In Part 1, the current track of the Nottingham Suburban Railway (NSR) was traced from an extraordinary 9m high metal ventilation pipe above the Sneinton Tunnel, then as straight as a rifle bullet via the Thorneywood Station and the currently-inaccessible Thorneywood Tunnel to the Bridge that killed St Ann’s Well.

After my initial write-up on the NSR, I was astonished to be driving down The Wells Road & pass an old house with identical chimneys to the Thorneywood Station-house at 1 Porchester Road. I had never noticed that house before; surely the chimneys could not be a coincidence?

My chance came yesterday (Sunday 8 May) as my surveying took me up to The Chestnuts, a small cul-de-sac that is opposite (what turns out to be) the St Ann’s Well Station-house at 459 The Wells Road.

Sure enough, the terrific disused-stations & others confirm that No. 459 was designed & built by the same person & company: TC Hine & the NSR. The events of that day also gave an interesting insight into the advantages & pitfalls of human memory…

…but first, let’s try to set the scene for what was a vastly different picture back in 1889 when the NSR & 459 The Wells Road was built.

The part of St Anns that contained the NSR St Ann’s Well Railway Station was firmly rural at that time (north of Donkey Hill, National Grid reference SK5841). Even though only a mile or two (2 or 3 km) from the town centre, it had in medieval times been the southern edge of Sherwood Forest. The only building locally was Nottingham Borough Lunatic Asylum at Mapperley Top, which was opened in 1880 & designed by GT Hine (son of TC). The entire 125 acres of the Asylum was surrounded by a high brick wall, and it tended to keep itself to itself.

The part of St Anns south of Donkey Hill (National Grid reference SK5840) had been rural in living memory, and had started to become surburban only in 1883 following enactment of the 1845 Enclosure Act. Before that time, all the lands surrounding the (very small) town had been lands held in Common, and not built upon.

This 1904 picture (hosted by disused-stations) may give some indication:-

Above is the bridge that took the railway line over The Wells Road to the St Ann’s Well Station. Access to the station is via Kildare Road (on the left). The remains of the medieval St Ann’s Well is below the bridge pillars on the left, whilst number 459 is further down the road (Nottingham centre is behind us, to the south). Now, in 1904 it was clearly becoming less rural and more suburban. However, consider that the stones of St Ann’s Well (in 1889 groaning under the weight of the bridge) were in medieval times at the southern edge of Sherwood forest.

The current Nottingham Lace Market is half of medieval Nottingham (the other half was centred on the Castle, with Slab Square ‘tween the two communities). The Lace Market occupies what used to be the Saxon settlement, and was just a quarter-mile square (0.032 km²). That mildly-interesting fact becomes a kill-statistic when two other features are added to it:

1. Nottingham refused to enclose land & expand beyond it’s medieval boundaries
   (Laxton – in Nottinghamshire, south of Newark – is the last village in England that still retains common ownership of fields, and farms under the medieval 3-field system)
2. The Nottingham population soared from ~3,000 in 14th Century to >50,000 in 1831 (and ~200,000 in 1889)

Finally, an Act of Parliament to enclose land (including St Anns) was passed in 1845. It took 20 years of argument before it could be fully enacted. In the meantime, folks in Nottingham town, and particularly children & the poor, were dying by hundreds & thousands of water-borne diseases such as cholera & typhus.

To sum up, then:-

The situation current in 1889:

In a word, ‘unprecedented’.

The population is soaring, which means increasing demands in every direction. Nottingham town is more closely packed with bodies than any modern, 3rd-world slum & has similar, water-borne diseases with a death-rate to match. Those with the money have finally had a gate opened for them to escape from hell, and for the last 6 years have been flooding into the newly-built suburbs in Thorneywood & lower St Anns. For the NSR that means that Thorneywood Station gets regular business, but that whilst the goods yard behind 459 The Wells Road makes a profit, the St Ann’s Well Station turns out to be too far away from the houses. By the time that the suburbs reach the Station the electric tram has also arrived, and essentially kills the NSR stone dead (the St Ann’s Station was closed in 1916, although the Goods yard continued; the whole line was closed in 1951).

Surveying The Chestnuts

Returning now to my Sunday survey of The Chestnuts, a small Close off the The Wells Road (do you remember?!).

The wall above is the original Boundary wall for the Nottingham Borough Lunatic Asylum (as mentioned previously). The houses behind it are numbers 1 to 6 The Chestnuts. Immediately opposite, on the other side of The Wells Road, is the Station-House (number 459). Within the Boundary wall (and exactly opposite 459) are two gate-posts; the former gate has been replaced today by a fence, but it is obvious once you know the history that this is the original entry for goods carried by the NSR to supply the Asylum.

If you look closely at the photo above, you will see that it is actually a corner-section, although only one side still exists. All these facts are connected; one of the lines of business for the NSR was supplying Mapperley Asylum, and the entrance into the Goods Yard was next to the Station-House (it is now a road called Dooland Drive). The southern-most aspect of the grounds for Mapperley Asylum was indeed opposite the Station-House. The western aspect of the grounds ran down The Wells Road whilst the eastern aspect ran down Porchester Road. Look on any satellite imagery & you will see a straight-line of trees that maps the southern boundary. Above that line of trees is developers’ delight.

Here is the same southern section of the Boundary wall at the Porchester Road side:

At the time I did not know all the facts that I’ve set out above, and was interested to see if I could confirm my suspicions about 459. I found my source in the owners of the corner-house of The Chestnuts. I got regaled with tales of discoveries whilst gardening, and also of childhood reminiscences about the Railway line, and here is where the advantages & pitfalls of human memory come in. The chap insisted that the railway line was low-level rather than high-level. Whilst I have not even surveyed that side of the road yet, all my research refutes his recall. I think that the simple answer is that, when he was a boy, only the goods yard was left working, and that was low-level whilst the passenger-station was high-level (but not existing at that time).

Extra: 21 May 2016:

Since this post is (in part) deeply into walls – and in particular into the boundary wall of the former Nottingham Borough Lunatic Asylum – and since I now have surveyed immediately north of that wall & have discovered that, yes indeed, it still exists there as well. So for all enthusiasts of 19th Century (1880) double-skin boundary walls, here are two more photos:–

The Eaton Street section; the admin buildings (Duncan Macmillan) can be seen on the other side:–

…and finally the Belvoir Street (pronounced ‘Bee-ver’) section, at the extreme end of a classic Victorian terrace:–