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Gothic Close, NOTTINGHAM, NG6 0NU

UK Bus Stop Sign on Nursery Lane, Nottingham Nottinghamshire.

This landscaped area and children's playground, serving the houses on Roman Drive, Gothic Close and Script Drive, is built on land once occupied by the Great Northern Nottingham to Derby Friargate railway, which crossed Arnold Road behind the camera. The street names recall the Barlock Typewriter Company, whose factory was on - and gave its name to - nearby Barlock Road.

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

These sloping gardens occupy what was once a railway embankment: Bagthorpe West Curve, which took Derby-bound trains from Bagthorpe Junction, half a mile to the south on the Great Central main line, to Basford North and then west to Kimberley and Ilkeston. There were carriage sidings, where spare coaches were stabled, to the left, between the Derby line and the Great Central main line, which crossed Arnold Road just to the north. Image] is the view in the opposite direction, towards Arnold Road. It is well worth consulting old OS maps to get an idea of how much railway infrastructure there once was here - all now landscaped away.

On the corner of Arnold and Warlock roads. See also Image

See Image

To Nottinghamians of my vintage, the interest of this picture may be in the grassy wooded slope on the left, which is all that remains of the Great Central Railway embankment. This was the site of a girder bridge which carried the Nottingham Victoria to Sheffield and Manchester main line, closed in 1968 and its course largely obliterated in the city and to the north. 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 (see Image]); when the smoke of those from Derby was spotted away to the right, beyond the sidings where a depot now is, there was a frantic dash under the GC bridge 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 (under the present Britannia Avenue, to the right) - they then passed under Arnold Road (just behind the camera) on their way to Bagthorpe Junction and Nottingham Victoria 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. (Those post-War trainspotters were of course sustained by sherbet lemons and penny chews from Nellie Bisby's shop on Arnold Road.)

On the corner of Arnold Road and Wallace Street, Basford. The Home Ales sign is a bit more worse-for-wear than when John Sutton was here 3 and a half years ago http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2037260 . And is now further obscured by the MoneyGram signs. Closer view: Image