Building Rise Park in 1976


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Can any of you run now?  Does anyone on here do regular jogging? There are a few oldies on our village who do but I’m not one of them!!

I never particularly liked running at school although I was good at the hurdles, also the high jump.  I remember the highest I jumped was 4’ 3” and that was when you landed in a sandpit or just on grass.  I’d have loved landing on that soft plastic thing that is used now and probably I would have been more confident to jump higher 

 

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I can offer a few definitive dates and historical details for the Rise Park area.   Both Rise Farm and Top Valley farm were up for sale in 1940 but went unsold and were withdrawn from the ma

Well, permit me to blow my own trumpet ……. I was Victrix Ludorum twice at school.  However I’ve done very little running since leaving school but I can run for a bus when necessary! 

I've had a play with Kev's pic, using 'Paint' in Windows 7... then saving to my Flickr A/C so I can share it here. Not brilliant.. but I've managed to label a few things. Click on the image for a larg

I was frequently for the high jump at Manning for entering the changing room without first removing my boots after a pointless 40 minutes on the muddy hockey field. The mud tended to fall off in clumps all over the changing room floor...I wasn't the only offender. We were usually so frozen stiff that all we wanted to do was get inside and sit on the pipes...tepid though they were.

 

Invariably, I would be picked on to fetch a brush and sweep up all the mud clumps. Pickleface, silly s*d!

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I was a runner in school. Long distance was my thing too, along with miggle distance running.  I was hopeless at all ball sports.  I was often first home but in the House Championship, Pete Whitehurst, who lived in the Arnside Rd area, just pipped me by cheating and taking the wrong route through the school to the finishing funnel. I said nothing.. but I'll get him back one day.... Not that I'm bitter...or holding a grudge or owt... :angry2:

These days I can barely walk, much less run.  Still in brighter news, Wrightington Hospital which is a national centre of excellence for Orthopaedic Surgery confirmed that they have received my referral and will be contacting me in a few weeks. Progress!

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I too bear a grudge with my school to this day. Had I excelled at cricket or rugger I would have received school colours which meant I could wear a green blazer. I was the school cross country champion, I was selected to run for South Notts and I was selected to run for Nottinghamshire. What did I get - sod all! I've got that off my chest at last! :biggrin:

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I was never a runner. My classmate Fatty Henson and I did a passable cross country amble that earned the ire and the wrong side of a slipper from Sid Bolton.

Pointing out the inequality of the class wearing shorts and singlet in sub-zero temperatures whilst he was fully dressed and sat in a Morris Minor 1000 observing earned me another whack... Bitter... moi?....

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Well, permit me to blow my own trumpet ……. I was Victrix Ludorum twice at school.  However I’ve done very little running since leaving school but I can run for a bus when necessary! 

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I've had a play with Kev's pic, using 'Paint' in Windows 7... then saving to my Flickr A/C so I can share it here. Not brilliant.. but I've managed to label a few things. Click on the image for a larger view.

 

A few observations:

-Main Rd. running up left of pic is Hucknall Rd, with Boowul Common to left.

-I think it's fairly obvious that some labels.. e.g. 'Southglade Sports Centre'.. refer to what is there now.

-Most of my labels are just to the right of what they refer to.

-Bestwood Park Branch refers to the railway line running over the (just visible) bridge at end of Hucknall Rd before Moor Bridge and connecting to the Leen Valley Line as it ran around to Bestwood Colliery  This line connected to the Great Central.. which is out of shot to the left.

-Just above the above, it is possible to make out another line, which connected the Midland Line from Boowul Market to Hucknall, to the Leen Valley Line into Bestwood Colliery.  All via 'Bestwood Jn.' And just to confuse matters, Bestwood Jn. was on the Moorbridge side and Moorbridge Jn was on the Bestwood side.. Also visible, the Boowul-Hucknall line fading off through my Hucknall Lane label and bending back left towards Mucky Hucknall.

Bestwood Jn is now the Moorbridge Tram Stop.

-This pic is before the current Moorbridge was built..so it was necessary to turn right from Hucknall Rd. onto Bestwood Rd and turn left just before Moorbridge Cottages onto the old bridge.

-Bestwood Ironworks closed in 1928, but the main structures.. presumably Blast Furnaces..plus one chimney..appear to be still standing..so maybe the pic is a bit earlier than 1935.

-Shadows on trees etc. would indicate this pic was taken in the afternoon, when the sun would be over to the left of shot. I often watched it set over Boowul (to left) in Summer.  My swing tree was an Oak. Most of the trees in shot were. I climbed many of those trees as a kid.  Look below my swing tree and you can see that there is a banking down from the Leen Valley to the field.  We spent hours sitting half way up that bank in Summer.. having picnics and waving to the drivers of the odd train which came by.

-Even with railways, coal mines and wagonworks.. it was a beautiful place to grow up.  I miss it.

 

51301896369_3b1b239031_o.jpgBestwood Area Approx 1935 

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Running and games were never ever my strong point I didn't understand netball and couldn't see the point of it all but PT as it was called was my strong point.

I belonged to the vaulting club and although I say it myself was very good. I always came top in exams and I wish that I'd kept it up so that in old( er) age I wouldn't be so stiff and awkward( sometimes)

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9 hours ago, DJ360 said:

I've had a play using 'Paint' in Windows 7... then saving to my Flickr A/C so I can share it here. Not brilliant.. but I've managed to label a few things.

 

That's exactly what Nottstalgia should be all about...and what it used to be.

 

I could do a similar thing for Clifton in the 50s, although it might be a bit self-indulgent.

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DJ360,  have you ever been back to check on your swingtree to see if the string is still there? You could allus have a Nostalgic swing, just for owd times sake.

Lizzie, which bus was it you used to run after?

Perhaps it were a weekly ritual.  :rolleyes:

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1 hour ago, nonnaB said:

Running and games were never ever my strong point I didn't understand netball and couldn't see the point of it all but PT as it was called was my strong point.

 

Nonna, I was good at PE too and could shin up and down ropes very easily, also walk on my hands and do back flips.  

However, I also loved netball and played in the school team.  I was goal attack. 

Nice memories of when I was young and fit!  

I live my sports life vicariously now through my granddaughter who is 11 and just like I used to be (but  she is a footballer and cricketer as well, so that's where we differ)

 

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10 hours ago, DJ360 said:

I've had a play with Kev's pic, using 'Paint' in Windows 7... then saving to my Flickr A/C so I can share it here. Not brilliant.. but I've managed to label a few things. Click on the image for a larger view.

 

51301896369_3b1b239031_o.jpgBestwood Area Approx 1935 

Brilliant post Col...thought i knew my old stamping ground...but you enlightened me on quite a few parts........

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Ben, have a looksee whether you can find Cols swingtree. Perhaps a meet up picnic there would be nice. We could search for fishplates or sleepers.  Just a thought.

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2 hours ago, Cliff Ton said:

I could do a similar thing for Clifton in the 50s, although it might be a bit self-indulgent.

 

I suppose it would be as self indulgent as you wish to make it. In my post above I've tried to include general info mixed with a bit of personal stuff. It's hard to avoid the personal stuff because most of my family lived and worked within the bounds of that pic and those fields and railways etc were my World as a youngster.  My Dad's family came from Bestwood Colliery from its first sinking and my Mum's lot came from much further away.. Bobber's Mill... :laugh:

I know nothing about Clifton except that when I was a kid it was supposedly the biggest Council Est. in Europe and it had one of the first Comprehensive Schools.(Fareham?)  I never visited Clifton back then because I had no cause to.  The first time was when I rode the whole tram system in a day, a few years back. It seemed OK to me except for being very flat.. which I'm not used to.

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2 hours ago, Beekay said:

DJ360,  have you ever been back to check on your swingtree to see if the string is still there?

 

Thing is Beekay, the tree was almost certanly growing before the Leen Valley embankment was built next  to Hucknall Rd.  Hucknall Rd undulates quite a bit alongside Boowul Common and the Golf Course, so that the Leen Valley Railway, ran alongside via a series of embankments and the odd shallow cutting.

So, the tree ended up growing from the bottom of the Leen Valley embankment, and also in a corner formed by another embankment at right angles, created to carry the Rigley's sidings.

That made for a fab swing tree, because you could climb the banking holding the rope and then swing way out over the field.  I'm pretty sure I've detailed here before about falling off and landing in a pile of coke... but that's another story.

Eitherway, when NCC decided that MY fields were a suitable place to dump domestic waste, the level of the original fields was raised to the level of the railway line, in an act of vandalism for which I will never forgive them. I guess that at best the top of the tree would have survived the carnage, but I'll ask my brother if he has been along there recently.

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Here's more info about Bestwood Ironworks, courtesy of 'Friends of Bestwood Country Park'.

 

http://www.fbcp.org.uk/bestwood-ironworks.html

 

That pic gives a shot of the Colliery from an unusual angle, but it is just possible to make out the old 'Institute', or 'Clubby', AKA The Bestwood Hotel.  It's just in front of the multi storey pithead Bath building.  My Grandparents kept it for a while. Not sure when they took it on but they retired in the early 1960s.

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Nice picture link Col., I could even make out the screens where I started work as a 15 year old. That were before I were elevated to the baths, before below ground at 16.

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G'wan CT, be indulgent.

Clifton, despite its size, gets very little mention here. Col is right it was the largest estate in Europe and Fairham school the 71st comprehensive in England.

It was also the most boring place on the planet once you became a teenager and roaming the fields and 'going out to play' lost its appeal but a map, pre-estate, or similar would be interesting.

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Col, the area used as a tip was excavated and carted off when Gala Bingo was built and Gala Way was constructed, later linking to Southglade Rd, thus restoring the levels roughly to pre tip times.

Gala Way is quite a climb up to Southglade level, not apparent on the photo.

Trees that are there now are new and I think your tree would have been on the line of Gala Way.
The railway Oaks are still thriving.

 

I planted a Canadian Maple in my garden when I moved in 30+ years ago (actually 2 but 1 didn't take) not quite swinging height, but give it another 50 years and it might be.

 

iEemaT2.png

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37 minutes ago, Stuart.C said:

Col, the area used as a tip was excavated and carted off when Gala Bingo was built and Gala Way was constructed, later linking to Southglade Rd, thus restoring the levels roughly to pre tip times.

 

Sorry to disagree Stuart, but that's not the case.  I lived at No. 40 Southglade, directly oposite Forum Rd, until about 1970 and my Mum was there until the late 1990s... possibly later.  If you look at where I've marked Southglade on Kev's pic, it was basically alongside two fields.  Although all dips and hollows are masked a bit by photographic foreshortening..you can tell from the Leen Valley embankment that the fields formed a hollow.  Also consider the way that Hucknall Rd. dips, between the end of Southglade, and the site of Rigleys.  That is part of the same hollow, which was bisected when the Leen Valley embankment was constructed.

After tipping, most of the land opposite Southglade, except for a small bit lower down towards where the Leisure Centre is now, was left much higher than pre tipping, and all traces of the hollow were buried. If anything, the building of Forum Road, Gala Way etc.. exaggerated the issue.  Forum Road is now higher than Southglade Road and slopes down to it.

From my Mum's front living room window, I used to be able to see down into the hollow and up the other side.  I could see Rigleys and the surrounding fields... and also Bulwell, beyond the Common.  The view from that window now is of Forum Road, sloping uphill, and surrounded by nondescript business units.

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Anorak trainspotter observation.

 

In books and online, there are thousands of photos of trains on all the old lines around Nottingham.......apart from the Great Northern line mentioned in the previous posts;  the line which went alongside Hucknall Road, parallel to Andover Road etc. I've never seen any photo of anything on that line.

 

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Good point Kev.  I saw goods trains fairly frequently in the 1950s and very early 1960s, but I believe passenger services ceased in the 1930s.

Tomorrow I'll check when the line closed for good.

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New Basford Station on that line closed in 1964. The associated coal yard, accessed from Haydn Rd. continued to be used as such into the '70's. I bought about 200M of the former rail track land from Haydn Rd. bridge back towards the tunnel, for my company, in around 1977. At that time the land was owned by the City Council.

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That bridge you mention on Haydn Road I knew well.

NCT said a double decker bus would not pass under it.

WRONG. They did because we did that on a regular basis .

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