Beeston is a town in Nottinghamshire, England, 3.4 miles (5.5 km) south-west of Nottingham city centre. To the immediate north-east is the University of Nottingham's main campus, University Park. The pharmaceutical and retail chemist group Boots has its headquarters 0.6 miles (1 km) east of the centre of Beeston, on the border with Broxtowe and the City of Nottingham. To the south lies the River Trent and the village of Attenborough, with its extensive wetlands.

Beeston Rylands was originally a small settlement around Beeston Lock, comprising some tens of houses and two pubs. The name now refers to all of the area south of the railway line. The Jolly Angler was originally on the river side of the canal, but has since moved. Beeston began to spread south of the railway line in the late 19th century, when a few Victorian villas were built near the level crossing by the station.

Over the first few decades of the 20th century, several housing estates were built to accommodate workers at Ericssons and Boots, both of which had large factories south of the railway line. From 1934 to 1939 a significant development of 900 houses on an 57-acre (23 ha) estate, which was then called Cliftonside, was designed by Alexander Wilson. These estates joined Beeston and the Rylands. Further development after the Second World War filled in the gaps, initially with an estate of council houses and flats, and latterly with private houses and bungalows. The last significant development, in 1970, was Meadow Farm: four roads of timber-framed semi-detached houses between Beech Avenue and the canal. Since then, Beeston Rylands has undergone a small amount of infill development.

Beeston Rylands was historically at risk of flooding from the River Trent to the south. This reduced property values and the size of houses built there, predominantly for the rental market. The last serious flood, in 1947, reached beyond the railway line: most of Queens Road was flooded, as was Nether Street. Enhanced flood defences have reduced the risk of flooding to a probability of once every fifty years. A series of flood-defence improvements, costing £51 million and designed to decrease the expected flood incidence to once in a hundred years, began in 2009 along a 17 miles (27 km) stretch of the Trent.