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Here's a cracking picture of the top of Woodborough Road showing Mapperley Methodist Church and the top of Porchester Road - hope it inspires some memories  

Rob, I think the picture would have been taken in the 60's when they started building on the land behind what was once Wardles's garage (i.e.before Wheelhouse had it).   We used to play football and g

Plains Road looking towards Nottingham. The road on the left is the top of Westdale Lane.

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We were married at Mapperley Methodist in 1966.

 It was also  interesting to see the steep slopes into the brickyards where I used to play as a child, sliding down the sides, climbing in the trucks until being chased off by the workmen, picking pussy willow from the bushes that grew there and negotiating the huge pools of water on the clay...  it was always very slippery to walk on it especially after it had been raining

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I was christened in that Methodist Church in 1943. Good to see we are both still standing. I never became an active Methodist though and I’ve never been in since. I was sent to a C of E Sunday school that was initially at the Arno Vale School and then it to moved to the Woodthorpe Church Hall which was between Arno Vale and Wesley Rd. It was an offshoot of St.James, Porchester then before Woodthorpe got it’s own church, St. Marks. I think it’s a lending library now. 

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As I've said before, Phil, I went to the Sunday School at Mapperley Methodist for a short time before going to the same Sunday School as you until it moved to St Marks.  Perhaps we sat together?  I remember sitting in Arno Vale School classroom drawing pictures of some Bible story we'd just heard. Can't remember the story but it had hills, birds and people in it...

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A memory just popped in me head about Sunday school. We took sixpence I do believe and got a picture stamp to stick in a book. When all the stamps were on the page it made a big picture. Anyone else remember this?

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Noticed the top of Woodthorpe Drive too . Bit further and Mapperley Tea Gardens would have been in view !

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1 hour ago, katyjay said:

A memory just popped in me head about Sunday school. We took sixpence I do believe and got a picture stamp to stick in a book. When all the stamps were on the page it made a big picture. Anyone else remember this?

 

Dad sent me to the Sunday School at Cinder Hill. I remember the lay preacher was a man named Albert. BORING! I soon tired of that and instead went to play across the road on Cinder Hill park.

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1 hour ago, katyjay said:

memory just popped in me head about Sunday school. We took sixpence I do believe and got a picture stamp to stick in a book. When all the stamps were on the page it made a big picture. Anyone else remember this?

Yes, KJ. I remember those too!

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2 hours ago, Paradiddle said:

Zooming in on the photo have spotted the war memorial at the top of Woodthorpe Drive - the present petrol station and KFC look to be on dodgy ground!

 

I remember my mum taking me to the November service at the war memorial when I was very small.  I seem to think the immediate area round the memorial was different/bigger then .  This would've been in the late 1940s / early 50s

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I too used to play on the old brickyard banks and fish in the ponds ! also MargieH I collected pussywillow for my mum to put in a vase as it seemed to last forever.

Had some wonderful times on the old brickyard and adjacent fields, our old house backed onto Breckhill fields so it was our natural playground, dad even put a gate in the rear hedge so we could get easier access.

 

When the fields were built on, the builders who bought the land, A C Butler & son whom my dad knew very well also being a builder, had to leave us access to the old gate as it had been there so long and was considered a "right of way"!

When I sold the house in 2005 the old gate and access was still there but had been over grown for years then, and I believe the owner of the house below had taken over the land below the gate to enlarge their garden. Maybe mum had given them permission to do it by then, I don't know.

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Along Woodborough Road there were some of the best brickworks in the country. A large proportion of the 60 million red facing bricks used in the construction of St Pancras were supplied by Edward Gripper’s Nottingham Patent Brick Company, probably near Private Road towards town. Extensive brickyards existed on Mapperley Hills for several centuries. They  supplied much of the building material for Nottingham and other cities that wanted dependable bricks.

Much of my childhood was spent sliding down banks in the old works. I wish I had known that it was such good quality clay then I could have pacified my mother who was unreasonably irritated at the state of my clothing when I got home. 

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Banjo, thinking about your house backing on to Breckhill fields,  was it on Coronation Road or further along the Plains?   As well as playing in the brickyard, I too used to wander on Breckhill fields before they were built on.  There was a cut-through path over a stile from Breckhill Road (starting a bit up from the bottom of Maitland Road) which led down to the bottom of Melbury Road / Wensleydale Road.  It was an alternative route to walk to Arno Vale school via Coningsby Road.  I tended to use the more standard route via Breckhill and Littlegreen Road but remember sometimes coming home up the little path.  

I used to catch the 25 bus at the bottom of Maitland Road (going up Breckhill Road) to go to secondary school in the 50s, and 2 friends used this little path to get from Melbury Road to this bus stop. 

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Top of Woodthorpe Drive when the brick works were still operating, with the still-recognisable triangular junction in the centre of the photo.

mWnZlR9.jpg

 

 

21 minutes ago, MargieH said:

Banjo, thinking about your house backing on to Breckhill fields,  was it on Coronation Road or further along the Plains?  

The area in the late 30s. As a reference point, the arrow is Coronation Road.

MV65Jd7.jpg

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46 minutes ago, MargieH said:

Banjo, thinking about your house backing on to Breckhill fields,  was it on Coronation Road or further along the Plains?   As well as playing in the brickyard, I too used to wander on Breckhill fields before they were built on.  There was a cut-through path over a stile from Breckhill Road (starting a bit up from the bottom of Maitland Road) which led down to the bottom of Melbury Road / Wensleydale Road.  It was an alternative route to walk to Arno Vale school via Coningsby Road.  I tended to use the more standard route via Breckhill and Littlegreen Road but remember sometimes coming home up the little path.  

I used to catch the 25 bus at the bottom of Maitland Road (going up Breckhill Road) to go to secondary school in the 50s, and 2 friends used this little path to get from Melbury Road to this bus stop. 

I looked for that path when I drove down Breckhill last week but it’s gone. I would have thought it would have been established as a right of way. I remember Breckhill fields as a place to go sledging in the winter. It was a fantastic slalom down between the bushes to Melbury Rd. My cousin Peggy Burton from Greys Rd. used to keep a pony on those fields. The other good sledging slope was in Woodthorpe Park, down the steep hill towards the old Sherwood Station. They weren’t too keen on us sledging over the pitch and putt course on the other side!

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Cliff Ton, thanks for the 1930's picture.  The house I grew up in is on there (about halfway between Fairview Road and Maitland Road)  at least it would be if it wasn't hidden behind a tree on the photo!  The brickyard between Woodthorpe Drive and Breckhill Road doesn't seem to have been excavated much at this point - it was very active in the late 40s and early 50s with trucks on a 'railway line' going from there under Woodthorpe Drive.  Don't know when it ceased to be worked...

The photo doesn't show how steep that area is, does it, but that's often the case with photos.

 

Phil, we've looked for the little path too and it's definitely no longer there.  I only watched my older brother sledging on Breckhill fields... too dangerous for little me, but I did sledge on Woodthorpe Park.

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2 hours ago, MargieH said:

Banjo, thinking about your house backing on to Breckhill fields,  was it on Coronation Road or further along the Plains?   As well as playing in the brickyard, I too used to wander on Breckhill fields before they were built on.  There was a cut-through path over a stile from Breckhill Road (starting a bit up from the bottom of Maitland Road) which led down to the bottom of Melbury Road / Wensleydale Road.  It was an alternative route to walk to Arno Vale school via Coningsby Road.  I tended to use the more standard route via Breckhill and Littlegreen Road but remember sometimes coming home up the little path.  

I used to catch the 25 bus at the bottom of Maitland Road (going up Breckhill Road) to go to secondary school in the 50s, and 2 friends used this little path to get from Melbury Road to this bus stop. 

 

Our old house was on Coronation road MargieH.

The path you mention was along the bottom of the field and yes from Breckhill road to Melbury road. There used to be a small cottage about half way down on the left, and a memory I have is of me and a mate playing with my new birthday present, a real long bow with arrows, I shot one over the temporary target we had set up and I will never forget it ended up stuck in the flat roof of that cottage ! we ran like hell home and left the arrow.

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Cliff ton

Can plainly see our old house on the second photo on Coronation road. Thanks for that.

Actually an edit as dad didn't build till the very early 50's so just the old orchard where the house would eventually be.

Remember my dad bought the land from an elderly chap who owned several orchards around there, one also at the bottom RH side of Gretton road, he bought our land for 80 pounds, and had the option of the rest for a total of 300 pounds, at the time dad couldn't really afford it so let the offer go, later one of his building mates bought the other land and built four houses on it.

 

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Phil, remember the sledging from Breckhill down to Melbury Road - we used to call it the 'Death Run' because if you were brave enough to stay on, it carried on under a barbed wire fence!

 

Nice to be able to share the photo's - here's another good one, it's only a matter of time before someone spots their house!

 

Plains_Rd.jpg

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A few things to note on that pic of Plains Road.

 

A 31 bus going round the turning circle.

Tree Tops pub, no doubt when it was still a Kimberley house, now owned by Greene King

Wheelhouse's garage (now gone and replaced by "luxury" homes)

 

Not much else has changed!

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Rob, I think the picture would have been taken in the 60's when they started building on the land behind what was once Wardles's garage (i.e.before Wheelhouse had it).   We used to play football and go sledging in the fields which stretched downhill all the way to the railway line.  There was a small access path alongside the garage from Plains Road.

 

The following picture is a reminder of what Somersby Road used to look like, circa 1948.  There have been a lot of changes since then!

 

Somersby_Rd_A.jpg

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