Description: Florence Boot Hall is in the distance on the left, Trent Building, with its tower is in the centre (The Portland building has not yet been built). Looking towards the Beeston direction, with University Boulevard on the left. Highfields recreational gardens, pavilion and boating lake are in the foreground. The University re-located to its present site between Lenton, Dunkirk and Beeston in 1928. (The old location was the Victorian high gothic University College building on Shakespeare Street.) The new buildings were officially opened by King George V and Queen Mary. In August 1948, the University College received the royal charter granting full University status and the power to confer its own degrees (prior to this date students at Nottingham received degrees from the University of London). Parts of the old University College buildings were then used as Nottingham Central Library before becoming what is today part of Nottingham Trent University. Highfields Park came into being due to the benevolence of Jesse Boot. In 1920 Boots (The chemists) was taken over by the American, Louis K. Liggett of the United Drug Company and Jesse Boot sold his controlling interest for almost £2.5 million. Now aged seventy, he embarked on an 'orgy' of spending, to benefit the people of Nottingham. Boot had been an admirer of the Cadburys at Bourneville and William Lever at Port Sunlight who had housed their workers in decent homes alongside purpose built factories and almost immediately after the end of the First World War, he bought the huge Highfields Estate with the intention of using the splendid wooded site to build another Bourneville. But after the American take-over of the company, it soon became apparent that United Drug were not going to take up Boot's scheme for a new model town on the Highfields Estate, so he offered 35 acres of the Estate as a site for the University. The remainder of the 220 acres he decided should be laid out as a pleasure park for the benefit of all in Nottingham. The project was also to include the construction of a £200,000 road through the Estate to provide a much-needed new route between Nottingham and Beeston, and the enlargement of the existing water pond to create a boating lake. The firm employed to carry out the lake's enlargement was instructed to dump the excavated spoil on the line of the new boulevard. In this manner the roadway was raised up in the hope of preventing possible floodwaters from the Trent spreading right across the parkland. Work on the lake's enlargement began in 1922 and wasn't completed until 1925. Tottle Brook supplied the water for the lake. In this public park, which was to have boating lake, pavilion and sports fields, Jesse Boot decided to add the largest inland swimming pool in Britain; Highfields Lido. It would appear that parts of the park were opened as they were finished, and that there wasn't a specific opening date. In all probability the public wasn't granted full use of the park until about 1926. Back in 1923 Jesse Boot had formally handed the City Council the deeds to the parkland, but during his lifetime chose to retain control of the park's management. Through the Sir Jesse Boot Property and Development Company, his own park staff were employed to maintain the grounds, supervise the sports facilities and manage the catering from the Tea Pavilion beside the lake. This arrangement continued until 1932 (Jesse Boot having died in June 1931) when the City Council formally adopted the park. To offset the extra expense to which the Council would now be put, Jesse Boot had even left a gift of £30,000 specifically to help with the park's upkeep. The park must undoubtedly have changed over the years, if only because the trees and bushes have grown bigger, but in many respects the park remains much as it was when it first opened. The rowing boats and canoes still make their first appearance of the year in the week before Easter and stay out for hire until Goose Fair Sunday; Although today the art deco style pavilion has now been demolished and replaced by new tea rooms, and the old outdoor (freezing cold) lido has been replaced by the Djanogly art centre. (Information extracted from the excellent Lenton Times web-site at http://www.lentontimes.co.uk/images/gallery/highfields_park/highfields_park_listener_46.htm)