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NOTTINGHAM PAST & PRESENT: OLD INNS
WHITE HART INN, Lenton, 1889
The front of this inn, facing Gregory Street, Lenton, is well-known to all of us, but it is not generally realised that between this inn and the present Priory Church stood the gateway to the great Cluniac Priory of Lenton. It spanned the road just at this point, and in front of it was hanged in the year 1537, Nicholas Heyth, the last Prior of Lenton, condemned for high treason for the part that he had taken in the Pilgrimage of Grace. The White Hart as we know it, was built about a century ago upon the site and incorporating some portion of an older house known as the Lenton Coffee House, which was a great resort of former generations, who made excursions along the pleasant walks by the side of the river Leen, and refreshed themselves round the bowling green attached to these premises.
Other memories cling to this neighbourhood, for among the modern buildings there still stands the old prison of the Court of the Honour of Peverel, within whose walls debtors were incarcerated under the old law. This prison is shown on the extreme right of the drawing; a high, white wall is depicted behind a table at which some customers are seated; this wall surrounds the old exercise yard, and beyond it rises the roof of a low building which is the old prison.
The chestnut trees of Lenton throwing up their balloons of foliage decorated in due season with wealth of flowers are among the most beautiful sights of this part of Nottingham, and even to-day Gregory Street and its neighbourhood retain a great deal of the old world rural aspect.