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Was browsing through a church magazine for St.James Church . Marshall Hill Drive , Mapperley from 1949 . 

In it was an advert for Mapperley Tea Gardens which I don't remember ever hearing about .

Strangely , if you google it , a reference comes up in the National Archives for 1960 , when a drinks licence was applied for there .

 

Looking in the news archives there are numerous adverts for the above for dances and a room to hire but no address , many in the 1930's .

Many of the adverts give the name "C.Gilbert" .

 

Searching the 1939 Register , a Christopher J. Gilbert living at 942, Woodborough Road gives his occupation as "Baker ,Confectioner".

 

942, Woodborough Rd today is the site of the Co-op Supermarket on Mapperley Plains .

 

I was 11 years old in 1960 and this was my stomping ground , it may have been the site of the Tea Gardens but I really don't remember what was there before the Co-op . 

 

Anyone remember it or are there any pics ?

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Just had a delve back through som old pix   This one is outside the shop- my mum is on the right- I'm not sure who the others are- although I suspect the old guy is Grandad Gilbert  

Thank you!    Chris Gilbert was a baker and confectioner. However, it all began years before my grandmas time. I remember grandma telling me that Christopher and his wife Mary lived in the o

This photo has recently surfaced, showing the Mapperley Tea Gardens. Amazing to think that this is now the site of the Co-op on Mapperley Top. The name C. Gilbert has obviously been hand-drawn in, pro

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A bit of a random guess, based on what you've said so far..........this is late 1940s and 942 Woodborough Road is still a private house. But next door is something called "Hall" which is the area now used as a car park behind the Co-op and other shops. Looking at the map I can't decide which is the front and the back of the Hall. Was it perhaps connected with Mr Gilbert and his bakery ?

ygpRH3Q.jpg

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Thanks Cliff Ton for the map and TBI for the link back .....A pavilion sounds about right , many had wedding receptions there.

Maybe it was part of the planning application that the Co-op had to have a public rooms over the new store to replace it .

Looking at the map the "gardens" had quite a large frontage to Mapperley Plains , appears it took the place of numbers 938 and 940 . Those numbers weren't on the 1939 Register . 

936 was an Enoch Allington retailing Furniture and groceries ( odd mixture !).

944 was a domestic residence where a Lomas family lived .

As a child , I must have walked by those gardens loads of times but just don't remember it .

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Just to add to the above ,  I looked on the 1911 Census and Christopher Gilbert is on Plains Rd and a he is a baker , though not sure if it's the same premises . (Probably was as the Lomas family were next door as in 1939).

 

Either side of him seem to be domestic residences with posh house names like "Grasmuir" , "Lonsdale" and "St.Albans View" . There are no house numbers for these . 

It's a bit confusing as a few properties away is an 18 Woodborough Rd . Looks like after this time there must have been a re-numbering of the road .

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Perhaps not a re-numbering of the road; it looks as though the name Plains Road - which had always existed further out of town - is extended back towards Mapperley Top.

 

Some time around the 1950s the name Woodborough Road finishes at the top of Woodthorpe Drive and from there outwards it becomes Plains Road. 

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I've always believed that Woodborough Road finished around the top of Woodthorpe Drive and that it then continued as Plains Road!   Despite living in the area from 1943,  I'd never even heard the term  'Mapperley Top' - first time I saw it was on  Nottstalgia.  However, my mum used to say she was going shopping 'up the top' (as opposed to shopping in Sherwood, which she did occasionally). 

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Yet if you google "942 Woodborough Road" a picture of the Co-op comes up and that's beyond Woodthorpe ?

Here's the 1949 advert from the St.James Church parish mag .

32702597696_b547df6211_h.jpg

 

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Moving slightly further along Plains Road in the early 1900s, you would have come to another eating place. This is the Westdale Tea Rooms on the corner of Plains Roads (in the foreground) and Westdale Lane (where the houses are).

FIhrE0n.jpg

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Mmm doesn't look much like a tea rooms though sure they would have sold loose tea .

I can only see it as "Westdale Stores" . Owner  , William Ralph Norwood who died March 1927 .

 

Getting back to Mapperley Tea Rooms ,this may be interesting  and a sign of the times . Christopher Gilbert being fined for blackout offences in June 1940.

32621958911_37440394ba_b.jpg

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On the old photo, one of the houses on Westdale Lane was where I went to nursery school, I think.  In 1947, it was called Astenholme  Preparatory School and the teacher was Miss Lee

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Looks like an earlier picture of the one Cliff Ton posted . Maybe there was room for a tea gardens over the wall ?

 

8972480435_d9b93e38db_z.jpg

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It was called "Westdale Tea Rooms" on the original source, and zooming in on the photo, there's a small sign hanging in two windows which backs up the idea, so maybe the bay window on the right was the actual tea room.

iCD4GLa.jpg

 

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Mapperley Tea Rooms were certainly still in existence in 1959, when my sister had her wedding reception there - with me as her page boy, complete with dicky-bow and blue serge shorts. Well, I was only three years old!

 

And as I recall, it was where the Co-Op now stands.

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Welcome back Rob .

I think there were a lot of wedding receptions held there , you would have thought there would be plenty of photos about for that reason alone .

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Yes I think you can make out the gap in the buildings and what may look like a white roofed pavilion .

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My mum referred to the Tea Gardens as Gilbert's tea gardens, in fact my Aunt had a wedding reception there.  I read some history of it recently.  At one time when there were few houses on the Plains, people would go for a walk from the city to the countryside, remembering there was very little between the top of Westdale Lane and the Traveller's Rest.  When they reached Mapperley the walkers asked in the shop if they did teas, and so became Mapperley tea gardens started.  I have a rather bizarre recollection of the place.  In the early 1960's I went with a friend to the tea gardens, a collection of wooden buildings behind the shop, to see a man laying on a bed of nails!!  

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In the early Os I used to frequent an Hardware shop 2 or 3 doors from the Coop at Mapperley Top,.........small store but opened up at the rear was a nice Café and Garden.....just wonder if that was once Mapperley Tea gardens ?

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Is it still there Sue...?.........and they used to have a Parrot in a big cage

 

and ive got a funny story about a shoplifter in there........but you won't believe me.......lol.

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Went in that hardware store just once, several years ago.  I was sent there by Norman Collins after physio treatment to a shoulder problem. He told me to buy a pulley wheel and a length of rope, attach it to the top of a door frame and exercise my shoulders and arms using it.  Did that a few times, the kit is still hanging from the door frame ...... it's a conversation point! 

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