IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Aspley Lane, NOTTINGHAM, NG8 5GY

Opposite Bluecoat School (Nottingham Bluecoat Academy).

This view, from near the Newlyn Gardens entrance to the park, shows what in my childhood in the 1950s was the shunting neck of the National Coal Board railway line which connected Babbington (Cinderhill) Colliery with the sidings at the Nuthall Road landsale wharf (some way behind the camera). This railway had originally been built by Thomas North, the colliery owner, to connect Babbington to the Nottingham Canal, due south at Wollaton Road, and later the Midland Railway line from Radford to Trowell at Babbington Sidings, near where Western Boulevard bridge now stands. The line south of Melbourne Park had been long abandoned (since the building of Western Boulevard in the 1930s) by the time I watched a little green locomotive named Peter shunting NCB East Midlands Division No 6 Area wagons, which were black with white lettering and bright yellow corner ironwork.

Melbourne Park, with its children's playground, pavilion and many football and cricket pitches, was developed along with the western suburbs in the 1930s. This view across the park, from the Newlyn Gardens entrance, shows redbrick St Margaret's Church on Aspley Lane, which also dates from the thirties. The slight rise in the ground from which the photograph was taken is all that remains of the embankment of the National Coal Board railway system which connected Cinderhill Colliery and the landsale wharf on Nuthall Road. There was a huge fan of sidings to the right of here (where the Staindale Drive housing development now is), which lasted into the 1960s.

On Aspley Lane

A Charismatic Evangelical Anglican church. It was consecrated in 1936, having been built to serve new communities settling in the outskirts of Nottingham in the 1920s and 30s. Funding was provided by John Dane Player of the famous cigarette manufacturers. Note the new style of roof covering.