Nottingham Park Estate Limited

Nottingham Park Estate traces its origins back to the royal park attached to the castle of Nottingham, which was built in the late eleventh century. The castle was an important royal centre in the middle ages, but was largely in ruins by the late-seventeenth century, a process accelerated by damage suffered in the civil war. After the restoration, the royalist William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, acquired the Castle and Park, and in the 1670s began an ambitious new building on Castle rock. The work of replacing the remains of the medieval castle with a ducal palace was completed after William's death by his son, Henry Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

The Castle and Park remained in the hands of the Pelham-Clinton Dukes of Newcastle-under-Lyne, although they were more often resident at their rural estate of Clumber, Nottinghamshire, or other properties. The first serious proposals for residential development of the area came in the late 18th century during the minority of the 4th Duke of Newcastle (1785-1851). Uncertainty about the future use of the Castle was an issue, as that might have affected property values. It was not until the late 1820s that the 4th Duke took the first steps, with development of the north-east escarpment of the Park.

Meantime, other events dramatically affected the potential exploitation of the Castle. In 1831, following the failure of the Second Reform Bill in the House of Lords, the building was sacked and fired in a protest against the duke, whose reactionary views were well known. The duke made no effort to rebuild it. Under Henry P.F. Pelham-Clinton, 5th Duke of Newcastle (1811-64), plans to develop the surrounding Park continued. The current design of the Park was laid out in the third quarter of the 19th century, with drives and crescents given names associated with the Pelham-Clinton dukes of Newcastle.

The Park continued to be owned by the Dukes of Newcastle themselves, or under various trusts, strict settlements etc., until it was finally sold by the Henry F.H. Pelham-Clinton-Hope, 8th Duke of Newcastle (1866-1941), via Lord Nuffield, to the University of Oxford in 1939. Most of the properties in the Park were leasehold, but from the early 1950s the freeholds were sold off and some of the utilities came to be run by other bodies, so that the administration of the Park became increasingly vestigial.

In 1986 Oxford University surrendered its remaining rights in the area to the newly formed body, Nottingham Park Estate Limited. The archive represents those papers from the Newcastle Estate Office on Lenton Road that remained when the estate passed from Newcastle to Oxford in 1939, together with all those generated through the university's administration of the Park, also held in the Park Estate Office.