Description:
A church of St. Nicholas was erected on the site of the present building soon after the Conquest, and it seems to have been very like the St. Peter's Church that we know. Whatever its appearance, it did its work usefully and quietly as a parish church until 1642. Then the times were out of joint. King Charles and the Parliament were at each other's throat, and the country rang with the battle cry of the Roundhead and Cavalier. Colonel Huchinson held Nottingham Castle for the Parliament, and was attacked by a body of Newarkers acting for the King. They were almost successful in their attempt but not quite. However, they established themselves in the tower of the old St. Nicholas Church, and proceeded to bombard the garrison of the Castle with such effect that when they were finally dislodged, Colonel Hutchinson felt that he dare not expose his men to a repetition of the experience, and so caused the old church to be completely destroyed. The homeless congregation were accommodated in a loft over St. Peter's Chancel but they were once more rendered homeless by a fresh bombardment, for thirty-five years the site of St. Nicholas remained vacant, but at last in 1678 a fresh start was made and a new church was erected, the nucleus of today's building. Men were war-weary and tired of being over-governed. King Charles II had been restored to the throne of his fathers a dozen years before, and all the golden promise of that anna mirabilis had faded into disappointment. The ancient nobility and gentry were impoverished by sequestration and taxation, and the new owners of wealth had not had time to realise their responsibilities. All this and much more is reflected in the poorness of the architecture and the cheapness of the material of the portions of St. Nicholas Church which date from about the time of Titus Oates. (information from www.nottshistory.org.uk) No illustration is known to exist of the earlier building.
Thomas William Hammond 1854-1935. Born in Philadelphia of Nottingham emigres, and orphaned at the age of four, he came to England with his younger sister Maria and lived for a short while with his grandparents in Mount Street. In 1868 age 14 he enrolled in the Government School of Art. On the 1871 census he is described as a lace curtain designer, and in 1872 he was awarded the 'Queen's Prize for a Design of a Lace Curtain'. Other prizes followed and in 1877 he was again awarded the Queen's Prize, this time for the design for a damask table Cloth.
Hammond was an indefatigable worker, and soon began to use his skills as a draftsman to record aspects of the changing town. He began showing his work at local venues in 1882 and in 1890 exhibited for the first time at the Royal academy. His real hobby was black and white sketching in charcoal. He drew about 350 pictures all together mainly scenes of a Nottingham he knew but which has largely passed away today.
Extracted from 'The Changing Face of Tom Hammond's Nottingham' by John Beckett which is the introductory essay in 'A City in the Making Drawings of Tom Hammond'.