Nottingham gardeners unearth huge Victorian mosaic with links to former city mayor
The mosaic was discovered while the gardeners were planting fruit trees off Mapperley Road
A huge Victorian mosaic has been unearthed by Nottingham gardeners while they were planting fruit trees.
It was discovered by Martin Marshall and his Marvellous Gardeners team, who were working in a garden next to the Elm Close apartments, off Mapperley Road, at the end of January.
While excavating a grass bank ahead of planting the trees, Mr Marshall and his team had dug around 2ft into the earth when suddenly they hit something solid.
“I think the site manager said we should just go through the path,” Mr Marshall told Nottingham World.
“But we saw it was in a perfect state and I said ‘I’m not going to go through the path’, so I gave up some of my free time to see how far it goes.
“We got so far but the job was to plant the trees, so we planted them and reburied the path, which was job done.”
Mr Marshall then shared a video of the path on social media, quickly attracting 12 million views.
It was at this point that a decision was made to uncover the mosaic once again to see how far it stretched.
Subsequent research by Mr Marshall and other local history enthusiasts has linked the path to former Mayor of Nottingham Edwin Patchitt.
Born in 1808, Patchitt would go on to become a successful lawyer and cricketer, before being elected as Mayor in 1852.
Patchitt bought and developed the plot of land where the mosaic was discovered.
He then began selling off the land in the 1850s and soon after several large houses were built on the site.
These were demolished in the 1960s to make way for the flats that exist today.
In terms of the future, Mr Marshall is confident that the path will be preserved and remains hopeful of an opportunity to excavate further.
“What’s already is exposed is about 2ft below ground level, so there will be more excavations to protect it.
“We’ll probably end up lining what’s already exposed with sleepers, but it needs protecting in some way.
“I’m not sure if the site has the budget for further excavation, but what’s exposed will be protected and it would be nice to go a bit further.”