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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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There was a young man on Mapperley Top'

Who popped in the Coop for a bit of a shop,

His eyes did espy a nice looking Pie,

A look to the left and then to the right,the pie was gone,and so was the man,

I went outside seeking my pie

And with a bit of a laugh,saw my man and Pie enter the cafe

I went in the cafe,and took a seat,after ordering coffee and saying good day and who's a Pretty boy

sat with my coffee,i waited for my pie to appear

It did'nt take long,and my pie appeared from his pocket,let him take one bite,

then escorted him back to the Office.

 

Not quite a Chulla i know.......but best i could manage with a true tale...............lol

 

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I know nothing about the Tea Rooms, but I know my neice had wedding reception above the Co-op about 20 years ago.

I was struck by the changes in the area since I'd last been up there, when 'courting' a certain young lady in the late 1960s.

 

As far as I can tell from Cliff's annotated photo, my young lady lived with her family in a house on the corner of Bennet Avenue.  Right hand corner as you turn in from Plains road.  As I recall part of the ground floor of the property was occupied by a Hairdressers Salon.  It now seems to be 'Bailey's Food Market' Est 1933, which is a bit confusing.  Also, looking at 'Streetview', there seems to be a brick extension attached to the rear of the former house, which has filled in what was a small rear yard and the access to the house.  Still.. it was almost 50 years ago...

 

Around that time, the 'Plainsman' pub opened.  I think there are a couple of other licenced premises close to it now.  One is I think in an old bakery now called Bread and Bitter which I've been in once.

 

Col

 

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Then I daresay my recollection is incorrect Margie, though whatever shop it was I don't think it spead out into the street (Arkwright style) quite so much as it seems to now.  Maybe the hairdressers was next door?  I'm not at all sure now.  I've even wondered whether any side streets along there have disappeared under developments?

 

Only thing I recall for certain is that the street was between the top of Woodthorpe or Breck Rds, on the other side and before Westdale.  I recall going down Westdale on my Motorbike to Arnold and Carlton College, but that was about 3-4 years before I met the girl from Mapperley.

 

Col

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In 1939 Register , Bailey's fruiterers were at 918, Woodborough Road .

 

An Ida Bailey born 1895 described as a fruiterer and a younger Mabel Bailey born 1925 , a housewife plus one person whose record is censored (in Forces ?).

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On 17/02/2017 at 7:42 PM, DAVIDW said:

In 1939 Register , Bailey's fruiterers were at 918, Woodborough Road .

 

.....which is where they still are today, on the corner of Bennett Road.

 

Something I've just noticed which adds to - and partly explains - some of the confusion. At least up to the 1960s, the road at Mapperley Top was called Plains Road on one side and Woodborough Road on the other. Like this...

pINgTQJ.jpg

 

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Now you show where it is on the map , it brings back memories of shopping in there but that would have been more than 40 years ago !

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So, as I said above.. it seems my memory must be faulty.    My young lady definitely lived in a house on the corner of one of those streets opposite Woodthorpe and Breck Hill Rd.  The house also accommodated a shop at least on the ground floor and access to the house was generally via a door in a side road which from what I can see could only have been Bennet Rd.

 

A 1970 Census or Electoral Roll would be very handy... :)

 

Here's a view of the side of Baileys frm Bennet Rd. 

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.9841879,-1.1212728,3a,75y,222.85h,92.58t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sQDDIdR5zvMqKkamkLqn_BA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

 

My guess is that everything to the left of the old low rendered wall with the copings, is fairly recent.  That is where I recall a small yard and access to the house.

 

Col

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From my distant memory, Mapperley tea gardens was on Haywood road, my mum used to go dancing there, I believe the area fronting it on the North side of Haywood, was open land all the way through to plains road (or Mapperley Tops as we called it. Somewhere near the now Co-op shop, the original co-op was at the top left corner of Gretton road.

 

And yes Baileys have been there forever !

 

I moved to Mapperley as a 4 year old in 1952-3,

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OK.  I think we have established that Bailey's has been there for a very long time!!  ;)

 

I have absolutely no recall of it whatsoever, but the house it is part of looks very familiar.  I just can't see how my young lady friend and her Mum, Dad Brother and Younger sister could have lived on any other corner. I went in the Plainsman at Christmas with her Brother and her Dad.  We also went to the Tree Tops a few times.  I stayed in that house.  

 

It's got me foxed and the area has changed an awful lot since I was up there on a regular basis.

 

Thing is I have nobody to ask as I lost contact with her and her friends nearly 50 years ago.

 

I remember her name though.

 

Col

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The photo of Baileys is a bit confusing as that corner area was always full of tables with displays of fruit and veg outside the shop, I went to school with the son who lived there, think his name was Andrew but may stand corrected.

 

Some confusion may arise as in the early days, mid 50's there was some big houses with large front gardens abutting plains road around that area, one such house was my old school mate Will, his house was huge and had a stables/barn to the rear and side, it was straight across  almost, from the top of Breckhill road, some terraces were either side but on the road frontage.

His mum and sister died tragically in a car accident near Gunthorpe bridge, and the house was sold and demolished and shops built on the land

One such terrace on the left hand side of the old house was another school mate, Ralph Sim, he had around 4 or 5 sisters.

(Now San Merino  Italian restaurant)

 

That house was eventually sold and the front made into a shop which used to be a ladies hairdresser.

 

Just looked on google maps and Diddyland is where my mates house was.

 

See here:- https://www.google.com.au/maps/@52.9840451,-1.1219965,3a,75y,133.07h,78.4t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1seOamcauLH7b0KCG92aEGdQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

 

Also to the left if you pan the image Baileys can be seen as I explained, with all the outside display.

 

 

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Ha!

Something you said there has gone a 

long way to solving the mystery. But before I go further...

Something has been bothering me...

My young lady had a brother who was maybe a year or so older. I've been wracking my brain for his name. At one point I got him a start with me, working in a concreting gang on the Basford flats. He did well to do that work for reasons which will become clear..

Anyway I have  memory of holding a conversation with this lad just by a typical garden gate. Something like a garden fronted terrace.. This clearly doesn't fit with Bailey's... 

 

However. My young lady was called Carol Dawn Simms. Sometimes Dawn, Sometimes Carol. And now you've reminded me her brother was Ralph. Nice lad Ralph. He walked with a limp as he had something wrong with one leg. I don't recall if this was congenital or the result of illness or injury.

I was best man at Ralph's wedding to a girl of whom I remember nothing except that ' Cathcart was mentioned as part of her name.

Despite being a DJ and quite comfortable speaking to audiences, I was terrified at the reception and shook so hard while proposing the toast that I spilled my drink all over my cuff and the tablecloth. I think it was sherry.

Carol had a younger sister.  There was also an older married couple but I can't recall whether it was Carol's older sister and hubby or older brother and wife. Memory favours the latter.

None of the above clarifies my recollection of Carol's house being on a corner. Msybe it was the corner of a side alley rather than a street?

But your mention of a hairdressers kind of works with my memory of a hairdresser close by...

 

Or maybe I'm just losing the plot..

 

So, apart from being on a corner, behind a shop and next to a side street, I remembered Carol's house exactly......  :wacko:

 

But in all seriousness I often wonder what happened to them all.

 

Col

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You'll have to have a walk round the area Col, and see if that brings back more memories.  Street view is great but i think it's better to actually be there in person.  I, too, am curious about what happened to all the people I went round with in my teenage years particularly,  but I think it's sometimes better (and safer?) just to have the memories.   What do other people think?

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Hi Margie,

 

I too would be interested in people's views on 'digging up the past'..

But I think first I should apologise to DavidW for taking his thread way off topic....  imsorry

It turns out that Bailey's was a complete 'red herring', yet the memory of a street at the side of Carol's house persists.  The thing is that if Banjo is right about where her brother Ralph lived, and why wouldn't he be..(and TWO Ralph Simms in the same area would be a bit improbable), then much to the left of it has been demolished and replaced with new build. So what was to the side of it is now difficult to know without photos.  Also, the area to the rear of that whole row seems to have been knocked about a lot, to make way for car parking.

 

As for finding out what happened to people.  I think you have to use your judgement and pay heed to how things were when you last saw them. I think I've recounted on here how I realised that a Lady who appeared in my Facebook friends list was a former girlfriend who I dumped rather unkindly many years ago.  I took the opportunity to apologise ( and congratulate her on a lucky escape..) and we are now good friends again.

 

You can get surprises..  The husband of one of my wife's former grammar school friends, not seen for years, invited us to a surprise birthday party he'd arranged for her.  We went along with another of my wife's schoolfriends and her hubby who are our closest friends.  We arrived in the Cumbrian village where they lived and spent an hour in the pub deciding whether to actually go to the party, as our wives recalled the girl in question was often an unbearable snob, though they found this funny rather than upsetting.

 

We decided to go and were greeted warmly by her hubby.  But the 'Birthday Girl' herself greeted us with a barely disguised look of shock and horror. As the party progressed and we did our best to 'mingle', it became increasingly apparent that the image which the girl in question had projected for herself amongst her 'country set' was dramatically different to the reality of her 'working class Scouse Girl made good' background. 

 

We found it hilarious.  We were as tactful as we could be, but spent the whole way home in gales of hysterical laughter as a result. 

 

Col

 

 

 

 

 

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DJ360

I knew Dawn well, and only last met her a few years ago on Westdale lane, she was visiting her mum in the sheltered accomadation about half way down on the right hand side.

 

Small world isn't it ? I knew the family very well as the older brother, Mick, was my brothers best mate. There was quite a few kids in the family and one of the older sisters lived there with her husband.

Will try and wrack my brain for the names.

 

Another brother was Barry, another daughter Debbie but thats it for now, Oh the married daughter was Grace.

 

Ralph had a serious accident on his Vespa scooter in his late teens, he came off on some ice on Haydn road and ended up with a damaged sciatic nerve in his leg causing the bad limp, which he never really came to terms with.

 

After a many years he decided to try more surgery to improve the problem, and unfortunately died in the hospital due to complications.

We were all devastated, as he was a lovely fella indeed, he came to my house to visit many times prior to his death.

 

I think he worked at Luxfer in Colwick.

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Might add, when I first met my wife at Gedling miners welfare, I was actually with Ralph and Will, we were a well known trio at the time, we saw these 3 girls, and picked one each, Ralph picked Val, Will picked Bella and I got my future wife !

 

Ha ha how amazing that we will celebrate our 50th anniversary this year and they all said it wouldn't last.

Even my wife's elder sister tried to break us up as she said we were far too young to be in a serious relationship.

But now I'm really going OT.

 

As a follow up to your remark above, I love looking up my past, even if some times it gets a bit sad or disappointing, or not what we thought we'd remembered.

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Thank you so much for the info Banjo, but I am deeply saddened to hear about Ralph's death.  As I said.  He was a nice lad. 

I think Mick may have been the older brother of Carol who I knew.  I always got on very well with him, and also her Mum and Dad, who were very good to me.

Debbie sounds right for the younger sister.  Blonde girl who would have been maybe 15 ish (rough guess) when I was seeing Carol.  I saw Mick ( if indeed it was he..) one more time maybe a year or so later.  He was in the Deerstalker on the old Bestwood Estate, which was sort of my local.  I think he was there for a Darts match.. or Dommies or something.  We had a bit of a chat about a few things and as far as I recall that was the last I saw of any of the Simms. I don't recall any of the others you mention.  As far as I recall there were only Carol, Ralph, Mum and Dad and younger sister (Debbie?) in the house at the time. Others turned up over Christmas but may well have moved out by then.

 

The coincidences continue....

 

We had recenty decided to start a 'Mobile Disco' and had managed to create a rudimentary set-up by hacking the autochange off a couple of Dansette decks, sticking them in a chipboard box and feeding them through a Bel guitar amp.  Sound was pretty horrible, but it go us going.

 

One night in 1968 we decided to go up to Gedling Miner's Welfare as we'd heard there was a band playing.  When we got there the band hadn't turned up.  We offered to put on a Disco and within less than an hour had shot back to 'Boowull', picked up our stuff and set up.  This was definitely in early 1968 because the first request we got was for 'Simon Says' by 1910 Fruitgum Co.  Mercifully, we had recently bought it.. which was just as well because it was pretty much all they wanted to hear.

 

Fab memories..

 

Col

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  • 2 weeks later...

Mapperley Tea Rooms was located between Haywood Road and Mapperley Top.  We used to go there from my uncle's, who still lives on Haywood Road.  As I remember, we walked in from Haywood Road and it was, I think, a wooden building surrounded by lawns.  The memory isn't that good now.  Probably the last time I visited there would be in the early fifties, but the place had the atmosphere of the 1920s.  Every time I hear Eric Satie's Gnossienne played, it takes me back there.  Almost genteel, but not quite. 

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  • 7 months later...

Hi, I've not written on this page before so forgive me if I'm doing it wrong! Just by sheer chance I have been doing some research into Mapperley Tea Gardens because Christopher Gilbert and Mary Gilbert were my Grandma's grandparents and I miss hearing her stories so I wanted to see if anyone remembers the tea gardens. I am quite knowledgeable about the history of the tea gardens and could talk for hours about my Grandmas wonderful stories growing up in Mapperley and with her Grandad Mr. Gilbert. The tea rooms were on the site where coop is and the gardens were where the car park is now. They had a horse who pulled the cart to deliver the bakery goods. The horse was called Daisy :) It is so wonderful that people have heard of and remember the Tea Gardens, I have fond memories of listening to grandmas stories and it's nice to think that people remember it. My grandparents had their wedding reception there. Also as a wedding present Mr Gilbert built my grandparents house in Mapperley which we've all treasured for years. My grandmas happiest times were in the tea rooms with her grandad Chris Gilbert. :) 

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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 only house on what is now 'mapperley top'. There was a swing gate which allowed access from the fields and footpath to their house. Walkers from Woodborough/ Lambley would come and knock on the door asking if there was anywhere to get a cup of tea. Chris Gilbert saw this as a business opportunity and decided to make the tea rooms. Then some time later the bakery started. All of Grandmas family worked in the bakery. She used to recall following her grandad (Mr Gilbert) around and helping him to ice the wedding cakes ready for celebrations. She was very fond of her grandad. Grandma said on Saturday nights they'd have dances and she used to stand at the door handing out a rose for each lady who walked through the door. Grandma said that there was a lovely gentleman who used to play the piano, although he was deaf he would learn music through feeling the vibrations of the sound. I remember her saying he was marvellous. There was also a lady who grandma had fond memories of who cleaned the tea rooms. Mrs Wilkinson i think her name was, although i may be wrong. But she encouraged my grandparents to marry even though it was against the wishes of grandmas mother. However turns out it was the right thing they were very happily married for 60+ years :) I remember grandma saying that during the war the other bakers on Mapperley top (Bread and Bitter) was bombed and as a result were losing out on business. So Mr Gilbert helped by allowing them to also use his ovens. Grandma said that in the war the hall was used for American Servicemen to sleep in. They had a huge tank in which they used to cook soup for the soldiers. In fact that tank is still in my grandads garden! Anyway.. off topic! I remember her saying that she was born in the house which is now Lees Opticians. I know my grandma lived on Haywood Road her whole life and moved into a house Mr Gilbert built on land he owned for her when she married my Grandad. In a house opposite the Tea Rooms/Garden on Haywood Road i believe my grandmas uncle lived there. I remember her telling me when i was very small that most of Haywood Road was filled by her family members. 

 

I'll try and have a think about any more details other than memories! I know grandma wrote a book on the history of Mapperley Top and the Tea Rooms i just need to ask my father if i can borrow it. 

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  • 2 months later...

Hi

I've just come across this site and I may be able to add a few bits of info; The tea rooms; shop and bakery were run by my mothers family; My grandfather- Cyril Faulkner was the baker; Grandmother Mabel (nee Gilbert) really ran the show I think- she died in 1954-55 (ish)- cant remember -I was only 4. and the concern was sold shortly after; demolished and a Co-op "supermarket" built on the site . The 3 sisters; Rene, Joyce (my mum) and Marjorie were all involved in the business. Cyril and Mabel lived at 33 Plains road- opposite the shop/bakery/tea-gardens. Uncle Jack (a cousin) lived on Haywood Road close to the back of the teagardens.

Interesting to hear peoples memories

 

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