Underwood & Bagthorpe

Underwood –  The population of the village in 2001 was 2,995. Hunderwude’ was listed in the Doomsday Book of 1086 and comprised a Saxon settlement in the vicinity of today’’s location of the Hole in the Wall public house, extending to what is now called Main Road, Underwood.

Bagthorpe is a later settlement and is derived from a Danish place name ‘Baggis Thorpe’ – an outlying settlement of Baggi –a Dane. Wansley Hall was the dominant feature in this area and Wansley had ‘half a priest’ (church) with Selston. The settlement comprised huts of wattle and daub situated alongside
Bagthorpe Brook as far as Church Lane. This community had its own water mill at Kill Dogs near the bridge at the Shepherd’s Rest public house.

The settlements of Bagthorpe and Lower Bagthorpe form the only Conservation Area within the Selston
parish.

There is a primary school in Underwood and one in Bagthorpe.

Opencast mining in the area was well established by 1728 and the first pit shaft was sunk in 1836 with four deep mines following.

Underwood has associations with many famous people including D H Lawrence, Lord Bryon and Sir
William Dixie (hence Dixie’s Arms Public House) in Bagthorpe.

Underwood is seen as the most prosperous of the three villages in Selston parish with low unemployment, higher education and better health/wealth. This is supported by data shown in the ‘Index of Multiple Deprivation 2004’, where Underwood was ranked as 19,517 out of 32,482 local neighbourhoods, where 1 is the most deprived and 32,482 the least deprived.

Of the three villages in Selston parish this settlement lies closest to the City