IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Midland Court, NOTTINGHAM, NG7 3FH

A modern railway notice calls this bridge over the Nottingham-Mansfield-Worksop line Folly Lane Bridge, but to me it will always be New Bridge. Modern industrial units cover the former Radford goods yard and the colliery sidings on the left, and beyond them are student flats; the red building in the distance left of centre is International House on the Nottingham University Jubilee Campus; the distinctive Player's Bonded Warehouse is on the skyline on the right. Radford Junction, where the line to Trowell Junction and the Erewash Valley Line diverges to the right, is hidden by trees, as is Robert Shaw Playing Field. To take the picture I stood on the part of the bridge under which the colliery sidings, long gone, once passed.

In the early 1960s this was a good place to hang out with schoolfriends. A lot of trees have grown since then, obscuring the railway line to Mansfield and Worksop straight ahead and the line from Radford to Trowell Junction and the Erewash Valley Line to the right. Industrial units and student flats now occupy Radford sidings and goods yard on the other side of the Mansfield line, along which countless coal trains from the Leen Valley pits passed. The Waverley Express to and from Edinburgh via the Settle & Carlisle, which so excited small boys, no longer uses the route to Trowell.

This council estate was planned in the late 1930s, at the same time as Western Boulevard. My school friend Tim Dale lived in the house in the centre. We listened to a lot of early sixties music in the back bedroom "between the end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles' first LP".

Council-built houses on Southfield Road. The Ainsley Estate was planned before the Second World War but not completed until after it, as Nottingham continued to expand westwards. Image] shows the fronts of these houses.

Council-built houses on Southfield Road. The Ainsley Estate was planned before the Second World War but not completed until after it, as Nottingham continued to expand westwards. Image] shows the rear of these houses.

After a frosty night the early morning is bright, sunny and very fresh!

The River Leen, whose name is believed to be a corruption of the Celtic word llyn (lake), flows southwards from its source in the Robin Hood Hills (near Kirkby in Ashfield) to the River Trent south of Lenton ('Leen-ton').