notty ash

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Posts posted by notty ash

  1. Don't ever remember Central garage being on the High Street, as Susyshoes says, only on Papplewick Lane.

    If I remember correctly, it was a typical old-fashioned car showroom with workshops at the back. They completely rebuilt it in the early 70's (?) but it never reopened. The new building eventually became the Yorkshire Bank.

    • Upvote 1
  2. Looking at old maps, St Albans Road existed as a trackway from Bulwell to Park Lane, even in the 1880s, before the GCR or the GNR Leen Valley line were built. The GCR was famously built without level crossings - the last one on the line to London was at Beighton, just east of Sheffield. This map of 1900 shows the situation immediately after the GCR was built. The line in orange is an old trackway or path from St Albans Road to Hucknall Road which was closed when the GCR was built, by the look of things. The new bridge over the GCR was midway between the Hucknall Road end of Park Lane and the trackway from St Albans Road to Hucknall Road, replacing both.

    Untitled-1_zps8feb6d4a.jpg

    The two dots show the position of the bridge under the GN Leen Valley line. Older maps show there was a farm gate here before the GN line was built. I assume the bridge was built to maintain the access to the farm that the gate had previously provided.

    Hucknall Lane did continue north towards the River Leen, but seems to have been little more than a trackway itself at this time.

  3. The best way to browse the area is to use http://www.old-maps.co.uk/index.html. This enables you to scour as big an area as you like and over a number of years.

    Unfortunately, it doesn't recognise Basford, but type in Bulwell or Radford and work your way around from there. Alternatively, key in coordinates 455453 and 342764.

    There is a 1:500 map of 1882 and various 1:2500 maps up to recent times.

  4. The baby hedgehog turns out to be two!

    This one was out hunting around 2pm in the back garden.

    HH1_zpsb551bcd1.jpg

    When I returned from shopping an hour later, this one was in the front garden, at the side of the house

    HH2_zps01990e88.jpg

    I saw another one from the kitchen window. I thought this was the same one, out back - but quickly checked and the one in the front garden was still there......

    I got up really close - I think I even got a smile ;)

    HH3_zpsa2b0cbd8.jpg

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  5. Last night was the most spectacular north of Nottingham, with a huge storm passing over around 10pm. There were flashes every 30 seconds or so at times - most in the clouds rather than towards the ground. Some of the horizontal lightning was very spectacular indeed. Impossible to photograph as it happened so suddenly and unpredictably!

  6. My guess is that "Marble Arch" and similar bridges date back to the building of the railway line.

    I wonder if the name came from bus conductors labeling it to give the bus stop a name, what else could they call it?

    The topography of the spot means that bridges would have been built when the lines opened. The original bridges were definitely rebuilt when the roads were widened just before WW2. The 1:2500 OS maps clearly show narrow bridges up to that time and much wider ones thereafter (except the bridge on the south side of Hucknall Road, towards Basford, which did not change). Could "marble" relate to the gleaming new concrete construction - when new, it would have been quite a contrast to the old, smoke-ridden brick structures there before?

  7. Thinking more about "Marble Arch" it must have been there before Bestwood Estate was built, other GNR bridges were also red brick, they did not wear as well as the Blue brick ones. I presume there was a farm originally when the bridge was built.

    Looking at OS maps, there were always bridges at this spot. I suspect they were rebuilt around the same time as Moor Bridge (1938-9) as part of a major upgrade of Hucknall Road and Arnold Road.

  8. I didn't plan the 50 mile one - it just happened!

    I started by out walking from Ashfield to Southwell - but it was such a nice day I felt up for it, so I just kept going and going. I was out for 15.5 hours in the end.

    I ended up walking across to Fiskerton, down the Trent to Carlton, across to Arnold then through Rise Park (it was dark by then!) to Moor Bridge. I followed the main road up through Hucknall and Annesley and back home to make sure I was under street lights as far as possible.

    If it were all in daylight I would have gone a more picturesque route back.

  9. I go walking to keep fit, get lots of fresh air and explore the local area. It is only in the last few years that i have taken it really seriously. I now regularly do 20, 30 even 40 miles sometimes and one just over 50 miles recently. I've never been so happy in all my life.

    • Upvote 1
  10. The best rail solution for Nottingham would have been to scrap everything and start again ;)

    It would have been far too expensive though!

    Neither Victoria, London Road or Midland were ideal - either in location or routes. Nottingham City Council was at least partly to blame. In the 19th Century, they made it difficult for the railways to build anything too close to the city centre, or that might cause any "obstruction". The original plan for the Great Northern was for a railway line from London Road across a viaduct past the castle and out to the west. Instead, the objections of the council forced them to build a long loop round via Gedling and Arnold.

    It was only when most of the lines had been built that the council realised the error of their ways and tried to persuade the Great Northern and Midland railways to develop a central station - but to no avail.

    Finally, the Great Central built its line through Victoria, but with poor connections to the west.

    Victoria was a grand station. If it had survived, it would surely have ended up looking like Birmingham New Street though - a concrete tunnel under a shopping centre. It suffered from having just 2 tracks at either end - the ones to the north being quite long and very expensive to widen.