Nottingham is in the Mercerville-Hamilton Square area. Settled earlier, Nottingham is the original settlement in the former Nottingham Township (1688-1856). The neighboring unincorporated community of Sandtown was renamed Mercerville after the Battle of Princeton. Most or all of Nottingham was renamed Hamilton Square after Alexander Hamilton in a wave of anti-British sentiment at the time of the War of 1812. But local people still call the community Nottingham, because a large minority did not agree with the name change, and the center of Hamilton Square was a different neighborhood. Nottingham has maintained its sense of neighborhood because of continuity with street names and social events.