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23 hours ago, BulwellBrian said:

 

I am a bit puzzled as I recall such a bridge on this line but I remember it as further towards Moor Bridge. Perhaps I mis remember.

 

 

Brian, are you thinking of the bridge which took the Bestwood Park Branch over the bottom of Hucknall Rd just before its junction with Bestwood Road?

 

Col

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Hello,   Thank you for your reply Benjamin, and thank you for the welcome DJ. Both are really appreciated.   I spoke to my Aunt, Mum’s sister, this morning and she maintains that t

I'm back Mandie,,,so much to tell you don't know where to start  lol,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,yes indeed Leybourne drive i'm sure was finished just before the war,,,i recall the remnants of an ''Air raid shelte

I moved onto Southglade Rd. (No. 40) around 1951/2, when I was barely 3. Prevously we lived at 76 Glaisdale Drive, Bilboro. Back then, there was no Beckhampton, no Rise Park, or Top Valley, or Bestw

No Col the bridge on Cliff's map is the one I remember but the perspective of the photo make it look closer to the viaduct than my legs remember.

 

My memory of the common is like yours with lots of gorse but no trees.

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Calling Benjamin and any others who may be able to help.  I'm trying to establish when the landfill opposite Southglade Road on Bestwood Estate was started, and when it was completed.  In my memory, it started around 1960-61 and was pretty much all over by about 1966-7. possibly earlier.

 

Unlike today.. when there would no doubt be a huge outcry and lots of placard waving.. there was little fuss or fanfare.  Machinery just turned up one day and started digging up all of the topsoil in the area where the Gala Bingo is now.  They then started tipping and filling up the beautiful hollow until the level was well above that of the actual street.  Not much consideration for local residents. They just did it.

Any other memories?

 

Col

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DJ360 I think you are correct on those dates, as far I can recall there was no consultation on it, not that I would have paid any attention to it, the first I can remember is a never ending stream of Council refuse lorries using Andover Road to access it, also the horrendous amount of rubbish blowing about.

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Can't recall any of that.........i must have been up and there in 60/61 on me Marsdens granville bike.........probably too interested in the lovely girls up that end...........Susan,,Julie,,Carol,,Kathleen,, on Southglade.......Jean,,Rita,,Barbara,,.....Andover.......not forgetting Carol and Pamela on Eardley..........:rolleyes:

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I have never heard of any refuse being tipped in that area, but prior to building the Tesco  at top valley, they were using a crawler crane with probably a 10 tonne weight that they just dropped all day long for weeks, probably to consolidate the ground.

Probably be in the late 80s.

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xLyNUkb.jpg

 

Image above is the one Kev posted a few pages back.  For 'orientation' purposes it is basically looking east.  Bottom right looks like the Leen meandering through Basford.

Hucknall Road is running from near top right to half way up left side.  Houses in lower left quarter are basically Highbury Vale estate with Kersall Drive etc. standing out in white.  If you look at the fields above Hucknall Road at the left side of pic, the first complete field ( greyish, with a paler one to its right) and the one above it, also greyish.. then the right hand boundary of those two fields became Southglade Road.  Those two fields ( and nowhere else..) are where the landfill occurred.  Gala Bingo is now where the bottom right corner of the first complete grey field above Hucknall Road.is.  The hedgerow separating the upper grey field from the lower one was directly opposite No. 46/48 Southglade Road.  (Once they were built....   ;)   )  Following the future Southglade Rd. upwards on the pic brings you to Southglade Farm.  Follow the hedge to the right and you are basically climbing the present Padstow Road. The next hedge heading upwards on the pic towards a small clump of trees is taking you to the spinney which had Padstow school to its right. 

 

Col

 

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6 hours ago, taxi ray said:

I have never heard of any refuse being tipped in that area, but prior to building the Tesco  at top valley, they were using a crawler crane with probably a 10 tonne weight that they just dropped all day long for weeks, probably to consolidate the ground.

Probably be in the late 80s.

 

Tesco is basically on what was, in my memory, the 'office' bit of Rigley's.  I have no idea why they'd do that 'consolidating'.  Pretty certain there was no landfill there.   I worked on some of the groundwork and drains around the traffic island there, where the Ridgeway comes down to Top Valley Drive or whatever it's called now.

That said..the Rigleys works had a lot of sidings which headed out on a bank to the edge of the fields I've already identified.  Rigley's also operated a sand quarry to the east of their works.  I suppose that would need to be filled in.

Hmm....

Col

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And this is the area from another angle. The twisting curve top-to-bottom is Hucknall Road and the railway line. The arrow is Rigley's place. The bridge over the railway on the left is Kersall Drive. The farm in the centre-right is Southglade Farm.

9ByyPwZ.jpg

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Taxi Ray and Col the tracked vehicle (crawler crane) would be a pile driver,driving long concrete pillars in the ground to give the main building a solid platform to build on,those concrete pillars are about a foot square and upto thirty plus feet long,most of them are made by a company in Balderton near Newark by a company called Centrum Pilings

 

Rog

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Interesting Rog,

I wonder if there was maybe some mining subsidence causing an issue?  There was certainly plenty of it in the fields around the area .  Lots of 'pit cracks' opened up over time.  Some were quite spectacular and scary.  They usually just filled in naturally as the sand and soft rock just collapsed into them.

 

Another excellent pic Kev.  If you follow Hucknall Road from Kersall Drive along towards Rigleys, you come to a point where a light coloured track or path snakes down from the Bulwell Common Station overbridge to meet Hucknall Rd. The hedgerow which runs from that point towards Soughtglade Farm is now  the original Southglade Road, which extended only as far as the left edge of the narrow meadow to the left of Southglade Farm. The two fields immediately above Southglade Road are where the landfill was. The foreshortening effect of the photograph makes the hills and hollows much less obvious, but if you look at the railway embankment from Southglade Rd to Rigley's, you can see the extent of its shadow.. which gives a clue.

At the top of the first 'Southglade' field towards Rigleys, you can make out a large tree, tucked in the corner.  That was growing from the original field level, i.e. below the railway embankment.  Not shown is the fact that in later years Rigleys somehow developed the area above that tree and field boundary. and bounded by a faint hedge on the right, into a series of rail sidings.  These were always full of railway wagons awaiting attention when I was a kid in the 1950s and early 60s.  Rigley's raised the land for those sidings, creating an embankment along the top edge of the field, running from the tree in the corner along the top of the 'Southglade field' to where there are two trees and a 'T' junction in the hedges.  The 'corner tree' was a favourite spot, because we had a rope swing on it.  We could climb up the Rigleys bank and then swing down out out over the field at quite a height.  I still have scars on my fingers from catching them on a metal label fixed to the rope.  That smarted a bit!

 

I could go on endlessly about that pic.. but I won't....  ;)

 

Col

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I've given you a like, Col, not because I know that area but because you've written such an accurate, detailed description and I can imagine you swinging on a rope swing when you were little!

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This should link to a current view which I've tried to get as close as poss to Kev's pic.  Gala Bingo is the big white building at the left ed of Southglade.. where the landfill first started.  To the right is Forum Road emerging directly opposite the house I was raised in.  I still don't understand the point of that road.  It has just become a 'rat run' from Hucknall Road via Gala Way. massively increasing traffic on Southglade road which was never built or designed to carry so much.  Another example of Nottm Council's cavalier attitude to the residents of Bestwood Estate.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.9865505,-1.1694235,491a,35y,340.87h,65.9t/data=!3m1!1e3

 

Col

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2 hours ago, plantfit said:

Taxi Ray and Col the tracked vehicle (crawler crane) would be a pile driver,driving long concrete pillars in the ground to give the main building a solid platform to build on,those concrete pillars are about a foot square and upto thirty plus feet long,most of them are made by a company in Balderton near Newark by a company called Centrum Pilings

 

Rog

The crane was not pile driving, it was basically dropping a large steel weight onto the ground repeatedly, it would have been about 15 foot long by 8 foot wide and 2 feet thick. I noticed it a lot as I used to walk my dog in that area.

 

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The road past the bingo place does provide Bestwood dwellers with a shorter route than queuing at Arnold Rd traffic lights. 

It never appears that busy though, as surely only local residents use it. I can't see motorists using it to get to Oxclose Lane .

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Passenger trains ceased in 1931, but goods trains used it from Colwick until 1960, but from Basford to Bestwood until 1964.

However, Rigleys were scrapping steam engines at least until 66, when the signal box closed.

See vol 2 of GNR in the East Midlands by the RCTS.

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Hi Kev.

They never seemed especially frequent even in the 1950s. They had I think pretty much stopped by the mid 1960s and the tracks were taken up.

 

According to Malcolm Castledine in 'Railways North of Nottm.' :
 

Quote

 

'Rigley's yard remained operational, cutting up steam locomotives and old rolling stock until early 1966. It was physically connected to the B.R. lines until Sunday March 6th 1966 when the former Great Northern signal box at Bulwell Forest was closed and the rail connection severed'

 

 

Col

 

P.S. Just beat me to it Fly..

 

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MC's book is good for info too, and great pictures.

Ive sold most of my railway books which I've collected from the early 60's, and now only buy stuff relevant to the GC, Notts, then East Midlands. A very tunnelled view I know, but if I see any books on 'copper capped GW' stuff, or live steam at heritage railways, I cringe !

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Like to thank cliff ton for putting the names to my school photo's which had become detached from the originals on account of the photo bucket thing a few weeks ago..........also thank Catfan for re-posting.........but a nice story too ,when i looked at them tonight.......i showed them to my 4 yr old Grandson,who like clever cloggs Jill, picked me out on every picture..........then he went even further and picked out my Dad on an old picture from the 50s with his Railwaymen friends..........theres more............he even picked out my Grandad from the 60s,receiving his gold watch with  about 20 others from the Railway.............i was amazed,and told him he was a ''diamond Geezer''.........'whats that Grandad ?'' he asked..........so furthered his education by telling him...........magic moments...........

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