IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Woodborough Road, NOTTINGHAM, NG3 5QJ

A view across Woodborough Road (B684) from Eaton Street featuring Mapperley Methodist Church. The church occupies a prominent position in this neighbourhood, known is locally as "Mapperley Top". Behind the tree another landmark – the Mapperley Ridge radio transmitter – can be seen.

A cyclist peddling along Woodborough Road (B684) in the direction of Mapperley at the junction of Woodthorpe Road on a wet April afternoon. The Mapperley Ridge radio transmitter towers above everything else. Adjacent to the transmitter is a brick-built house belonging to the Severn-Trent Water Authority and behind the (now unused) gates the raised profile of a covered reservoir can be seen.

A view of part of Woodborough Road (B684) and its junction with Woodthorpe Road taken on a wet April afternoon. Features appearing include the corner of Mapperley Methodist Church and the Mapperley Ridge radio transmitter. Adjacent to the transmitter is a brick-built house belonging to the Severn-Trent Water Authority. Behind the "Caution Bumps Ahead" sign it is just possible to make out the raised profile of a covered reservoir.

There is an Ordnance Survey benchmark Image on the road face of the brick pier

Drivers and pedestrians successfully getting to the top of Porchester Road - the long uphill route from Carlton Road, NG4 (the B686) - are treated to this sight at the junction with Woodborough Rd, although sometimes it is more sunlit. The land and the covered reservoir inside the gate (and perhaps the house too) belong to the Severn Trent Water Authority, although the house appears to have been divided into several flats. To the left of the house the "Mapperley Ridge" radio transmitter can be seen, albeit that it stands on a separate plot of land. The "Water Board" site, the transmitter and the area beyond it, plus the area the left-hand side of this picture are in the NG5 postal area, Porchester Road acting as the boundary.

Eaton Street, off the B684 (Woodborough Rd), comes to a dead end here where it reaches the boundary wall of what was once Mapperley psychiatric hospital. Originally called the Nottingham Borough Asylum it was designed to meet the needs of the city’s 70,000 inhabitants. However, by the time it was opened in 1880 the population of the borough had swollen to 180,000, placing an even heavier demand on it than had been envisaged. Most of the hospital was closed years ago as part of a governmental "Care in the Community" strategy although parts of it continue to provide mental health care facilities.

Ordnance Survey cut mark benchmark levelled at 128.205m above Newlyn Datum in 1962

Bennett Street, a cul-de-sac off Woodborough Road (B684), showing a new housing development outside the boundary wall of the former Mapperley mental hospital. The institutional-style hospital building is part of "Duncan Macmillan House", a unit that continues to provide mental health care services. The name Mapperley is thought to be associated with a certain Mr Thomas Mappurley, an M.P. for Nottingham between 1353-56 who owned of an area of land known as "The Mappurley Closes" in 1377. It seems highly likely that the bricks used to build the hospital and its numerous extensions came from the Mapperley Brick Works that once existed immediately opposite the entrance to Bennett Street.

A view of the junction of Belvoir Street with Woodborough Road, looking towards Mapperley. Whilst at a first glance this stretch of properties looks like a row of terraced houses, the builder working on the property with the "For Sale" sign attached to it had just uncovered a long rectangular shop sign under some rendering he had removed. An elderly man walking past it confirmed that it had been a "beer off" (an off-licence) when he had been a lad and that he had gone into it occasionally and bought sweets there too. In our conversation it transpired that at one time this had in fact been a parade of shops.