page_title: Retford
section_title: Opinions on Retford
hierarchical_section_title: Retford / Landmarks and built environment / Opinions on Retford
caption_attribution_description: English: Retford Town Hall, The Square, Retford Wikidata has entry Q26651614 with data related to this item.This is a photo of listed building number 1370374.
context_page_description: Retford, also known as East Retford, is a market town in Nottinghamshire, England, 31 miles from Nottingham, and 23 miles west of Lincoln. The population at the 2011 census was 22,013. The town is in the valley of the River Idle and the Chesterfield Canal passes through the centre. The village of Ordsall, west of the River Idle and the East Coast Main Line railway, and the former hamlet of Thrumpton are suburbs. Retford is administered by Bassetlaw District Council, which itself is now a non-constituent partner member of the Sheffield City Region Combined Authority. Retford is twinned with Pfungstadt, Germany.
context_section_description: In The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1820-1832 Retford was described as "a thriving and genteel market town in the hundred of Bassetlaw, on the border with Yorkshire, [which] boasted hat and sailcloth manufacturing, but had been superseded by Worksop in the barley trade".
  Nikolaus Pevsner, architectural historian, writing in 1951, was fairly scathing about Retford and its lack of distinguished buildings. "A singularly unattractive town," he wrote.
  However, William White in his Directory of Nottinghamshire (1853) is more complimentary about Retford: "The approach to the town, from every side, is by a beautiful and gradual descent, and its open and spacious Market-place, surrounded by good regular buildings, and having several commodious streets of neat houses branching from it gives the whole an air of importance, comfort, and wealth, possessed but by few country towns of the same size."
  Retford and its environs were thought to be sufficiently attractive for the Great Northern Railway Company to organise trips based in Retford (1908). Visitors stayed at the White Hart Hotel, with a fare inclusive of the railway journey, the drive (by four in-hand, landau, citoria or dogcart), and a couple of meals. C Moss, author of the 1908 handbook, notes: "Attention, almost at the very outset of the journey, is directed to the beauties of the drive. By a gentle incline we pass into the fair demesne of Babworth. At the foot of the declivity, Babworth Hall, the church, the rectory and the lake, wherein shrub and tree are shadowed, naturally catch the eye."
  In 1896, Cornelius Brown wrote that Retford was "discernible from the [Great Northern Railway] line as a mass of red-brick houses and smoking chimneys, with the tower of an old parish church rising in their midst’.
  C Moss wrote: "Not only does the proximity of Retford to the Dukeries make the town attractive to visitors, but it is also sought after as a place of residence...One of the charms of Retford is undoubtedly its antiquity."
  Bill Bryson, the American author and former president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, praised the town. In his bestselling book Notes from a Small Island, he writes, 'Retford, I am pleased to report, is a delightful and charming place even under the sort of oppressive grey clouds that make far more celebrated towns seem dreary and tired. Its centrepiece is an exceptionally large and handsome market square lined with a picturesque jumble of noble Georgian buildings. Beside the main church stood a weighty black cannon with a plaque saying 'Captured at Sevastopol 1855', which I thought was a remarkable piece of initiative on the part of the locals - it's not every day, after all, that you find a Nottinghamshire market town storming a Crimean redoubt and bringing home booty - and the shops seemed prosperous and well ordered.'
caption: Stalls set up for market in Retford Market Square
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