philmayfield

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Posts posted by philmayfield

  1. 2000 was the year when we had severe floods in the Trent valley. We took my inflatable on its transport wheels to the bottom end of the village and then rowed at hedge height down to Gibsmere. The old houses there are built high to avoid flooding. The care home at Hazelford had been earlier

    evacuated as by then it was cut off by water. We avoided the floods at home as we are on much higher ground.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  2. There’s a board just by there showing the highest water levels over the years. I think the most recent highest was in 1947. I know my auntie Ethel Mayfield who, coincidently lived on Mayfield Grove in the Meadows, was badly flooded and I remember as a young child standing by the Midland Station and seeing the floodwaters on Arkwright St.

     

    Edit: I’ve just checked and the water levels are, in fact, etched into the stonework next to the bridge. It’s so many years since I was there.

  3. The old Nottingham /Melton line is still used as a test track by Network Rail so it could feasibly be reopened. I don’t know if it’s still accessible beyond the tunnel at Old Dalby though. If it were opened would it get much use? I did know a few people who drove from Melton to Nottingham on a daily commute some years ago and it must now be a bit of a pain in the mornings as you drive into Nottingham. Melton station would require good parking facilities as well.
     

    Edit:   I’ve been looking on Google Earth and see that there has been house building over the line at the Nottingham end so a new rail access would be required. This would cost millions so is definitely not feasible.

  4. When we had a boat in the 80’s and used to ‘cruise’ the Trent between Newark and Nottingham the depth was between six and nine feet. There was a deep stretch around Farndon where it was about thirty feet for about hundred yards. I think by then barge traffic in the main had ceased and they had stopped dredging. There was a fuel barge run by Whittaker’s than ran between Hull and Colwick for a time and more recently, but no longer, a gravel barge plied between Gunthorpe and Hull. Further downstream, on the tidal stretch, below Cromwell lock, there is still gravel barge traffic and seagoing boats from Europe dock at Gunness wharf not far up from the river Humber. I’ve never sailed on the tidal stretch but if you do you have to go with the high tide to avoid grounding on the sandbanks.

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  5. I remember the Colwick pleasure park as a child. I think we used to get there by boat from a stage on the Embankment just upstream of Trent Bridge. I also remember travelling on a much bigger boat, The Pride of the Yare, which I think went from the Embankment to Radcliffe and back. When we around 11 a friend and I used to hire a rowing boat and go up as far as Wilford Bridge. No life jackets, no parents. Couldn’t do that now!

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  6. I think they've built some expensive apartments there and kept the old dock as a 'water feature'. British  Waterways used to advertise themselves as 'From Humber Ports to the Midlands'. Goods were offloaded from ships in Hull direct into barges which came up the Trent. When we came to live in the Trent Valley back in 1962 there was still quite a lot of barge traffic on the river. They often used to moore up at Fiskerton overnight for a beer in the Bromley Arms.