IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Britannia Avenue, NOTTINGHAM, NG6 0EB

This view eastwards from Park Lane bridge shows how the course of the former Great Northern Railway line from Nottingham to Derby Friargate has been obliterated since it closed in 1968. Ben Brooksbank's Image] shows what the lines east of here looked like in the days of steam; the position of the engine in that picture was just beyond the houses straight ahead.

Looking north from the south eastern end of Brooklyn Road.

The line of trees marks the former course of the Great Central main line from Nottingham Victoria to Sheffield and Manchester, which crossed Arnold Road on a bridge just to the right. This was a good spot for trainspotting, with traffic on the GC and also the GN Derby Friargate line. Derby-bound trains took the Bagthorpe West Curve, which crossed Arnold Road a little way down the hill to the left (see Image]); when the smoke of those from Derby was spotted away to the left, beyond the sidings where the depot behind these railings is, there was a frantic dash under the GC bridge to the right to see them emerge from the short "Rathole" tunnel which had brought them under the GN Back Line to Daybrook and Colwick and the GC - they then passed under Arnold Road on their way along the single-track Bagthorpe East Curve, whose route is echoed by the northern end of Fenton Road, which was built after the railway was closed and its cuttings and embankments filled or levelled, landscaped or built on.

The trackbed of the Great Northern line to Derby has been partly filled in to make a small playground. The curious-looking parapet was a British Railways replacement for the wrought-iron original and rather remarkably dates from 1965 - a year after passenger services ceased and only two years before the line was abandoned completely. Basford North station was to the left and the Basford East junctions, leading to where the GNR met the Great Central main line, the southbound line via the "Rathole" tunnel, were to the right. The other side of this bridge appears, under the footbridge, in Ben Brooksbank's 1963 pictures Image] and Image My father always called this "Dobby Bridge", but I've no idea why, or if anyone else did, or of the name's origin.

This grassy knoll, in a children's play area, is on the reclaimed and landscaped site of Bagthorpe West Curve, which led Great Northern Derby-bound trains from Bagthorpe Junction to Basford North, then west through Kimberley and Ilkeston. Carriage sidings, where spare coaches were stabled, were to the right and behind the camera and the Great Central main line from Nottingham Victoria to Sheffield and Manchester a little further to the right. The GNR's lattice bridge across Arnold Road (which is behind the line of bushes) was where the trees in the centre are, and beyond it the line curved to the left behind where the industrial unit now stands to Basford East Junction, subject of Ben Brooksbank's Image

Classic turn of the century (c.1900) Nottingham with 2 and 3 storey red brick terraced houses.

Old Basford is a good place for old painted signs on former Home Brewery Company off licences. This example, on the corner of Park Lane and Cheltenham Street, is the traditional version, advertising Apollo fizzy drinks and the Daybrook brew; on nearby Arnold Road the beer-off sports the 1960s version - see Image

View eastward on the ex-Great Northern lines, towards Daybrook and Colwick ahead under the bridge carrying the ex-Great Central main line from Nottingham Victoria to Sheffield; Basford North (former Basford & Bulwell) station is behind the camera. The locomotive is Gresley V2 2-6-2 No. 60878 on the loop towards Bagthorpe Junction and Nottingham Victoria.