Time shift – The Robin Hood Case

Following the Nottingham City boundary extension act of 1845 the Robin Hood Chase was constructed as a recreational walk way into the Arboretum park vir Corperation Oaks & Elm Avenue.

The main route has a covenant attached that says nothing can be build on the land. The the remaining areas either side of the Chase were developed, including St Ann’s Church, and later the Robin Hood Chase shopping precinct after St Ann’s underwent a slum clearance program in 1971.

This is a sequence of images of the Robin Hood Chase between 1900 – 1972.

St. Ann's parish was formed in 1865, including a small portion of Baseford parish. In 1863 the Nottingham architect Thomas Chambers Hine (1813-1899), and his partner Robert Evens, received the prize of £20 in the open competition for St. Ann's church. However, when it was built in 1864, it was to the design of Robert Clarke of Nottingham. The Church v/as consecrated on 4 November 1864 by the Bishop of Lincoln. The church was situated in St Ann's Well Road at the bottom of the Robin Hood Chase, and was an edifice of Bulwell stone in the decorated style, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, transepts, north porch, western bell turret, and one bell. There v/as a fine organ, and the church seated 1,200 persons, with 700 free seats for the not so well off. There were large day, and Sunday Schools, in connection with this parish for the education of children. The buildings were contiguous to the church. The register dated from the year 1805. The living was a perpetual curacy with a gross yearly value of about £450, and a house in the gift of trustees. It was first held in 1871 by the Rev. James Dawson Lewis M.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge, Hon. Canon of Southwell, and surrogate. St Ann's Church closed in 1971. The church was demolished and a new building combining Saint Anne with Emanuel, was erected on the Robin Hood Chase in 1972 as part of the new redevelopment of the area.