Nowadays the parish of Lenton consists of Old and New Lenton, Lenton Sands, Dunkirk, the University campus, part of the Lenton Abbey housing estate, plus the Lenton and Dunkirk Industrial estates.  After Lenton's incorporation into the Borough of Nottingham in 1877 the importance of the 'parish' diminished as it ceased to function as an administrative body and its boundaries only served to define the parish in ecclesiastical terms.

The founding of Lenton's Cluniac Priory in the early twelfth century, destined to become one of the wealthiest monasteries in the East Midlands, ensured that Lenton was always going to have its place on the historical map with several kings of England having stayed within its environs.  Following its dissolution in 1538 the buildings became a source of construction material for use elsewhere and there are now just a few remnants to show where it once stood.  Until the nineteenth century the village of Lenton would have remained quite small in size with most of its inhabitants engaged in agricultural pursuits.

The reasons for Lenton's growth during the early nineteenth century lay a mile or so to the east the Borough of Nottingham.  The population of Nottingham was rising rapidly at this time and with attempts to enclose the open land that surrounded the town proving unsuccessful Nottingham was suffering severe overcrowding.  It didn't take speculators long to realise that both businesses and families would prefer to occupy properties away from the squalor of the town.  And so we got New Lenton, New Radford, New Basford, New Sneinton, developments on open field sites situated between the relatively small villages and the town of Nottingham.  The original village of Lenton, henceforth known as Old Lenton, was centred on Gregory Street.  The 'pioneer' properties that made up New Lenton, all since demolished, were situated in the area now occupied by the Willoughby Street housing development.  There were still large swathes of land in and around Lenton that remained undeveloped.  To the south it was still largely farmland while there were a large number of garden allotments established on the land to the north and east of New Lenton.

In the 1880s the roads we now know as Lenton and Castle Boulevards were constructed and further houses, businesses and school premises were subsequently built in their vicinity some of the houses on Lenton Boulevard of quite generous proportions, built for the well to do.  Over in Dunkirk more modest properties for the working classes were being erected here.  In the first two decades of the twentieth century much of the land lying in that triangle of land bounded by Derby and Ilkeston Roads and Lenton Boulevard was developed for housing.  In the 1920s the allotments located in the Allenfield Gardens made way for the laying out of the Drives [Harlaxton, Harrington & Rolleston] which run from Derby Road across to Park Road and the subsequent building of all the properties now to be found there.

The 1920s also saw Nottingham's University College move out of its city centre base and take up residence on Highfields Estate, land donated by Sir Jesse Boot.  The ensuing years would see the College become a University in its own right and acquire much of the surrounding land as additions to its campus.  Jesse Boot also arranged for the construction of the Penn Avenue flats off Gregory Street, supposedly for those residents displaced when properties came down on Castle Boulevard to make way for Abbey Bridge.  In the 1930s the housing either side of Abbey Bridge was erected by the Corporation.  The Willoughby Street area was cleared in the 1960s and the Corporation built tower blocks on the Derby Road side and the low-rise housing development to be found at the Park Road end.  Over on Gregory Street the Corporation demolished the properties near the Red Cow and replaced them with the Friary Court development.   In the 1960s Lenton became the chosen site for a new teaching hospital, eventually named the Queen's Medical Centre.  A few years later Lenton acquired some more new housing in the form of the Lenton Gardens estates, the Saxon Green properties and the Forsythia Gardens development, all to be found in the vicinity of Gregory Street.  In the 1980s the former tannery buildings on Leengate were converted into housing, while the Lenton Manor housing development turned up on Church Street occupying what had previously been a mini-industrial estate.  Over on Castle Boulevard an old factory site made way for the Castle Gardens estate.  The huge factory site occupied by Raleigh Industries which straddled Faraday and Triumph Roads was deemed surplus to requirements by the company in the 1990s and the land occupied by the Faraday Road portion of the factory is now a housing development known by some as 'Lenton Village'; while the Triumph Road portions have been commandeered by the University to permit the development of its Jubilee campus.  Over in Dunkirk there have been pockets of new housing appearing over a number of decades, the most prominent of which is 'The Cooperage' built in the 1990s and situated off Montpelier Road.  With the continued expansion of the University Lenton has proved a popular base for the student population and a number of properties have been built specifically to cater for their needs the most recent being the huge Riverpoint development situated on Radmarsh Road.  How well the city now manages this increasing student population will undoubtedly have an impact on the range of individuals who will, in future, choose to make Lenton their home.  

Text prepared by Lenton Local History Society

For more about the history of Lenton see www.lentontimes.co.uk