Sad news, the end of an era.

The closure of the Mansfield Dojo.

I have recently heard that the Mansfield Dojo in Nottinghamshire has been unable to continue its lease and therefore will fall into the hands of developers or, worse still, a demolition crew.

For me this was heartbreaking news.

Why this is so important.

This building is generally thought to be the longest standing permanent karate Dojo in the UK, and the passion of one man, David Allsop Sensei 7^th Dan.

Students training in the upstairs room.

But, is it really that significant?

I found myself wondering if this really was the ‘longest standing permanent karate Dojo, in the UK’? Perhaps the Shotokan people have an equivalent or earlier claim? I don’t know. But I am pretty sure that it’s the oldest Wado Dojo.

As far as I can work out, the Dojo opened in 1969 and was fully operational until this year, 2023. That means that it has been running classes for around fifty-four years. In its heyday it was open seven days a week and, on some nights, scheduling double classes!  By anyone’s standards that is really impressive.

The fuller story, as told by Allsop Sensei can be found on this page; http://www.wadokaratemagic.com/about/

2012, myself and Allsop Sensei and some of his students. The last time I visited.

My connection with this Dojo is that this was my original club. I trained there from stripling white belt through to Dan grade from 1974 to 1978. I know that was a short time to Dan grade, but that was because of the culture and the intensity of the training; it was almost an unwritten rule, ‘Thou shalt grade every three months (and you’d better put the hours in)’.

(The story of my training in Mansfield can be found on this Substack project. Look for posts titled, ‘Karate, an alternative story’).

Myself and other students in the Mansfield Dojo, circa 1976.

Recently, I did say to Allsop Sensei that maybe the whole building should have a preservation order slapped on it? I was totally serious.

My argument being that it is of cultural importance; effectively, it is unique.

Looking online at the UK criteria for conservation, the key words are, ‘heritage values’, supported by such criteria as:

·       ‘The potential of a place to yield evidence about past human activity’.

·       ‘The ways in which past people, events and aspects of life can be connected through a place to the present’.

·       ‘The meanings of a place for the people who relate to it, or for whom it figures in their collective experience or memory.’

The ‘official’ oldest Budo centre in Japan (outside of the various shrines etc.) is the Kyubutokuden in Kyoto, which, built in 1899, is only 70 years older than the Mansfield Dojo. Surely, this ranks as something special?

Why ‘cultural significance’?

If you take the 1970’s Kung-Fu boom alone as your cultural marker then this building, these four walls, embody that idea, almost like a time capsule.

I say that because nothing has changed from those days back in the 1970’s. There has been no revamp, modernisation or corporate make-over, no fussy ‘reception area’, it is just exactly like it was when I first walked through the door in ‘74. Last time I was there, even the smell was the same.

The other thing about these premises is that in all those years there have been no faux-Japanese frills added. It is, in a weird way, quintessentially English, the same feel you would get from a frozen-in-time mid-20^th century boxing gym above a pub in the East End of London; all sweat, liniment and leather. In a single word, ‘honest’.

Myself in the upstairs Dojo, around 1979. Note the calligraphy, the only gesture to Japanese karate in the whole building.

The building.

Essentially a two-storey ex-paint warehouse. Some of its warehouse characteristics remained; chiefly a kind of upper floor loading door that must have been nailed shut in 1969. An odd detail in an otherwise sparse utilitarian building.

In the 60’s Allsop Sensei and a bunch of enthusiasts just took over the place, which must have been in an awful state, and applied that kind of optimistic muscle and resources that definitely belonged to an earlier age, they hammered it into a shape that worked for them, and amazingly continued to work for five decades!

The large training area downstairs was like the hub that everything revolved around. The front door opened straight on to the street, with a tiny side door that led to an alley called ‘Lurchills’, a cut-through (at one time Mansfield was a network of ginnels and short-cuts threading all across town¹).

Lurchills alleyway

The upstairs room holds special memories for me; the wooden floor, worn and polished by fifty years of sweat and bare feet. Side windows gave light but no view (the alleyway and the roof of next door’s Labour Club), as such it was as quiet and isolated as any Shinto shrine in Tokyo.

Views of downstairs and upstairs, around 1979.

Last time I was there, (July 2012) and while nobody was around I found myself stopping and listening, and by a small stretch of imagination I swear that in the silence I could hear the reverberation of footwork thumping on the floor, spelling out a kata pattern, or shuffles and bangs associated with vigorous sparring, even the creak of the chain supporting the upstairs punchbag.

Balfour Martin in the downstairs Dojo, around 1977.

There may come a time in the future when the value of this innocuous building near the centre of an East Midland market town will be appreciated. Perhaps curious scholars will pick over the rubble, or lament the fact that it is now a nailbar or vape shop and wonder what it was like to be part of such a lively intense Dojo where fifty students a night was not unusual. I have no idea.²

As William Gibson said, “Time moves in one direction, memory in another”’.

1. Lurchills was originally a medieval trackway through Sherwood Forest, around which developed a cluster of Mansfield’s oldest buildings. Local tradition has it that it was later used as a cut-through by vagrants to and from the workhouse, so that they avoided being seen in the town centre.

2. In a similar way, a few years back I found myself in Soho Square, London and wondering if the building still existed that was once Domenico Angelo’s famous Academy of fencing in the 18^th century? Motivated by a not dissimilar scholarly curiosity. I am not sure the original building still exists, must try harder. Maybe I missed the blue plaque?