IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Westbury Road, NOTTINGHAM, NG5 1EJ

This picture, taken at arm's length over a high concrete wall (thank goodness for the digital camera's swivelling display screen), only makes sense if viewed as one of a pair, with Image], which shows the same scene nearly fifty years before. The houses behind the trees are on Sheridan Way, which is built on reclaimed railway land. The distant horizon on the right is the sandstone ridge which divides New Basford from Forest Fields.

This was a good place for trainspotting on a schoolday evening, and seeing a Gresley V2 2-6-2 coming towards me on a northbound pigeon special was enough to make me press the shutter (far too soon). Much of what appears in this picture no longer exists, including the carriage sheds to the left (the site of Sheridan Way), New Basford station (behind the train) and the factory chimney on the right horizon. The council houses on the right are on Glamis Avenue. The cutting in the foreground has been filled in and built on. The historical interest of the picture (scanned and cropped from a tiny square print) may make up for its technical shortcomings. The Great Central Railway main line from London Marylebone to Sheffield via Leicester and Nottingham was the last trunk route to be completed (1899) and the first to close (1967). North of Nottingham and in the city much of its route has disappeared - embankments flattened, cuttings filled, viaducts demolished - and it is hard to follow. Compare with Image

The L14 again (see Image), this time on Nottingham Road, New Basford, at the Zulu Road bus stop. This stretch of Nottingham Road is predominantly lined with commercial premises of various types, although this is a largely residential part of the city.

In the district of New Basford.

At one time hoisery manufacturing was one of the major industries of Nottingham.

The Great Central Railway main line from London Marylebone to Sheffield via Leicester and Nottingham was the last trunk route to be completed (1899) and the first to close (1967). North of Nottingham and in the city much of its route has disappeared - embankments flattened, cuttings filled, viaducts demolished - and it is hard to follow. The best part of fifty years ago I used to cycle up here of an evening to watch the trains pass under Perry Road bridge. On the left the newer houses between the 1930s ones are on the site of the cutting shown in Image] and the concrete wall on the right (over which I took Image]) is the site of the bridge parapet from which Image] was taken.