to the south of the parish; Gotham to the south west; Barton-in-Fabis to the west; Clifton to the north west; Wilford, Wilford Hill and West Bridgford to the north; Edwalton to the north east; Tollerton and Plumtree to the east; and Keyworth to the south east. History There is evidence of occupation in the area during the Bronze Age (ca. 1500 BC). The toponym "Ruddington" comes from Old English and means "the estate of the people of Rudda". In the Domesday Book in AD 1086, Ruddington's population entry recorded around 250 people. Most were involved in agriculture and this way of life changed little for many hundreds of years, the population marginally increasing by the 17th century to only approximately 320. Open field lands were reallocated amongst the inhabitants in 1767. There are 1st century Roman remains of a large villa at Flawford. The first known St. Peter's church dates from the 9th century and was built over the foundations of the villa, this was a shared church also catering to the nearby villages of Edwalton, Plumtree and Keyworth. Alabaster church effigy pieces were found here in 1779 and are presently kept at the Nottingham Castle Museum. St Mary's was first established in Ruddington village as a manor chapel in around 1292-94 attached to the adjacent manor house (now the Hermitage), the lord of the manor at the time overseeing the building. It was eventually renamed as St Peter's Church after the Flawford church, due to disrepair, was pulled down in 1773–79. Ruddington's association with the knitting industry had begun by the start of the 19th century after the invention of the knitting frame in Nottinghamshire. The industry attracted new inhabitants and the population grew to 2,500 during this time as an associated extension to lace manufacture. New houses and frameshops, including the site occupied by the present-day Ruddington Framework Knitters Museum (see the Museums section below) were built to provide homes and workspace for the knitters and families. The 1851 census showed that half of the heads of households in the village were involved in the occupation. Framework knitting in the village declined towards the end of the 19th century as steam-powered machines developed and factories provided large-scale competition to the manual methods still being employed by the villagers. Charles Paget, local Nottingham MP, in 1828 built the Ruddington Grange manor house, which established the hamlet of the same