Ahead of the Sneinton Festival this weekend, organiser Kathryn Cooper delves into local myth, the story of the Sneinton Dragon and our collective unconscious, with resident and local historian, Tom Huggon...
One sunny afternoon in July I went over to speak to Tom Huggon at his house to hear the story of the Sneinton Dragon and discover more about Sneinton’s history. Tom leads the regular Sneinton history walk from Green’s Mill and has lived in the area since the 1970s. His house is magical; two Victorian terrace houses made into one in such a way that it feels very much as if you are in Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through The Looking Glass - two identical flights of stairs climb side by side up to the top floor and the first floor front rooms are beautifully brought together as a sitting room/office - retaining the two doors to enter the room.
The internet tells that the Sneinton Dragon sculpture came about when the Renewal Trust polled the people of Sneinton about what kind of public sculpture they would like. The story goes that Robert Stubley was a local sculptor already making dragons sculptures a-plenty so it was an easy choice for the good people of Sneinton. However, Tom tells me the truth of it was far less top down - the dragon, it seems, came forth from the depths of the collective unconscious, from deep in the compost of our local imaginations.
Tom tells me the truth of it was far less top down, the dragon, it seems, came forth from the depths of the collective unconscious, from deep in the compost of our local imaginations
It seems that previous to the creation of the sculpture, Robert Stubley didn’t describe himself as an artist at all, but as a welder, and he hadn’t made a dragon sculpture before. Rather than a planned artpiece, it was more as if Mr Stubley was suddenly compelled to make the dragon sculpture and then sought out a place to put it in Sneinton. After approaching the Renewal Trust, local people were asked about where they would like it to be.
It is hard to fact check this, but I love the idea that a dragon found a person and popped into their mind, that it wanted and needed to be formed here. Now the dragon stands on the edge of Sneinton - but what does the dragon want? Does it want to warn us, protect us or remind us of something?
Tom told me about a blog he'd come across which connects the dragon to the Robert Mellor’s article of 1914 in which he wrote:
"For more than half a century there has existed in certain parts of Nottingham a monster who has devoured in the first year of their lives a large number of infants, and, what is worse, probably an equal number who have survived have dragged out a pitiable existence in weakness, small in stature, deformed, or anaemic, with diseases, lack of energy, unable to maintain themselves, and therefore dependent on others or the public charge; and, worse still, some have had a natural tendency to vice or crime. His name is Slum."
The blog takes a poetic leap to imagine the dragon is the embodiment of ‘slum’. Sneinton and Nottingham were home to some of the very worst slums in England in the 19th and 20th centuries. Tom tells me that, because so many people in the area died of cholera in the slums in 1832 and 1839, mass graves were dug in the city.
A member of the Civic Society, he explains how from time to time they have to flag their concerns when planning applications are made to dig deeper into these sites. Cholera can survive for 200 years, Tom tells me, and this is why the only building that can be at the junction of lower parliament street and Huntingdon street is a petrol station, they can dig no deeper as they will disturb the cholera waiting down below.
Tom feels sure that Sneinton lies on a confluence of ley lines. Ley lines are hard to define: a system of hypothetical energy pathways in the land, part of the land or under the land. Sneinton is built on a sandstone rock which has deep deep wells in and much water far below it. Somehow these water reservoirs change the feeling of the place. There is a well near Windmill Park that goes down miles and though it is capped off it could still be used. Tom has sampled the water from the well at the bottom of the Sneinton caves - recently happily cleared by the City Council of weeds and litter.
So many interesting people have lived in and around Sneinton: George Green, Mary Bailey, William Booth, D H Lawrence’s mother’s family lived here (and were all incredible musicians) and Lawrence himself spent a lot of time here. More recently, Tom has been told by a friend and local mesmerist of another interesting Sneinton resident called John Potchett. Potchett ran a school in Sneinton in the mid 1800s and was also a mesmerist. Mesmerism is a technique invented by Franz Mesmer in the 18th century - a healing technique inducing trance like states, harnessing invisible natural forces to aid healing.
Robert Stubley, our dragon sculptor, is coming to Sneinton Festival on Saturday 12 July 2025. He has dementia now but his carers and daughter, Shelley, felt that he would really enjoy being crowned king of the festival which we will do around noon.
At the Sneinton Festival International Food Evening on Saturday 5 July, local resident Rose told me she is resolute that the Sneinton Dragon sculpture is our guardian and protects the people of Sneinton. She has been a dragon enthusiast since she was a child and I do wonder if this is why she has come to live in Sneinton.
The festival is in it’s 41st year in it’s modern form, though it is much much older, and we hope that the dragon will protect the people of Sneinton for another year - protecting us from anything awful from the depths and bringing us instead magic water, healing and hope.
The Sneinton Festival takes place between 5 - 13 July, with the main events taking place on Saturday 12 July. For more information, head to the website below.
Thank you so much to Tom Huggon for speaking to me. Also thanks to Shelley and Robert Stubley and Rose.
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