An 'outstanding' Victorian house set for destruction gives an insight into the town's once booming lace trade. Oban House in Beeston could be demolished to make way for a new GP surgery, but many fear its remarkable history will be lost under the rubble if plans go ahead.
Oban House, in Chilwell Road, was built in around 1890. It was a period of industrialisation and Beeston had become a "boom town" according to Valerie Henstock, of the Beeston and District Local History Society, in the Beeston Echoes local history magazine. It was the "age of the horse" and the house would go on to survive years of change and the further industrialisation of the country.
However the Manor Surgery, currently located in Middle Street in Beeston, is anticipating a significant rise in the number of patients. Estimates suggest the list will grow from 13,000 to 18,000 by 2025, and so it has been proposed a new and larger surgery should be built on the site of Oban House.
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This would mean the existing Victorian building may need to be demolished, prompting serious concern. The house itself has an intriguing history of ownership, from lace makers and entrepreneurs to doctors and the council.
The plot of land the building is built on was first purchased in 1881 by a man called Frank Wilkinson, a lace trader and entrepreneur born in Hucknall, before the actual property was erected in around 1890.
Mr Wilkinson, whose name is still remembered to this day through nearby Wilkinson Avenue, had built the Anglo Scotian Mills in Wollaton Road and at one stage the business employed more than 1,000 people. It was the largest net curtain factory in Europe.
It is understood Oban House was first used as staff quarters for management at the mills and rented out by working professionals.
Mr Wilkinson's fortunes in the mills began to crumble in and around 1886 and 1892 after large-scale fires, forcing him to mortgage Oban House in 1893, and his "untimely" death at the age of 53 eventually. He had a finger "in every pie" according to text in the Beeston Echoes magazine.
Mr Wilkinson's ownership was eventually superseded by Arthur Stevenson, who was just 24, and occupied the building alongside his wife Rebecca, 30. Mrs Stevenson's family had been heavily involved in the Beeston lace trade for more than 50 years.
The property was then owned by an insurance agent, William Blackwell, before yet another lace worker, Robert Paling, purchased the property in 1913 for £975. He remained here until 1926, when it was sold to a surgeon, Dr Winifred Thompson, for £1,500.
"Medicine was a fairly new profession for a woman in the 1920s and even in the 1950s Dr Thompson was for many years the only female amongst 12 doctors serving in the Beeston area," said Ms Henstock in the magazine.
Sadly Dr Thompson, who had moved to Bramcote Drive upon her retirement after 40 years, was killed in a car crash. "It was a terrible shock to everyone when she was killed, aged 92, in a car accident when crossing the road in November 1990 to post her letters."
She lived here until 1967 when it was then sold to Beeston and Stapleford Urban District Council for £12,000, where the social services department operated until 1999. It was later inhabited by Bridgeway Consulting Ltd.
The Beeston Civic Society, founded in 1974 to prevent the destruction of Beeston's history, is seeking to prevent its demolition. It described Oban House as a "heritage asset".
"The outstanding structure is one of only a few heritage buildings that still remain in the centre," it says.
"Built in 1890 it is structurally superior and more valuable in respect of materials and workman skills that almost anything that can be purchased today. There is no benefit to be found in the destruction of Oban House, only terrible press and sadness."
