IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Swinburne Close, NEWARK, NG24 3QX

The 1960s era housing on this estate, where all the roads are somewhat unimaginatively named after poets, were built as Balderton turned from being a village into a suburb of Newark on Trent.

The original boundary wall of the right hand house has been removed to facilitate parking

Ordnance Survey cut mark benchmark described on the Bench Mark Database at http://www.bench-marks.org.uk/bm79506

There is an OS benchmark Image on the right hand side of the garage at its front corner

The East Coast Main Line, running predominantly through flat countryside, is peppered with level crossings and there are several in the Newark area alone (the West Coast Main Line, by contrast, has very few and none at all south of Preston). They are an operational headache for Network Rail and, with modern day service frequencies, a cause of much delay and frustration for road users. Unfortunately, replacing them with bridges is not always practical as here on the edge of Balderton where there are houses very close to the railway. In this view the barriers have lowered and the red lights are flashing and, with two trains due to pass, it would be several minutes before the road would reopen. Curiously, the name of the road is Bulpit Road but the crossing is called Bulpit Lane; it is on the edge of Balderton.

Like the surrounding housing development this small shopping precinct dates from the 1960s. In those days there would probably have been a selection of shops selling basic necessities including possibly a butchers, greengrocers and newsagents. In the era of supermarkets and convenience stores, such a range of separate shops is hardly ever necessary and different sorts of retailers have come in to fill the gaps. In this view there is China Garden, selling take away Chinese food, a gift card shop and a pet store.