Mansfield is the largest town in Nottinghamshire, but only because Nottingham is a city. It lies 12 miles north of Nottingham and an hour's bus ride southeast of Chesterfield on the other side of the M1. Again we're on the edge of an abandoned coalfield but Mansfield is probably better known for its proximity to Sherwood Forest, despite not quite being in that either. With a population nudging 100,000 it's no small market town, nor any major tourist draw, nor doing especially well on the economic front. But I uncovered plenty of interest for a one-off visit, indeed found the town quite eye-opening, and at least its museum was open this time. Ten postcards follow.[Visit Mansfield][20 photos]
✉ The forest
The top end of Mansfield's main shopping street was once the centre of Sherwood Forest according to a plaque overlooking a none-too impressive oak. The inscription claims that an ancient tree stood here until 1940 and that the replacement was planted by the leader of the council in 1988, but if you stand here now outside a barber shop and a Moldovan grocery store it feels about as unforesty as you can get. Based on forest borders when King John was on the throne, however, Mansfield's centrality claim is more convincing. Alas far less of Sherwood remains these days, the largest surviving swathe lying beyond easy walking distance to the northeast. It's a half hour bus ride to Edwinstowe if you want to see the historicMajor Oak in Sherwood Forest Country Park, the massive tree in which Robin Hood and his merry men allegedly hung out. Realistically its girth would have been a lot less than 10m in those days, also the tree's not in good shape as it battles against old age and a changing climate, but it's still arguably a better tourist option than spending half a day in Mansfield.
✉ The railway Mansfield joined the railway network in 1849, initially as a terminus. In 1875 the line continued north to Worksop via a viaduct that cuts right across the heart of the town, though not in a domineering way. The 15 brick arches launch off from a sandstone cliff where people lived in cave houses until the end of the Victorian era, and land on the far side beside a lacklustre railway hotel. Mansfield lost its connection for Beeching-related reasons in 1964 and for many years claimed to be the largest town in England without a railway station, but was linked back up again in 1995 when the Robin Hood Line reopened. It still only gets one train an hour for most of the day though, hence the neighbouring swooshy bus station is considerably busier.
✉ The museum
The town's museum on Leeming Street started out as a collection donated by a Victorian philanthropist who inherited his fortune from the Mansfield Brewery. This is one of the local industries celebrated in the entrance corridor along with Metal Box, a company that originally sold mustard in decorated tins before deducing there was much more money in exploiting the tins themselves. If you used to buy Altoid mints or still keep your screws in a rusting Quality Street tin the source was probably the Metal Box factory in Rock Valley, recently demolished. Once you walk past the museum's information desk the galleries become rather more sparse - some stuffed birds, a bit of art, a movie props exhibition, really not many dinosaurs - so I would very much suggest focusing your time on Made In Mansfield instead.
✉ The Market Place
Redevelopment came early to Mansfield in 1823 when the town's Improvement Commissioners decided to demolish the maze of streets in the central area to create an open market place. It's far too big for the current market which occupies a small portion on the northern side, through which thread shoppers and mobility scooters heading elsewhere. In the empty part I spotted a very prominent police car, intriguingly empty and still present two hours later, thus presumably parked there as a deterrent. The monument in the centre is a later addition to commemorate local landowner Lord George Bentinck, but alas the shell was so ornate that the money ran out and the central space reserved for his statue remains empty. Don't think pavement cafes and alfresco drinking, but there is a branch of my favourite pastry chain Poundbakery where the lady behind the counter called me 'duck' as she sold me two apple puffs for a quid.
✉ The Quakers
One of the town's claims to fame is that the Quaker religion has its roots here, this because the initial revelation striking GeorgeFox came during the English Civil War while he was walking past the parish church. ["And as I was walking by the steeple-house side in the town of Mansfield, the Lord said unto me, That which people do trample upon must be thy food."] His first nonconformist conversion was of a local woman called Elizabeth Hooton, who it's said inspired the idea of silent worship, and a first meeting house was established on land outside the town centre. In a careless civic act the Old Quaker Meeting House was demolished in 1973 to make way for a new ring road called Quaker Way and now lies somewhere underneath the town's bus station, thus the Mansfield Quaker Heritage Trail is mostly a tour of the long gone.
✉ The trunk road
The A38 is England's longest two-digit A road and is 292 miles long. One end is in Bodmin in Cornwall and the other is here in Mansfield, and has been since 1977 when the road designation was extended northeast from Derby. The monster road terminates at an otherwise insignificant T-junction between the Superbowl and Taco Bell, this because the remainder of Stockwell Gate from here to Market Place had already been pedestrianised. All the other main roads round here start with a 6 so this numerical interloper really stands out. The Bodmin end of the A38 is prettier to be honest, but is merely a service roundabout so it's much easier to buy zips, get botoxed and park your car at this end.
✉ The mining
Nottinghamshire's miners gained a reputation for crossing picket lines during the Miners' Strike but it didn't ultimately save their jobs. All 40 collieries in the Nottinghamshire coalfield subsequently closed, the last as recently as 2015, leaving somewhat of a socio-economic hole in the locality. At Clipstone on the outskirts of Mansfield the headstocks have been retained and ex-miners run guided tours on Fridays, while at Pleasley Pit the reclaimed mineworkings are now a country park with a visitor centre which opens daily except Tuesdays. I also missed out on the correct opening days for the Nottinghamshire Mining Museum which occupies part of Mansfield station, so instead had to make do with admiring the chunky 'Tribute to the British Miner' statue unveiled on the ring road in 2003.
✉ The shops
Mansfield's no retail ghost town, and even somehow still has a Marks and Spencer in the town centre. But there are clear signs of decline and the rabble along Westgate are more likely stocking up on bargains than dangling a boutiquey bag. The FourSeasons shopping centre has seen better days and leans heavily into cheaper stores, and if you step out back the former Beale's department store is a hulking eyesore awaiting the cash to turn it into a regenerated council hub. The mall that most affected me was the Rosemary Centre, a former cotton doubling factory founded by the Cash family in 1906. In 1989 the ground floor became a terraced shopping mall of dubious architectural merit, home to Argos, Domino's and Slacks newsagents, but has been sequentially decanted and the derelictarcade now has a brutal ambience. The plan is to replace the sawtooth-roofed building with a huge Lidl to try to regain footfall, which makes huge economic sense but nobody will ever look at their grey shed and think wistfully of what used to be.
✉ The leftbehindness
Chesterfield and Mansfield are similar-sized towns in a similar part of the country but I was struck by how much more deprived Mansfield felt. It wasn't so much the buildings as the people, a sense that many were merely getting by and struggling on, also an absence of upscale retail and designer brands. I've seen poverty in London but this was something else, not ubiquitous but more engrained, and nothing a Levelling Up grant is going to solve. I passed families on the street so brassic that a TV drama almost wrote itself, also gaptooth pensioners, teenage buzzcut patriots and stoic kids trying not be embarrassed by their parents. Maybe it was just ideal hoodie-wearing weather. What's interesting is that of the two towns I'd far rather go back to Mansfield, it had both character and spirit, but if the Labour government doesn't get a grip on turning round communities like this then a red wall tide will inevitably wash it away.
✉ The Heritage Trail
If you're ever in Mansfield with a couple of hours to spare a copy of the Mansfield Heritage Trail comes highly recommended. You can download it before you arrive or pick up a nicely-bound free copy at the museum. For me it explained why a bronze man was leaning on a stack of metal rings at the foot of Church Street, what the 7m-tall stainless steel high heels were doing by the railway viaduct and which seemingly classical building on Regent Street was really just the former Electricity Showroom. Eye-opening all round.
