Image ID: 01909

Manvers Street, Sneinton, Nottingham, c 1890?

Manvers Street
Nottingham, Sneinton
England

Looking south from Kingston Street towards the junction with Thoresby Street and Newark Street (Sneinton Hermitage). Kingston Street used to run east to west from Manvers Street, across Beaumont Street, to Lower Eldon Street near the junction with Sneinton Road. Sneinton's name derives from the pre-norman inhabitants of the Nottingham area; the 'Snotes or Snots' (locals take great delight in the latter option!), and it suggests that Sneinton was the more inhabited part of the present city; 'Snot's ton' or town, as opposed to (s)nottingham which was only a hamlet. The caves which are found here as well as all over Nottingham are one of the most difficult and intricate problems of local archaeology. Some of them are natural; others are artificial, but date back to prehistoric times, others again are mediaeval or even modern cellars. They have always been famous, and Asser, the friend and biographer of King Alfred, writing about 900, tells us that the ancient name for Nottingham was Tiuogobauc, which he translates as meaning ' the cave dwellings.' The caves at Sneinton are given the name 'Hermitage' which suggests the home of either a 'Dark Age' or Medieval religious recluse. Later etchings and pictures show the caves with windows fixed in place, used for habitation and storage. The caves by the time of this photograph are hidden behind terraces of large Victorian Houses and the area has been swallowed up by the spread of housing from the City Of Nottingham. By 1850 the population of Sneinton had swelled to 8,500.

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