Old Ellis Boys

[poohbear 1,360]

To those no longer in Notts. This is what's replaced the old school on Bar Lane,built six years ago.Another memory gone.

[Owdtite 2]

4 of the best years of my life spent there, the only downside was that I was introduced to smoking at 11 and have never stopped since.

I suppose you call the new building "progress" but is it really? I wonder if they have to go down to the playing fields on Melbourne Rd to have a game of Footy and cricket these days?

I can remember in my last year the careers officer coming to talk through what career I would go for....."Which do you want Lad, Pit or Hosiery Factory"....O' happy days, yes indeed!!

Owdtite.

[denshaw 2,877]

Owdtite, pack up smoking it's the best thing you can ever do. It's easy i packed up three times in one day.

[poohbear 1,360]

Walk to a park?? Don't be silly,think of the stress on the poor darlings worrying if they're gonna be kidnapped by Paedos.No...they just wiped out the dozens of allotments round the school and grassed it.

Those allotments were crammed with chaffinches,greenfinches,bullfinches and loads more.

[katyjay 5,091]

Didn't know there was a Sainsbury's on that bit of Nuthall Rd. Where did they build that and what was there before it? I knew the Commodore had gone and the spare rebuilt on.

[Ashley 288]

And I wonder how long the new one will last? saw on TV not long ago some "bleeding heart" teacher pleading for a new one as his old school buildings were 25 years old! Good old Claremont (Colditz) is still standing, has outlasted Victoria Station and the rest of the GCR, even if minus it's bell tower roof and not longer a proper skool. As regards the walk to the park, yes we did that to the forest, but our "home" venue varied over the years and I recall buses to Woodthorpe Park and believe it or not Bulwell Hall Park, great planing! 30 mins on the bus, 5 getting changed and a 25 minute game! Most of my mates went to Ellis post the 11 plus and I wanted to also, don't know what the powers that were expected of us in those days but attempting to teach us french, history (which merely consisted of a hour per week of a teacher reading page after page as it was written of some book re likes of John Wolsey with us writing such down in a jotter to be transferred to another book as homework was about as much use in later real world as Anne Frank's Drumkit

[poohbear 1,360]

Didn't know there was a Sainsbury's on that bit of Nuthall Rd. Where did they build that and what was there before it? I knew the Commodore had gone and the spare rebuilt on.

You answered your own question there...Commodore now Sainsbury's.

The end of that block was the driveway up to Dr Ryans Surgery in the fifties.The first shop was George Jones the barber,later to become a cafe when George moved to larger premises a few hundred yards further on towards town.The second shop was Emmings the greengrocer then McCarthy's sweet shop....and finally a bank before the Aspley Cinema entrance.Over the road was the Library that my Mum enrolled me in as a five year old (Which is why I can spell) and to the right of the library a rare building nowadays....a public toilet.

I was raised as a kid on Llanberis Grove a few hundred yards towards Cinderhill.

In the thirties these houses...about thirty... were built in the grounds of a mansion,the gatehouse which is still there at the bottom,along with the sandstone buttresses that held the gates.The land and mansion can be seen on the 1920s map before the houses were built.As a kid I remember the mansion was owned by Stansby's the chemist on Nuthall Road.He had twin boys but we didn't mix much as I think they went to public school.The mansion is now gone replaced by more houses.(Must find out who had that mansion built)

Our house was on the left of the Grove (It cost £650 in the thirties) and the end of the garden finished in quite a cliff of sandstone dropping down to the council houses on Nuthall Road.I often wondered how that cliff came about...and stumbled on an old map the other day that marked it as a sand quarry many years back.

[Ashley 288]

went out with a girl who lived on Llanberis Grove, nothing serious, about 1964, her parents didn't approve!

[poohbear 1,360]

I left for Arnold in '59...house fetched £2,650

[rob237 89]

You answered your own question there...Commodore now Sainsbury's....

On this particular Sabbath, having seen your piccie, I am now rotating in my grave...

One of the Stansby brothers (Paul?) went to High Pavement...

AD: Pleased my Dutch one-liner was of use to you...after three exposures it was suspected that no one in this notoriously slow-witted group had understood it

Cheers

Robt P.

[poohbear 1,360]

Hope you're not including me in your comment Rob?...If you are I challenge you to a duel in St.Anns with the drug dealers weapon of your choice.(Excluding the Uzi)

[MartynE 2]

Went to the Ellis from 1956 to 58 after being 'shown the door' from the High Pavement.

Good days? buggered if I can remember!

Regards.

[katyjay 5,091]

Thanks for the pic of the Commodore, PB. I had no idea the new building was as big as it is. I knew the Commodore was coming down but heard Iceland was going in there. The new building isn't bad looking, but it must stick out like a sore thumb in that area, every else being built so long ago. So, where's the parking for Sainsbury's seeing how they've bollarded all the space around it? Is that a car park I can see on the left, where there used to be houses?

[Paulus 541]

Thanks for the pic of the Commodore, PB. I had no idea the new building was as big as it is. I knew the Commodore was coming down but heard Iceland was going in there. The new building isn't bad looking, but it must stick out like a sore thumb in that area, every else being built so long ago. So, where's the parking for Sainsbury's seeing how they've bollarded all the space around it? Is that a car park I can see on the left, where there used to be houses?

It's the car park in front of the old Doctor Ryans Surgery, now an "hotel" called the Commodore, (not the most salubrious of establishments) !cheers!

[poohbear 1,360]

Sainsbury's car park is round the back Katyjay...same as when it was a cinema and the Commodore.

I must apologise to anyone who is a stranger to this area and to whom it means absolutely nothing....But one thing that's always bugged me is that on all old maps Bar Lane doesn't run through to Nuthall Road until about the thirties...I've eventually sussed where the old road ran.

Just over the brow of the hill on the right with the Commodore in the distance...is an old track that ran into the old allotments..it's still there...

After a hundred yards or so it turned sharp left downhill, and it comes out on Nuthall Road at the side of the Commodore block.

I've marked on the 1920s map the old road route...a cross where Ellis and Guildford was built a few years later...and an arrow pointing out the mansion house on Llanberis Grove before the houses were built.Stockwell Circus the round green area and houses had started to appear along Stockhill Lane...soon to be heavily built up in the thirties.

[Ashley 288]

Re the original route of Bar Lane, Further up on the other side (end of Saxby's) there was a footpath/twitchell? through to Basford Rd, the right of way still there now though diverted, At one time Saxby's coal stocks were up against the boundry wall which one day gave way burying the path in rubble and coal, there was quite a panic on as it was believed some ellis pupils buried under such however the fears were unfounded. Also the original Saxby family (there was still one there in the 1970's) had intended their works to continue down to Nuthall Road, tried to do away with the footpath but were prevented from doing so. These old "roads" fascinate me, (Whitemoor Road/Avenue, Miners Path/Pad Radford, former railway footpaths,etc, pre railways route New Basford to Bulwell ) loved to walk/cycle such and ponder on their demise

[poohbear 1,360]

The 'twitchell' is still there but blocked off at Bar Lane...it still shows up well from an aerial view...I was encouraged as a kid to take the route through the allotments across Bar Lane and down the twitchell to High Street and on to Whitemoor School.

Mum took me to school twice and then I went on my own...Five years old and walking to school on my own...My God haven't things changed?

Being a friendly little sod I made friends of Guildford girls walking in the opposite direction,I saw the same faces day after day....so much so that when I told them it was soon to be my birthday,a group of them bought me a present,which they gave me at the top of the twitchell.(I've always had this thing for older women )

I heard years ago that the twitchell was to be blocked because of it's use for drugs and being considered unsafe because of muggings.What a statement about this crap country we live in now?

Those twin chimneys of Saxbys were quite a landmark in those days.

[Ashley 288]

when I said right of way still exists I can't recall whether my last expedition to such included using part of the twitchell, think it did but part way you veered off via some kiddy playground and through new housing, was at least 10 years ago, more likely alot longer! god I'm depessed! lol

[Fynger 841]

Int it amazing....it doesnt matter which bit of google earth you look on...those trampolines ( blue circles ) are everywhere.

[poohbear 1,360]

"What do you think Mohammed?"

"Well we are looking at 2,000 years ago...I would think it's some sort of religious shrine!...obviously the local Shaman

conducted rituals and gave offerings to the their God Google"

"There are a hell of a lot of them"

"Yes...it was a religion that lasted many years, well into the 2200s wherever there was population density...Quite possibly

sites of human sacrifice where they offered the few remaining white skinned people to the Gods"

"So you think there were as many as there are garden mosques today?"

"Oh no not that many...just a couple of million....

"Are you going to the stoning today?...We're playing at home"

"Naaah!...I've promised to take the wives to the cinema to see 'The Six Wives of Dale Winton' it's one of my favourite sc-fi films"

[Fynger 841]

Lost it ( comes to mind ) ??

[poohbear 1,360]

My thread....I'll usurp it if I want :tongue:

[rob237 89]

... on all old maps Bar Lane doesn't run through to Nuthall Road until about the thirties...I've eventually sussed where the old road ran.

Never knew that, always assumed it ran right through...

As an irregular visitor to Bar Lane, and other adjacent places - a mile or so from my home territory of Bells Lane/Cinderhill - sometimes wonder if these seemingly numerous changes to various 'feeder' roads in the 30's, related to the newly operational ring road?

Intrigued why your picture in Post #4 marks the residence of ex Notts cricketer, and former Bells Laneite, John Birch!

Strange how so many Nottingham sporting pro's have opted to live on Bar Lane, over the years...I know of half a dozen.

Cheers

Robt P.

[katyjay 5,091]

It was also strange that Sainsbury's and the Commodore were both marked on the map, quite a distance apart. That's why I was surprised they are one and the same.

[Owdtite 2]

I just want to thank Pooh Bear for starting this thread....It has brought back some really good memories for me of my time at The Ellis....Its a shame that the allotments have gone, that was a briliant place for us and we used to take a short cut through there to get the No7 bus home to Bulwell...It was going through here that I had my first ever Park Drive and when I got on the bus I was sick and the conductor made me get off at Bells Lane....Of course I went on to smoke everyday after that and my lungs must be like charcoal now.

Thanks yet again for some wonderful memories, I just love this Forum, thanks Guys.

Owdtite.