Raleigh HQ Now Listed Building

[DJ360 6,729]

As above.  Excellent news.

[plantfit 7,593]

It is a lovely building Col and deserves to be saved, Nottingham has lost too many of it's old and iconic buildings

 

Rog

[letsavagoo 963]

I'm 100% with you on this Col. I lived in Radford and my dad would occasionally drive with me in the car  going somewhere or other along Lenton Boulevard, past here. I well remember even when I was very young being impressed by it. The road being wide here with its 'avenue' of trees. It always reminded me of a picture I had in a book of foreign embassy building. As children we rarely strayed far from home on our own and probably St Peters park was as far as we went but when I got my first bike, a Raleigh naturally, the first place I  rode was down Radford Boulevard and accross onto Lenton Boulevard and turned around outside here. Not long after I left school after a failed attempt as an apprentice electrician (that's another story) I went to work as an office boy in the concept design department at Raleigh Industries. This was in 1970 and initially the department was based near Faraday Road but was expanding, which is why I'd been taken on I spent my first few weeks help moving to an office in a block immediately behind head office. I was a regular visiter to this main building. The staff canteen was housed in the upper right floor looking from the road, the opposite side being the ballroom which was often used to display a range of colour and style options to the bosses so I regularly lugged bikes up and down to the ballroom. There was a large slowly revolving turntable inside the main central entrance with several new models on it and I was occasionally tasked with changing them or making sure the tyres were inflated etc. I'd also have to collect any visitor from the foyer and take them to Alan Oakley or to our department.

I had the first Chopper several months before they went on general sale And worked with some fantastic talented people both from artistic and engineering backgrounds and learned a great deal. I had to visit every inch of this fantastic factory and saw it in full swing in its halcyon days before its decline.

 I was there for about 3 1/2 years and loved every second. I had to go either cycle or bus to various firms to fetch supplies for the office. A regular journey being to John E Wrights on Huntingdon Street for draughtmans supplies. Left for more money and went to Players. That was a shock to the system.  Thank goodness at least this building is being saved.