Nottingham's century-old market subject of Lottery film

Georgi Scurfield is a local filmmaker

A market which has been trading on its current site for more than 130 years is being celebrated in a Heritage Lottery-backed film.

Nottingham's Cattle Market will feature in a week-in-the-life documentary by local award-winning filmmaker Georgi Scurfield.

The film forms part of a £46,000 Lottery-backed project to celebrate the market's history.

It will premiere in the auction showroom later.

Those behind the event say the site's history had sometimes been overlooked

Mrs Scurfield said: "The documentary forms part of a week in the life of the cattle market to document it so people can watch it in 50 or 100 years' time and understand what the culture and the people meant.

"Because this is a place of work, rather than a residential area, there haven't been people living here to take ownership of the history but this site was instrumental in making Nottingham the city it is now.

"It wasn't very long after the cattle market was established that Nottingham's city status was granted.

"You can imagine farmers leading cattle to the site down roads that are now full of cars."

The market was established on the site in 1886

Mrs Scurfield, 30, said the screening would also include a series of oral histories about the site she had worked on with an animator and children from a nearby primary school.

Following the screening, the film and histories will be deposited in the local studies library of the Nottinghamshire archive.

Keith Butler, marketing manager for auctioneers Arthur Johnson and Sons, which is hosting the screening, said: "Nottingham's Cattle Market is one of those things that has been here for so long that people don't always stop and think about its history - it's been a bit overlooked.

"That's why this project has prompted so much interest.

"We don't sell sheep and pigs any more but we sell almost everything else - antique and vintage furniture, model railways and our old-fashioned machinery room is a real Aladdin's cave."

In 2018 the site was hit by the first fire in its history but Mr Butler said trade had recovered well.

The premiere of the 45-minute film, at 15:30 BST, is a ticketed event.

Market city

• For more than 100 years, animals were driven to the site along old drovers' roads

• The site once included sidings to allow livestock to arrive by rail

• The market traded livestock until 1993, when Arthur Johnson - which had operated on the site since 1888 - began holding weekly furniture auctions