Cropwell Butler

The next village to the south is Cropwell Bishop. The population of the civil parish as recorded in the 2011 Census was 585.[1] Part of the newly built Upper Saxondale residential area also falls within the Cropwell Bishop parish boundary.

Cropwell Butler shares with Tithby a parish council, which meets once a month. The village forms part of the Cropwell Ward of the Borough of Rushcliffe and of the Parliamentary Constituency of Rushcliffe, whose current member is the Independent Kenneth Clarke. The county authority is Nottinghamshire.

A post windmill at Cropwell Butler (grid reference SK692368) was blown down in 1837. The miller escaped, but with severe bruising, by hiding in a hollow place under a beam.[2]

German bombers left a trail of devastation across the Nottingham area on the night of 8 and 9 May 1941, when 95 aircraft attacked the city at 12.37 am. Among the documents now held at the Notts Archives Offices is a detailed map of the city showing the sites the Germans intended to target which included a gas works, electricity plants, railways, the Royal Ordnance Factory, Raleigh and chemical factories. In reality, some of the Luftwaffe crews were deflected by a Starfish site at Cropwell Butler – waste land deliberately set alight to lure them away from key targets. So they bombed the Vale of Belvoir by mistake, thinking it was Nottingham and killing only livestock.[3]

The village has a pub, The Plough Inn in Main Street, where meals are also served.[4] This and the Village Hall and Sheldon Field are the only public facilities in what is a small and quiet village.

The post office and the few independent shops fell to a housing development, Carpenters Close, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. There is neither a school nor an Anglican church in the village. The Methodist chapel has regular services on the first, third and fourth Sundays of each month.[5]

Cropwell Butler has hourly daytime buses on weekdays to Nottingham (No. 33, CT4N) and to Bingham (No. 833. Vectare). The nearest railway stations are Radcliffe (2.6 miles, 4.2 km) and Bingham (3.4 miles, 5.5 km), both on the Nottingham–Grantham–Skegness line.[6]

The Sheldon Field plays host to a number of football matches in the East Midlands Public Authorities Amateur League (EMPAL). Both Butler-Benfica FC (Cropwell Butler)[7] and Chequers Rangers United (Cropwell Bishop) play at the Sheldon Field on Sunday mornings.