A question of Hucknall

Throughout the years there have been problems about the name and place of Hucknall. I seem to have been asked many times about the name because people have been confused about the different Hucknall's and I hope this piece might just help with an explanation.

How many places were originally called Hucknall? The answer is three. Two in Nottinghamshire and one in Derbyshire. While these places are in different counties they are fairly close to each other.

Why were they called Hucknall? Popular opinion is that the name derives from Hucca's heath an angle of land which once belonged to a Saxon man called Hucca. He obviously owned or was responsible for a large area of land so three different places in the area took his name but they weren't just called Hucknall. Other names were added to mark the different places.

What were these three places? The one in Derbyshire near Hardwick Hall had the prefix Ault which was from the old French 'haut' meaning high. Ault Hucknall is a parish in its own right and has remained a small village. Hucknall-under-Huthwaite was a hamlet within the parish of Sutton-in-Ashfield. The suffix Huthwaite comes from Old English 'hoh - hill spur and thwaite - clearing' so the name meant the clearing or settlement below the hill. Torkard was the name of a landowning family who lived in the southernmost Hucknall from the 1180s until 1324 so this one became Hucknall Torkard. It too was a parish in its own right beginning as a village which eventually grew into a town.

Why did the names change in Nottinghamshire? Possibly one reason was because of confusion caused by the mining industry as there was Hucknall Colliery Company at Hucknall Torkard and the New Hucknall Colliery at Hucknall-under-Huthwaite. Difficulties were caused on the railway system when the colliery wagons went to the wrong pit. The Post Office also was having serious problems because the two places in Nottinghamshire were often just abbreviated to Hucknall. When reading old documents listed as 'Hucknall' great care has to be taken to make sure you have the correct place name and in libraries or archives offices they can be catalogued wrongly when staff do not realise that there were two places which may both have been just called Hucknall.

Let me quote you a piece from Hucknall Dispatch dated December 22nd 1938. It is taken from the 25 Years Ago article 'Scrapbook for 1913' and titled TORKARD GOES. "Another noticeable thing from this time in the history of Hucknall was the dropping of the addendum "Torkard". Arrangements were made that Hucknall Huthwaite should drop Hucknall at the same time - so our town would be known as "Hucknall" and the people ten miles away would be known as "Huthwaite" only. All this was done to avoid clashing and in no small measure to simplify matters at the Post Office. It was some time afterwards that the change was officially sanctioned by the Notts. County Council. It may be pointed out that nothing was done regarding Ault Hucknall, near Hardwick, which was only a hamlet and still remains so at the present time."

Eric Horriben who worked for HUDC stated that Hucknall actually dropped the Torkard in 1916.

It is interesting to consider that an older name for the area called Ashfield since 1974 could have been Hucknall. Our Hucknall which was originally called Hucknall Torkard is in the south and Huthwaite originally Hucknall-under-Huthwaite is in the north of the Ashfield District Council area.