Date: Sunday 30th March 2025
Time: 2:00pm-4:30pm. Duration: 2.5 hours
Price: £5 per person (pay on the day)
Booking essential: Please call 0115 915 6878 to book.
From Barefoot Herbalist to International Pharmacist. Join Champion of Nottingham and local hero Tom Huggon for this guided walk around Sneinton, with a particular focus on Jesse Boot.
This walk will start at Green’s Mill going across to Goosegate, Hockley and Woolpack Lane, wandering about places showing how nearby Sneinton developed gradually, becoming part of the town during the long life of Jesse Boot who became an international pharmacist with manufactories on the edge of Sneinton and employing many local people. Sturdy walking shoes required and be prepared for the odd steep path.
Suitable for age: 16+
This walk is circular returning back to Green’s Mill. Booking essential. Please call 0115 915 6878 to book.
Preamble to the walk by guide Tom Huggon
“Nowhere else shall we find so large a mass of inhabitants crowded into courts in Nottingham and those of the worst construction.”
– From the Report of the Health of Towns Commission 1845.
This was an accurate description of the disease-ridden slums around and about Goosegate, Hockley and Woolpack Lane at that time.
Born in Woolpack Lane in 1850 was a boy whose father kept a herbalist shop in Goosegate. His father died when he was 11 years old, after which his mother continued to keep the shop with the help of her young lad.
In those days Sneinton was still a pleasant country hamlet separated from the squalor of the town by extensive fields. Mother and son went out regularly to collect herbs for their medicines.
You will learn what inspired Jesse Boot to provide medicines for ordinary people and why he went barefoot in quest of herbs.
