Old Nottingham Police Stations

[Graham woodward 13]

Hi. I'm new to the forum so hope I have placed this in the right place. 

 

I am a Photographic Historian and have been photographing Nottingham for nearly 50 years. I have written several articles about Nottingham using my photos as the main theme. 

 

I am currently producing an article on old Nottm police stations and wonder if anyone on the forum would be kind enough to have a look at the draft and check any errors in content etc or suggest any changes. The article is not to be sold, but will be issued free of charge to the Civic Society for distribution amongst its members. 

 

The article can be viewed on my Nottingham website at http://www.gwoodward.co.uk/police.pdf 

 

Thanks in anticipation. I will credit the Forum contribution in the article. 

 

Graham Woodward

Wollaton.

[Cliff Ton 10,008]

I've had a quick glance and that looks really interesting. I'll be back for a closer look later.

[Beekay 4,400]

Welcome to the site Graham. I'm sure someone will come to your assistance and offer help.

Going to take a look myself, though being an exile  for the past 34 years I might be a bit nottingham rusty.

 

[Graham woodward 13]

Thanks guys. Really appreciated. I don't think it matters how long you have been away as long as your memory is still good.

[Cliff Ton 10,008]

Having now read through it, I've learned a few things.

 

Never realised several old Victorian buildings used to be Police Stations.

 

[katyjay 4,997]

Very interesting article.  i remember as a child in the 50's, a small police station in the middle of Melbourne Rd, Aspley. I have never seen a photo of it though. It is not mentioned in the article.

[Graham woodward 13]

Cliff Ton and Katyjay - thanks for the feedback - I'll amend the Shakespeare errors and I also can't find any pictures of the Melbourne Rd station but will trawl the OS maps and see what I find. It is not shown in my 1986 A-Z guide so must be before that. 

 

Sorry, forgot to say there are other guides on the website - http://www.gwoodward.co.uk including Radford, Hyson Green, railways, Nottm canal and a few others. You are welcome to have a look. Thanks again. 

[Cliff Ton 10,008]

On 7/13/2021 at 2:54 PM, katyjay said:

 i remember as a child in the 50's, a small police station in the middle of Melbourne Rd, Aspley. I have never seen a photo of it though. It is not mentioned in the article.

 

I never knew it but I've read about it somewhere else and it's on this photo. As a reference point, the building on the right is the Commodore, with the library opposite.

 

[Graham woodward 13]

Awesome. Where did you find that picture? I read somewhere that it was used at one time to house a gateman who operated the gates of the railway that crossed the road on its way to Cinderhill but that seems to have been further up the road. A new station was built on bar Lane in the 1960s/70s behind the Commodore. 

[Jill Sparrow 9,672]

I never knew there had been a police station on the site of the empty shop premises at the top end of Newquay Avenue/Alfreton Road. In my childhood, that was a sweet shop owned by Eric Towlson and his wife, family and widowed mother lived in the attached house. It later became a hifi outlet.

 

My mother's family lived at the bottom of Bobbers Mill Road from the early 1920s and mum could remember the Churchfield Lane area when it was fields where the cows grazed. Eric Towlson's father had a sweet shop on the corner of Bobbers Mill Road and Alfreton Road when mum was a child. She remembered the later shop and houses being built so she would probably have recalled the police station. She would now be 95.

 

I was born in 1957 but I well recall Hyson Green police station on the corner of Radford Road and Gregory Boulevard. It was a lovely building and its replacement was absolute rubbish!

[Graham woodward 13]

Jill: The police lodge on Alfreton Road at Bobbers Mill is mentioned in the 1885 edn of Wright's Directory, but isn't listed in the 1894 or later editions. On the 1899 OS Map there is a building on the corner which may have been the police station although it isn't marked as such on the map. It's still there on the 1913 OS Map but again not shown as a police station of lodge. It was demolished when the houses were built in the 1930s. 

 

Picture of 1913 map below (hope I've done that right).   

 

 

[Jill Sparrow 9,672]

Thanks, Graham.  My mother certainly remembered the Capitol Cinema being built and if that building was there during her childhood she would have known what it was used for. She had a fantastic memory. Towlson's original shop is shown on the map but the houses on the opposite side of Bobbers Mill Road are not yet built on what was a sand pit. No wonder one of them collapsed!

[Graham woodward 13]

Jill: I recently prepared a PowerPoint talk on Hyson Green, which I haven't delivered yet due to the Covid restrictions. When I researched that material the nearest date I could get for the council houses on Bobbersmill Road was 1930. 

[Beekay 4,400]

Talking of police, this is for you Graham...

[Graham woodward 13]

At age 70, you don't know how close to reality these caricatures are! Thanks   

[Jill Sparrow 9,672]

Graham, my mother was born in 1926 at 190 Bobbers Mill Road and her family had lived there since the houses were built a few years earlier. I have photos of her older sisters taken in the garden of the house when the properties were newly built. They were born in 1915 and 1919 respectively and I would say they are around 7/8 and 3/4 years.  The rent for the houses was considered to be very expensive, with the predictable result that they were difficult to let. My grandparents were the first tenants of number 190.

 

Somewhere on this forum, there is an excellent article covering the building of the Stockhill Lane houses which were the first to be built in Nottingham. The houses on Bobbers Mill Road followed them. The wizard that is Cliff Ton can probably locate it.

[MelissaJKelly 2,080]

Hey Graham. Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing your website here. I've just spent the last hour trawling through your image on Flickr! Can't wait to be sat at my laptop having a proper look through them. Lots of interesting stuff. Thanks again!

[Cliff Ton 10,008]

43 minutes ago, Jill Sparrow said:

The houses on Bobbers Mill Road followed them. The wizard that is Cliff Ton can probably locate it.

 

Is this what you were thinking of ?    https://nottstalgia.com/forums/topic/2545-alfreton-road/?page=5&tab=comments#comment-532568

 

[Graham woodward 13]

Jill: Thanks - You just can't argue about dates when someone was born there! To be honest they look more early 1920s than 1930s as they are rendered the same as those at Stockhill. Thanks again - I'll update by Hyson Green talk project. Eternally grateful. I like this forum already and I've only been on it half a day. 

 

Cliff Ton (great name) Thanks. Where are you getting these aerial pics from? These support what Jill syas that the council houses on Bobbers Mill were built in the 1920s, not the 1930s as I originally thought. Great team effort. Thanks. 

 

Melissa: Thanks for the feedback. Check out the guides on my website - they are in PDF format and can be downloaded if needed. 

[Beekay 4,400]

Graham, any idea why I cannot pick up your website on my Android tablet? I followed your link from an earlier post (www.grahamwoodward.co.uk) but to no avail. Might try me pc in the morning.

Cheers, Beekay.

[Graham woodward 13]

BeeKay: Some tablets block websites that don't have an SSL certificate - the padlock at the head of the address in the address bar. My host, Claranet, doesn't provide SSL support but it only matters if your site records either online payments or cookies, which mine doesn't. See if in your settings for chrome the blocker is enabled and tell it that my site is a trusted site. If that doesn't work, ........... use your PC  

[The Engineer 542]

Graham, I found your article most interesting.  If I may add a few comments (and pick up a couple of typos):

 

Page 5 - Bridgeford to read Bridgford

Page 10 - Ransome to read Ransom.  That location is now Shepherd's Race garage (there is some history around that name).  The road on the right with the tram is The Wells Road (continuation of St Ann's Well Road).

Page 11 - Would Gorsey Walk (and associated 'gardens') have been off Gorsey Road?  Resident map experts might help.

Page 20 - The brickwork (original plus bricked up doorway) is Flemish Bond (not English Cross bond).

Page 26 - That Lymn's building was Ernest Smith (monumental masons) before Lymn's bought them out.  Lymn's main shop is around the corner on Robin Hood Street.

Page 27 - Ransome to read Ransom.

Page 35 - I don't remember that police station under the library but am fairly sure there was one across the road, higher up, maybe around where The Sherwood Workshop is now (maybe they relocated?).  A Google search suggested a police station at 621 Mansfield Road, where The Crimson Tree is now, but I don't remember a station there.

 

Not mentioned is the Bridewell (history in that name).  It was next to the magistrates' court, off Carrington Street.  It wasn't particularly old (I'd guess about 25 years) but it has been sold recently to the court as it is no longer fit for purpose.  I think they are having a new Bridewell somewhere (as well as the new HQ at Sherwood Lodge).

 

[Stuart.C 430]

I'd like to present some evidence in the case of the missing Sherwood Police Premises.

(p.s there's a link near the bottom of the page to 621)

 

All images from Google maps, street views in the past.

The first image labelled by Google as July 2008 is not easy to get, you need to be in exactly the right place on Mansfield Road to catch the past image.

 

The address was 581a Mansfield Road Sherwood, even though 579a is one side and 581 is the other. (see snip from Traffweb at bottom of page)

July 2008

 

 

 

Next image labelled by Google October 2008
 

 

 

Just when you think it's gone for good it made a brief re-appearance in Sept 2014.

 

 

 

Following the link below quotes the Police Station as being in the former Lloyds bank at no 621 Mansfield Road (may have been something else in between)

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2851271

 

 

Confirmation of numbering on Mansfield Rd

 

 

[LizzieM 9,272]

Fascinating article Graham, I’ve really enjoyed reading through it and learned a lot in the process.  The Sherwood Police Stations in recent times have not really been proper stations as we used to know. I’ve been back in the area for 17 years and remember on my return to Nottingham an attractive looking station where the Crimson Tree Cafe now stands and after that there was a place below the Sherwood Library that didn’t have any staff …… just a buzzer or something on the outside, to summon assistance.   Total waste of time but that has been a sign of the times in recent years.  Gone are the days when one could go into the local ‘cop-shop’ to report something lost or found and be greeted by a friendly desk sergeant.  

 

Just studied the image Stuart.C has posted of the most recent ‘station’ in Sherwood, I think the local force need to employ a sign writer who can spell ‘INFORMATION’ 

[DJ360 6,385]

Welcome Graham, and thanks for linking to your tremendous piece of work.

 

It's a very long time since I lived in Nottm, so I'm bound to take your word for most of the info, but I am left wondering whether you intended to also cover the sort of small, more modern 'Police Box', which existed here and there... after the 'Dr Who' type were dispensed with.  I'm thinking in particular of the one on the right hand entrance of Church Lane in Bulwell which certainly existed until around 1970 and possibly later.

It appears to be a computer shop now..

 

My only other observation is your mention of 'riots' by Luddites.  I'm a little uneasy about this as I think ones view of Luddites rather depends upon whose account you read.  Depending what you read.. Luddites either quietly and non-violently made their point by removing key parts of certain machinery, or they engaged in the wholesale smashing of machinery and the murder of its owners.  Of course this is not the main point of your work, but maybe a little more 'nuanced' view of 'Luddites' is called for?