Sutton Passeys

Lost village

 The lost village of Sutton Passeys was situated in what is now part of the park at Wollaton Hall.

Philimore* , writing in 1884, notes (pp.74 - 76) "It would be difficult to find another place in this county which has more completely vanished from memory than that of Sutton Passeys, the site of which has been absorbed in Wollaton Park.

"Its position is not certainly known, but it must have stood somewhere between the hall and the present Radford entrance to the park.

"In Thoroton's day it then was, and long had been, totally decayed, and was only known by the name of Wollaton Park.  At that time the inhabitants of Radford claimed that it lay within their parish, ad was within their perambulation.  As the parish of Radford at the present time includes a large portion of of Wollaton Park, we presume that Sutton Passeys now forms part of the brough of Nottingham.

"A road which runs northward from the village of Beeston, and stops short of the park wall, is by some supposed to have extended into the park to the village of Sutton.

"It would be difficult to find another place in this county which has more completely vanished from memory than that of Sutton Passeys"

"As its name indicates it must have been so called from its position southward of some other town, perhaps the neighbouring village of Wollaton.  If that was the case it may be said that the village was founded not long before the Norman Conquest, as Wollaton, a softened form of Olaveston, is derived from the Danish personal name Ola, or Olaf, a name which is said to mean the sage.....

"the distinguishing title of Passeys is derived from the Passeys family, who were established here at an early date.  At the time of Doomsday [sic]  there were two manors at Sutton, which had belonged to Alaric and Brun, the latter being perhaps the Brun who gave his name to Brunneseley, the modern Brinsley, and who, it is not unlikely, was ancestor of a family of position who resided there and were known as Brunsley for this reason.  William Peverel also had lands there......

"[By] 1343, and probably many years earlier, the manor had come into the possession of the Willoughby family, for in 16 Edward III the jury under an enquiry ad quod damnum returned a verdict that the King might without loss permit John le Colier of Nottingham, to endow a chaplain to celebrate in the church of S. Mary at Sutton Passeys, 'which mannor', says Thoroton, 'was then become the possession of Richard de  Willoughby lord also of Wollaton'.

A possible date for the loss of Sutton Passeys

Philimore* concludes "The village continued in existence till quite a late period, for it is entered in a subsidy roll of Elizabeth's reign in the year 1558.  From the amount at which it was assessed it is clear that it was still a place in flourishing condition.

"As it was in Thoroton's days 'totally decayed', and the site lost in Wollaton Park, and as he does not even allude to the cause of its destruction, it is probable that it disappeared many years before his day.

"Perhaps when Sir Francis Willoughby the last in the male line of old Willoughbys of Wollaton, for sook the old manor house, of which some remains still exist in a cottage opposite the church, now or lately occupied as the village post-office, and built that stately pile, the house at Wollaton, he may have found the village of Sutton inconveniently near his mansion, and therefore may have had it entirely demolished.

Wollaton Hall occupied about eight years in building, and was completed in 1588.  If this suggestion of the cause of the disappearance of Sutton Passeys be a correct one, the date of its destruction may be probably fixed at some time between 1580 and 1588".

*PHILIMORE, W.P.W "Notes on some of the deserted villages and churches of Nottinghamshire" pp.66-87 of BRISCOE, John Potter (ed.) Old Nottinghamshire (Second Series) (Nottingham: J. Derry, 1884)