Kenneth Wagstaff lived with his parents in St Anns Nottingham. Like many of his peers, he joined up to serve in the Second World War, but unlike most of his peers, he never returned Pte Kenneth Wagstaff was ‘killed in action’ just three days before [ … ]
Category: History
Memories Of The Metropole
Located on Mansfield Road in the Sherwood district of Nottingham, the Metropole cinema was a wonderful art-deco gem. Here it is in the early 1970s, not long before it closed. Note the Esso petrol station on the corner of Elmswood Gardens, and ‘The Candy Shop’ [ … ]
Mapperley Brickyards – The Final Years
This extract is from the book Clay Stealers to St Pancras Station – A History of Nottingham’s Brick Makers, by Jeff Sheard. Published in 2012 and not available in a digital format, it is published here with kind permission of the author. Top Yard – [ … ]
Charles Bell TAYLOR Of Beechwood Hall
Mapperley People likes to recognise the achievements of our residents, and Charles Bell TAYLOR is one that deserves his place in the area’s history. Charles Taylor was a surgeon oculist, the old term for what we now call an ophthalmologist. He lived and died at [ … ]
Johnson’s Pond
Following a discussion on a ‘school memories’ group about the Mapperley Plains Primary School, which moved to its new site about 30 years ago, someone commented that the new building was on a site known as ‘Johnson’s Pond’. We asked whether anyone recalls this and [ … ]
Crosslands Farm – Mapperley Plains
The residential area of Mapperley extended away from the city in phases. New housing developments were mostly built on what was farmland. Some of the original farm names have survived. Middlebeck Farm, Plains Farm and more recently the Chase Farm development. The name Crosslands Farm [ … ]
The History Of The Punch Bowl
Whenever we ask about our old buildings, the people of Mapperley never disappoint. We recently asked: Can anyone explain the history of The Punch Bowl public house on Porchester Road? The question arose when we noticed the name on the original pedestrian entrance gate at [ … ]
Mapperley – Nottingham’s Last Lace Factory
In 1910, Nottingham was the world capital of the lace industry. There were around 40,000 people working in the industry, a third of the city’s working population. One-by-one the factories have closed down and in 2011 the last of Nottingham’s lace manufacturers switched the machines [ … ]
Going Underground
Mapperley Tunnel and Gedling Colliery Mapperley Tunnel is a disused railway tunnel that runs below Mapperley Plains, where it meets Arnold Lane and Gedling Road. This 1044 metre tunnel was built for the Derbyshire and Staffordshire Extension of the Great Northern Railway. This line ran from [ … ]
Mapperley’s Old Police Station
We recently posted a photograph of the wrought-iron entrance gate of the rather neglected former police house at 649 Woodborough Road (opposite the top of Porchester Road). This became a police station in around 1904, two years after the tram reached that location and a [ … ]