Description: Taken from Wollaton Estate sales catalogue. The City Council took the decision in 1924 to buy Wollaton Hall and surrounding parkland from the 10th Lord Middleton who had recently inherited the Wollaton Estate from his brother and decided that the hall and grounds were surplus to requirements. He offered them to the City Council for the sum of £200,000. (In 1921 the 9th Lord Middleton had turned down an offer from Jesse Boot who had put in an offer to purchase the hall and land as he was considering it as a possible site for Nottingham's University College.) After the Council's purchase, land at the eastern side of the park was given over for an estate of 'small working, class houses' and from September 1925 onwards, individual plots of land along the northern and southern edges of the park were sold off to private builders. The Council wanted 'quality' housing here and set lower limits to the price of any houses built on these plots. On the Wollaton Road sites it was £700 while in the Adams Hill area of the Derby Road the sum was £3,000. With the sale of this building land the Council recouped the entire cost of their initial purchase; which makes it clear just how generous Lord Middleton had been when he sold the Hall and grounds to the City. The Council also took the opportunity to construct a new highway between Wollaton Road and Derby Road; calling it Middleton Boulevard. The Council soon decided that a portion of the grounds should be turned into a golf course and the remainder should be retained as a public park, with the hall becoming a natural history museum. (Approximately 500 of the original 800 acres of parkland were eventually set aside for the public park and golf course.) The extensive parklands are great for playing and exploring, with a Sensory Garden, a large lake, two playgrounds and deer roaming in the park.