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Dist:0.3km<br/>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.
©John Sutton
Dist:0.3km<br/>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.
©John Sutton
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©Lambert
Dist:0.4km<br/>This road of detached houses is very typical of the western suburbs developed in the 1930s. I must have walked or cycled along here many times in the 1950s (when most of the window and door woodwork was green-and-cream, or grained), on my way to play at Melbourne Park, which is behind the houses on the left.
©John Sutton
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©Lambert
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©Oxymoron
Dist:0.4km<br/>The nearer buildings are part of the Ascot Works of the Speedo swimwear company. The long building behind is no longer in the textile business but instead houses a large Cash and Carry business
©Alan Murray-Rust
Dist:0.4km<br/>On approaching this "modernist gothic" church I assumed that it must be a Catholic Church, built in the first half of the 20th century. It is however, C of E. My estimate of the building date still stands.
©David Lally
Dist:0.4km<br/>A 1930s pub on Nuthall Road, where Bobbers Mill shades into Whitemoor.
©John Sutton
Dist:0.4km<br/>Collins' Cash & Carry occupies a former hosiery factory; the Speedo factory is on the left, between road and railway. For a view from Ascot Road, see [[[1591116]]]. The plume of steam from Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station, eight miles away, shows above the buildings in the centre of the picture.
©John Sutton
Dist:0.4km<br/>The Collins building is on the left and the Speedo-Ellesse-Berghaus works on the right. The Wheatsheaf is on the other side of the junction of Aspley Lane, Nuthall Road and Bobbers Mill Bridge.
©John Sutton
Dist:0.4km<br/>The almost imperceptible embankment to the right of the pollarded poplars in the foreground marks the shunting neck of the National Coal Board railway line which connected Babbington (Cinderhill) Colliery with the extensive fan of sidings at the Nuthall Road landsale wharf, which lay behind the green poplars, where the Staindale Drive housing development now stands. 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 sat on the swings just out of picture to the left and 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. The line of the railway can still be made out near where it crosses Melbourne Road a little way north of here - see [[[833893]]].
©John Sutton
Dist:0.4km<br/>An uninteresting picture of part of an electricity sub-station and some gravel - but to those interested in Nottingham's railway history there is more to it. From the 19th century until the building of Western Boulevard and the houses either side of it in the 1930s, a railway linking Babbington (Cinderhill) Colliery and the Nottingham Canal at a wharf immediately south of Wollaton Road ran north and south here. Its course is marked by the eastern edge of the allotments to the left and the western boundary of the Girls' High School (formerly John Player & Sons) sports ground (beyond the garden hedge on the right). For other vestiges of the Babbington Colliery line, see [[[833893]]], [[[833891]]], [[[1854660]]], [[[1854681]]] and [[[2509723]]].
©John Sutton
Dist:0.4km<br/>This is one of the few buildings in Bobbers Mill dating from before the late 19th century, when the area changed from a village to an industrial suburb.
©John Sutton
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©Mick Garratt

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