Jill Sparrow 10,303 Posted September 22, 2017 Report Share Posted September 22, 2017 When I was a child and we lived on Bobbers Mill Road, if the wind was in a certain direction and when it was quiet at night, we could hear Little John striking the hour from The Council House in Market Square. I recall also the hammering of the water pipes, often in the early hours of the morning, probably due to an airlock in the lead pipes. It ran through a whole row of houses and really made you jump! 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mercurydancer 1,104 Posted September 22, 2017 Report Share Posted September 22, 2017 Jill Sparrow I used to live on Bobbers Mill Road. I was friends with the Machin family. Kim and Gay. I was closer to Gay. Just two houses down. I have said this before but I remember Major the dog. Gerry Machin used to have me hold an egg in my hand just in front of my face. Major would take it without breaking it on many occasions. I do remember on a Sunday, it was very quiet, and you could easily hear the Council House! 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jill Sparrow 10,303 Posted September 23, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 9 hours ago, mercurydancer said: used to live on Bobbers Mill Road. I was friends with the Machin family. Kim and Gay. I was closer to Gay. Just two houses down. I have said this before but I remember Major the dog. Gerry Machin used to have me hold an egg in my hand just in front of my face. Major would take it without breaking it on many occasions. Yes, Major was a real character! Kim went through Berridge with me, in the same class mostly. She went on to the Bluecoat School. Often wondered what became of her. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Cliff Ton 10,454 Posted September 23, 2017 Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 11 hours ago, mercurydancer said: I used to live on Bobbers Mill Road. Where exactly on B M Rd? Did you see the photos of that area which I posted in a couple of recent threads ? https://nottstalgia.com/forums/topic/2545-alfreton-road/?page=5 And two photos on separate pages here (scroll down a bit) https://nottstalgia.com/forums/topic/16695-back-yard-memories/ Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jill Sparrow 10,303 Posted September 23, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 Mercurydancer lived at the top end of Bobbers Mill Road, CT. Opposite Smith Dennis and after the junction with Darley Avenue/Road, going towards St Stephen's church. Can't remember which number the Machins lived at but would have been around 80 to 84 ish. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Cliff Ton 10,454 Posted September 23, 2017 Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 3 hours ago, Jill Sparrow said: Mercurydancer lived at the top end of Bobbers Mill Road, CT. Opposite Smith Dennis and after the junction with Darley Avenue/Road, going towards St Stephen's church. That'll be one of these, then. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jill Sparrow 10,303 Posted September 23, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 Fantastic photo, CT. Taken long before my time but I can still recognise so many landmarks. St Stephen's vicarage with its beautiful gardens. All gone now. The house where Mr Glover the chimney sweep lived. The area where the Darley Avenue/Road houses were built looks to be some type of allotments or even quarry?/sand pit? I know the site of the houses at the bottom of Bobbers Mill Road was a sand pit as my mum told me and I've seen it so marked on old maps. Perhaps it extended further than I thought? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Cliff Ton 10,454 Posted September 23, 2017 Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 It's not an area I've ever had any connection with, so it's all a bit new to me and I was surprised to see the sand-pit-thing stuck there in the middle of everything. I might investigate it all a bit further. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mercurydancer 1,104 Posted September 23, 2017 Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 6 hours ago, Jill Sparrow said: Mercurydancer lived at the top end of Bobbers Mill Road, CT. Opposite Smith Dennis and after the junction with Darley Avenue/Road, going towards St Stephen's church. Can't remember which number the Machins lived at but would have been around 80 to 84 ish. Bang on. The Machins lived at 82. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mercurydancer 1,104 Posted September 23, 2017 Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 Cliff Ton As usual you come out with the greatest of images. Again you have my gratitude. I lived at the house almost exactly in front of the little chimney of Smith Dennis factory. I recall it being struck by lightning and causing lots of damage to the house next to it. I recognised very many features in the photo. The sand pit was actually a functioning sand quarry until it was exhausted in about 1965ish. Then it was taken over by a scrap metal firm who were still there until the early 1980s. Half of the allotments at the bottom of the Bobbers Mill Road gardens (from about number 80 onwards) was built as a garages for cars possibly 1970? and my father kept his Morris Oxford there for many years. The houses on Darley Road opposite Chadwick Street had obviously not been built at the time. In the middle left is the beautiful vicarage of St Stephens and I recall very fondly the Church summer festival held on that magnificent lawn. Top left is the "Clock" pub which still stands. Molly Mills corner shop is still a house at the time of the photo. I recall two families who had bought the houses as new! Mr and Mrs Whiley, and Mrs Davies. (Mr Davies died a long time before) Mrs Davies was delighted that I went to Mundella as she had done decades previously. The height of the sand cliffs going down to Plantation Side and the Leen (which is out of shot) is deceptive. They were quite high. Not quite a sound, but a sight, was that from the back garden we could see Shipstones brewery, and when they lit the red star at night, my Mum would say it is time to go to bed. 1 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jill Sparrow 10,303 Posted September 23, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 Quite a lot of info in your post I was unaware of, MD. especially the sand pit not being worked out until the mid 60s. I was at Berridge with Geoffrey Whiley. You may also have known Billy and Edith Wells. Edith was my first piano teacher! I too remember the church fetes in that beautiful garden! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jill Sparrow 10,303 Posted September 23, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 41 minutes ago, mercurydancer said: Bang on. The Machins lived at 82. A wild guess, MD. Spent many hours at their house but couldn't recall the number. Didn't realise either until I looked on Ancestry that neither Kim nor Gaye were born in Nottingham but in the south of England. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mercurydancer 1,104 Posted September 23, 2017 Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 Jill Sparrow Yes I do remember Geoffrey Whiley and his brother Peter. Old man Whiley had a woodworking workshop in the attic. As a very small child I can recall he made me a wooden toy duck. I still have it. I recall Ray Machin having a different accent to ours. Much softer. Gaye was a good childhood friend and it was only when the Machins went through a divorce I lost touch. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jill Sparrow 10,303 Posted September 23, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 59 minutes ago, Cliff Ton said: surprised to see the sand-pit-thing stuck there in the middle of everything. I might investigate it all a bit further. Me too, CT. Must have been a huge area if it extended all the way up Bobbers Mill Road. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jill Sparrow 10,303 Posted September 23, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 Yes, I surmised from researching on Ancestry that Kim's parents had split up. Very sad. They were a nice couple. Must have happened post 1970. Kim's dad had an elderly relative who lived in the Darley Avenue area. I once went there with Kim. I recall her extolling his singing voice. It may have been his mother. I wondered if he might have been in the military before he joined the Police. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mercurydancer 1,104 Posted September 23, 2017 Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 The sand quarry was really quite large and surprisingly deep. Bobbers Mill Road is on the top of a ridge (although the photo does not indicate it) and the quarry was mined to about 8 foot at the allotments close to Bobbers Mill Road back gardens to about 120 feet close to Plantation Side. In width it went from Darley Road to St Stephens. Jill, I was briefly in Nottinghamshire Constabulary before going back into the army. Ray Machin was in the Police Choir. The next door to the Machins was also a police house. Len Smith was the police officer there with his family. I seem to recall that Ray Machin and Len Smith did not get along at all. I never knew why. I knew both when I was in Notts police and got on with them both, although Len had retired by then. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mercurydancer 1,104 Posted September 23, 2017 Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 There is much more in that photo I can explain. On the road opposite St Stephen's rather small bell tower is a house on a corner of a road. Again like Molly Mills it does not look like it is a shop. It became Beardsmore's newsagent. The Beardsmore family took over a couple of shops exactly on the Radford Road Tram stop and called it a Mini-Market. A tram (204) has now Erica Beardsmore as its name. Lambert Street, off to the right of the factory, had a beer-off. I can remember going there as a child to get Indian brandy for my Dad when he had a cold. On the photo there are light coloured objects to the left ( as you see it from the photo. They were at the left hand side of each "entry" ) of each alternate garden staring at 86. They are sheds. Why they were put up in alternate gardens I do not know, but they were. All exactly the same. There is a row of trees running left to right from St Stephen's Church to about 84 Bobbers Mill Road. That was the marker for some years for where the quarry and its subsequent scrap metal firm were allowed to go. It is now Meadow Brown Road. Close to St Stephens the drop from the church to the bottom of the quarry was about 50ft or more. It got much gentler towards Darley Road. As I understand it, and I am welcome to be corrected, the factory in the centre of the photo is an old textile factory which was taken over by a metalworking company, one which specialised in high precision machining. Certainly the machining factory on Berridge Road running almost parallel to Bobbers Mill Road was specific in machining valves for north sea oil industry. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jill Sparrow 10,303 Posted September 23, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 The quarry is very interesting. It would be fascinating to see what that side of the road looked like before the even numbered houses were built. The odd numbered houses were mostly Victorian. I think I did know that Kim's father was in the Police choir and, if I remember correctly, police officers were not permitted to own their own homes in the 1960s but had to live in properties which were 'tied' to their jobs. Quite why this was, I don't know. It isn't the case now. I also recall Erica Beardsmore. Looking at the street pattern around Berridge Road/Lambert Street, it has changed entirely. I knew and went to school with many who lived in terraced houses in that area...now totally obliterated. It's half a century ago! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mercurydancer 1,104 Posted September 23, 2017 Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 The houses to the south ie Bobbers Mill Road where I lived from about 60 to 100 were built at the same time. Many of them had deep cellars possibly due to stability and possibly because of underground streams. Ah police houses! The houses were owned by the Police authority and the officers paid no rent. A pretty good deal in those days. There was a restriction with respect to how far they were away from their station. They obviously could not own the property but that started to change in the early 1980s. Police officers could own their own properties but were not entitled to any subsidy at all. They had to pay their mortgage the same as the rest of us. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mercurydancer 1,104 Posted September 23, 2017 Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 I have just had a thought, it was not RAY Machin but Gerry. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jill Sparrow 10,303 Posted September 23, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 From my researches on Ancestry, Audrey Robinson and Gerald H Machin were married in 1956 in Nottingham. Audrey was a Nottingham lass but I can find no record of Gerald's birth. His second marriage was in 1979. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jill Sparrow 10,303 Posted September 23, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 10 minutes ago, mercurydancer said: The houses to the south ie Bobbers Mill Road where I lived from about 60 to 100 were built at the same time. Many of them had deep cellars possibly due to stability and possibly because of underground streams. Interesting also. The Chadwick Road houses also had very deep cellars. I knew one lady who missed her footing and fell down the cellar steps, resulting in injury. The council houses, on the other hand, had no cellars. The area which served as a coal cellar and which had a wooden hatch on the external wall, was only some 12 to I8 inches below the floor level of the rest of the ground floor. When the houses were modernised in the 70s, the floor level was raised and the coal hatch bricked up. That said, the first semi collapsed due to subsidence in the late 20s and all the houses suffered from dampness. Possibly due to inadequate damp proof courses, being built over sand? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Cliff Ton 10,454 Posted September 23, 2017 Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 In view of the subsequent comments, this is a slightly different angle showing all of St Stephen's Church, and the full extent of the sand pit. Its entrance seems to have been from Plimsoll Street on the left. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
NewBasfordlad 3,599 Posted September 23, 2017 Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 Thanks CT at last I have got my bearings Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mercurydancer 1,104 Posted September 23, 2017 Report Share Posted September 23, 2017 Again another fascinating photo. Indeed the main entrance to the quarry was off Plimsoll Street but at the very bottom where it met the Leen. There was also an exit between the Vicarage and the houses onto Bobbers Mill Road, clearly visible on this photo. I do not know when these photos were taken, but the quarrying to the left of the photos did not go much further before there was no more. There was also an underground stream going downhill from the top of the photo and in heavy rain, it would emerge onto the road exactly where the factory with three galleried levels and the house with a gable are. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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