 1884 when the diocese was established, the procedure for acquiring city status for new diocesan seats involved the town in question's borough council petitioning the monarch; a petition that at that time was invariably granted. As Southwell was not an incorporated borough and had no borough council to raise the petition, it never gained city status.