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Mapping Changing Street-Names in Nottingham City :: 1900 to current

Posted by alexkemp on 26 November 2022 in English. Last updated on 1 January 2023.

26 November 2022
The last page in this sequence of diary entries used to be “1800 to current”. It became so large as to become unreasonable, so I have broken it up into two pages: the original first half is now 1800 to 1899, whilst the second (this page) is now “1900 to current”.

Details:– 1900 to current

  • 1900s early
  • 1900
  • 1901
  • 1902
  • 1903
  • 1904
  • 1905
  • 1906
  • 1908
    • Lawrence Bright-designed homes built on Lenton Road: [Barton House (the wiki uses the historical address of ‘1 Huntingdon Drive’)].
    • Lawrence Bright-designed homes built on Huntingdon Drive: [2].
    • Nottingham Corporation Tramways got Parliament approval to replace 3 long-haul horse-trams with electric-tramcars (to Beeston, Arnold and Carlton). The 3 motor-buses obtained in 1906 had proven unreliable, with continual mechanical breakdowns. The last bus ran on 15 June. A replacement horse-tram was put in place whilst the electric infrastructure could be installed. As the council insisted on twin-tracks that meant some property destruction + road-widening.
  • 1909
  • 1910
    • May 6, 11:45pm: Edward Ⅶ died very suddenly at the end of bouts of severe bronchitis from March, then heart attacks in May. Aged 68, he had been known as a “Playboy Prince” when young. He was the eldest son of Queen Victoria, and spent 59 years as Prince of Wales. Sentiment turned around completely once he ascended to the throne in 1901, but — whilst not his fault — he left one of the greatest constitutional crises (re: the power of the unelected House of Lords) in the balance for his son to resolve after his death.
    • May 6: At the age of 45, George Saxe-Coburg and Gotha became King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India on the death of his father Edward Ⅶ. George was Duke of York, meaning that he was a second son & thus in normal times next in line to the throne after his brother; look at 1936 to see a repetition of this with his own sons. George took the name George Ⅴ on his ascension to the throne. George insisted that the the most offensive anti-Catholic phrases in his Accession Declaration be removed (an Act of Parliament effected that).
    • Ernest A Sudbury-designed homes built on Clumber Road East: [3 Westwood House].
  • 1911
    • Aug 18: The constitutionally important Parliament Act was signed into law. It removed the right of the House of Lords to summarily veto financial legislation, changed the Lords veto on other bills to a delay for a max 2 years, and reduced the Parliamentary term from 7 years to 5. This was the beginning of confirming the primacy of the House of Commons over the (unelected) House of Lords and had considerable impact on the next constitutional crisis, which was Home Rule.
       
      The convention at that time was that, whilst the Lords had the right to veto legislation, they kept their hands out of any finance bills. In spite of that convention the Lords opposed the 1909 “People’s Budget”, put forward by the Liberal leader & Prime Minister Asquith but opposed by the Conservative leader Arthur Balfour. The general election of January 1910 was a hung parliament, which left the nationalist Irish Parliamentary Party with it’s thumb on the balance. The Irish wanted Home Rule (which the Lords opposed) and so backed Asquith. The budget passed in April 1910.
       
      Attention now turned to a Parliament Act. There was vigorous opposition from the Lords which blocked all attempts at reform. Events reached November 1910 without resolution, and the Liberals asked the new king to dissolve parliament (which meant a fresh election in December). They also asked the king to swamp the Lords with new peers if necessary to get the measure passed (which was how the 1832 Reform Act got passed). In the end the latter was not necessary, and the veto got removed.
    • John Loverseed-designed homes built on Pelham Crescent: [18].
  • 1912
    • Apr 11: Asquith introduces the Government of Ireland Bill into Parliament. To say that this was controversial is understating the matter. It took two years before the bill was passed.
    • St James Church (parish of The Park, see 1807) was united with that of St John the Baptist (parish of The Marshes, see 1843). This lasted until 1933.
  • 1913
  • 1914
    • July: George Ⅴ calls a meeting of all parties at Buckingham Palace to try to avoid civil war in Ireland due to Asquith having introduced Home Rule legislation into the House of Commons (but not yet signed into law). The meetings break up after 4 days without settlement, but that is immediately overtaken by international events.

    • Aug 4: Britain declared war on the Triple Alliance (soon to be the Central Powers) in what later became known as World War Ⅰ (or: WWⅠ), but which at the time was called the “Great War” & also the “War to end all Wars” (sic).
       
      This particular series of Diary Entries has listed significant dates affecting Nottingham, and has covered 2,000 years. Throughout that time Europe has squabbled & fought amongst itself in every single century. Those squabbles became more & more serious as the years passed & mankind honed it’s tools of war.
       
      At that time, Europe, Scandinavia & the Baltic nations were comprised of a collection of Monarchies, and the Kings/Queens of all those countries essentially were one extended family. In addition to the sympathies/antipathies of race & religion, Europe itself had become two competing blocks, with treaties & alliances to hold each block together:–

      1. The Triple Entente, comprising France, Russia, and Britain.
      2. The Triple Alliance, containing Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy.
         
    • This was the count-down to worldwide slaughter:–
      • 1914 June 28: The Austro-Hungarian heir is assassinated in Serbia by a Bosnian Serb (small spark ignites giant fire).
      • July 28: Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia; Russia comes to Serbia’s defence.
      • Aug 4: The Triple Entente faces off against the Triple Alliance (although Italy remains neutral).
      • Nov: The Ottoman Empire + Bulgaria (each are Muslim nations) join the Triple Alliance to become the “Central Powers”.
      • 1915 Apr 26: Italy (+ Serbia) join the Triple Entente to become the “Allies”.
      • 1915 - 1918: 1.5 million Armenians are estimated to have been murdered during the Ottoman Genocide.
      • 1915 - 1922: 1 million Assyrians and Greeks were murdered during what was possibly the same policy of Ottoman concurrent Genocide.
      • 1917: Up to 12 million civilians died during the Russian Civil War.
      • 1917 Apr 6: The USA entered the war on the side of the Allies. The British Fleet possessed a technological advantage against their German opposition, so the German Empire innovated with submarines. The methods deployed by those ‘Unterseeboot’ (U-Boats) meant predation upon non-combatants, and that brought the USA into the war.
    • Sep 18: The Government of Ireland Act is signed into law. On the same day a Suspensory Act is passed which puts this & the Welsh Churches Act into limbo, initially for 12 months, due to the outbreak of World War. The outbreak of Civil War in Ireland meant that the bill never got put into effect.
    • Goose Fair was cancelled after the outbreak of WW1 on July 28 and did not resume until after cessation on 1918 11 November.
  • 1915
  • 1916
    • Apr 24 (Easter Monday): Easter Rising launched in Dublin, Ireland by the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Internecine squabbles are the worst, and this one was about as bad as it gets. It was hundreds of years in the making, and affects everyone in the UK right up to the current day; here are the major hi- (or) lo-points:–
      • 664: The Synod of Whitby decides to adopt Rome rather than the Celtic churches as the national Faith.
      • 1169: Norman invasion of Ireland.
      • 1177: The Pope endorses the Norman Invasion by creating the Lordship of Ireland for Henry Ⅱ, destroying the ancient High Kingship of Ireland in the process.
      • 1297: First sitting of the Parliament of Ireland.
      • 1315: Invasion from Scotland by Edward Bruce. The year was also notable for an extensive famine that Europe did not fully recover from until 1322.
      • 1500: Oppressive measures deployed by the English government had caused “The Pale” (territory governed by The Crown) to shrink to a small area around Dublin.
      • 1542 June 18: Irish Parliament passes the Crown of Ireland Act, which adds “King of Ireland” to Henry Ⅷ’s titles.
      • 1798 May 24: Irish Rebellion, including a French expeditionary force which lands in County Mayo in August. The Rebellion continued until 12 October.
      • 1800 July 2: Twin Acts of Union create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (this was all of Ireland).
      • 1920 Dec 23: Government of Ireland Act gives rise to the Ulster counties of Northern Ireland parliament in June 1921.
      • 1921 Dec 6: Anglo-Irish Treaty signed. This creates the Irish Free State + Northern Ireland.
    • Nottingham Suburban Railway closed to passenger traffic (killed by trams & motorbuses).
  • 1917
    • Mar 15: Russian Tsar Nicholas Ⅱ abdicates. A Provisional Government is formed, dominated by the nobility. Grassroots community assemblies (called “Soviets”) are formed in reaction to that.
    • Apr 9: The Sealed Train: in the most astonishing act, Germany arranged to inject a virulent virus into Russia. This was Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik party, his wife & 30 other Russian citizens sent in a sealed train, with blackened windows, from Switzerland to Petrograd, Russia via Germany, Sweden & Finland. They boarded the train in Zürich on April 9 & arrived at Finland Station on April 16. Immediately the Bolsheviks and multiple other organisations competed for power.
       
      • An 8 min clip from a documentary by BBC-Russian is here (no subtitles).
      • Extract from the Michael Person book The Sealed Train:
        “Lenin was so crucial to German war policy that the German government would shortly invest more than 40,000,000 gold marks in him — by modern standards hundreds of millions of dollars.”
      • Lenin… The Train (Ben Kingsley as Lenin; Leslie Caron as Nadia), a film on YouTube: [Part 1] [Part 2]
      • The Berlin terminus from Geneva was Potsdam Station. However, Stettin Station (renamed North Station) was the terminal for the line north to Sassnitz, and then the boat to Sweden, so the train made a wide detour around Berlin between the two Terminii. Everyone remained on the train until the last station in Germany (but I’m not certain which of those three it was). The story is that one of the men left the train to obtain a newspaper and, that was the only town in Germany that became Communist.
    • July 17: At a time of heightened anti-German feelings, George Ⅴ changed the name of the British royal house from “House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha” to “House of Windsor”.
    • Nov 7: The Bolsheviks had gathered a “Red Army” which organised an armed insurrection in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg, and then the capital) which took power in Russia. Because Russia was still using the Julian Calendar, for them this was the October Revolution. The country now descended into a 6 year Civil War with Red Armies matched against White and all the worst excesses of internecine warfare, and quite a few new ones tossed in there as well. This was also Russia effectively backing out of the “Allies”. The German efforts in April were successful.
    • Nov 8: The Titles Deprivation Act was signed. George Ⅴ had many German relatives with British peerages who had fought on the German side. This law made it possible for those titles to be revoked (enacted 1919). In addition, any Garter Flags within St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle of the same relatives were removed.
  • 1918
    • March: Spanish Flu broke out in an Army camp in Kansas, USA, and it is estimated that one-third of the world’s population became infected. Only Spanish newspapers did not suppress these reports (Spain was neutral during WW1). At almost the same time a second pandemic (Sleeping Sickness) was reported worldwide; the numbers of infections were less, but were still in the millions worldwide.
      Personal report: my father was the youngest child in his family (7 brothers, 3 sisters). Uncle Bernard was the next-older brother, and he & my father were inseparable when young. Bernard caught Sleeping Sickness as a young lad. He recovered, but not really, and was unable to ever function normally again.
    • Jul 17: Tsar Nicholas Ⅱ & his wife, children & retainers are murdered at Yekaterinburg. The following year, George Ⅴ arranges for Nicholas’s mother, Marie Feodorovna, and other members of the extended Russian imperial family to be rescued from Crimea by a British warship (but George refused to save his cousin Nicholas).
    • Sep 29: Central Powers begin to collapse; Bulgaria signs an armistice.
    • Oct 31: Ottoman Empire signs an armistice.
    • Nov 3: Austria-Hungary signs an armistice.
    • Nov 9: Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany abdicates.
    • Nov 11: The new German Government signs an armistice, signalling the end of WW1.
       
      The monarchies of Austria, Germany, Greece, Russia and Spain had fallen to revolution and war, with their Kings & Queens murdered and/or abdicated. This is also far more countries & territory than you may at first think. “Austria-Hungary”, in particular, was the rump of the Holy Roman Empire, and it’s King was the ruler of 42 separate countries stretching from Austria to (what is now) the Ukraine. See March 1919 for more on that.
    • Inflation was considerable; see 1921 for specifics in the Weimar Republic.
    • Chalers Lane / Cowe Lane renamed to Clumber Street & widened by 16′ (4.88m) following a gift of land from Duke of Newcastle. This street is considered to have the highest shopper footfall in Britain.
  • 1919
  • 1920s
    • Old-town slums cleared. Housing stock in the area of The Marshes was reduced to less than two hundred.
    • A Parliament Bill granted powers for motorbus routes outside of the city.
  • 1920
    • Dec 23: Government of Ireland Act (aka Fourth Home Rule Bill — the first was 1886) was given Royal Assent. It was intended to partition Ireland into Northern Ireland (the 6 counties of Ulster, exactly as they currently exist in 2022; the parliament first sat on June 1921) and Southern Ireland (26 counties), each preserved as part of the UK. “Southern Ireland” never worked. Home Rule had been denied for so long that the country now insisted on independence.
  • 1921
    • Sept 8: Unveiling of statue of Captain Albert Ball VC (Grade Ⅰ listed). Captain Ball VC was 20 years old, a native of Nottingham and considered to be the foremost aviator & fighter of his age. He died in action on 7 May 1917. Per Ardua Ad Astra.
    • Dec 6: Anglo-Irish Treaty signed by Lloyd George (on behalf of Britain) & Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith (on behalf of the Irish Republic). This creates the Irish Free State (implemented 6 December 1922 as a dominion of the British Empire) + Northern Ireland.
    • Inflation that affected the entire world following WW1 became Hyperinflation within the Weimar Republic:–
      • 1914 Aug 4: Germany suspends gold standard, funds war by borrowing.
      • Exchange rate steadily devalues from 4.2 to 7.9 marks / dollar
      • 1919 June 29: Victors declare Germany will have to settle war reparations of (later revised to) 112 billion marks (US$26.3 billion).
      • 1919 late: Exchange rate slumps to 48 marks / dollar.
      • 1921 mid: Exchange rate is 90 marks / dollar.
      • 1921 June: 1ˢᵗ reparation payment made (in hard currency, not paper marks).
        Exchange rate is 330 marks / dollar.
      • 1921 Aug: Germany buys foreign currency at any price so that it can settle reparations.
      • 1922 June: An international conference in the US fails to produce a solution; inflation in Germany erupts into hyper-inflation.
      • 1922 Dec: Exchange rate is 7,400 marks / dollar
      • 1923 Oct 13: Monetary reform decrees are passed. These create a new bank (the ‘Rentenbank’) controlled by new German Finance Minister Hans Luther, which will issue a Rentenmark (“mortgage mark”). At the same time, a gold bond was issued indexed to the market value of gold. Rentenmarks were not redeemable in gold, but were indexed to the gold bonds.
      • 1923 Nov: Exchange rate is 4,210,500,000,000 marks / dollar. Germany’s central bank (the Reichsbank) is now printing 50 trillion (50×10¹²) mark paper banknotes.
      • 1923 Nov 12: The Reichsbank is prevented from issuing any more paper marks.
      • 1923 Nov 30: The Rentenmark is introduced to replace the worthless Reichsbank paper marks. Twelve zeros were cut from prices, and prices in Rentenmarks remain stable.
      • 1924 Aug 30: Legislation introduced to allow exchange of a 1-trillion paper mark note to a new Reichsmark (identical to a Rentenmark). The Exchange rate becomes 4.2 Rentenmarks / dollar.
      • Personal Comment: My mother was born in 1929 in Austria. Her earliest memory as a child was of playing on the living-room carpet with a king’s ransom in (worthless) paper money. The classic tale at the worst of the hyper-inflation was of folks using wheel-barrows to transport sufficient money into shops to buy food. A tale from a forum thread on this issue was a family tale of a father reaching pension age, collecting his pension payout from 30 years of saving, and immediately walking around the corner; he just had enough to buy two loaves of bread.
  • 1922
    • Dec 6: Partition implemented in Ireland (see Government of Ireland Act, 1920 for the creation of Northern Ireland, and Anglo-Irish Treaty, 1921 for the creation of the Irish Free State).
    • Severe competition from motorbuses caused Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Tramways Company to reduce fares.
    • The Royal Navy ship HMS Calypso is sent to Greece to rescue Prince and Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark. Andrew had a substantive (rather than honorary) role in the army & had narrowly avoided being shot after a military coup in Greece on 24 Sep (11 Sep in the Julian calendar then in use in Greece). Edward Ⅶ was his uncle-by-marriage, so he was related to the then-English-king George Ⅴ, but I cannot work out what that relationship was! The ship took the family to exile in France.
       
      This incident would be more-than-usually significant for the UK since Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark (later Philip Mountbatten) was their son, born 10 June 1921 in Greece. From France Philip was sent to school in Britain, where he was brought up by his mother’s British relatives. In 1934 he met Princess Elizabeth. In 1939 he was 18 & joined the Royal Navy, serving with distinction during WW2. In the same year he began a correspondence with Elizabeth, in 1947 he married her, and in 1952 she became Queen.
  • 1923
    • After a long period of churn, Nottingham & Beeston Canals were owned by GNR.
  • 1924
  • 1926
    • May 4: The TUC call a General Strike in the UK (lasts 9 days until 12 May).
  • 1927
  • 1928
  • 1931
  • 1932
  • 1933
    • City boundary extended by addition of Bilborough & Wollaton, parts of Bestwood Park & Colwick, and part of Beeston Urban District.
    • St James Church (parishes of The Park & The Marshes — see 1912) was united with St Peter’s Church, becoming St Peter and St James, St Peters Gate (Grade Ⅰ listed) when St James closed in 1935 (only the streetname remains).
  • 1936
    • Jan 20: George Ⅴ died in his bed at Sandringham House, Norfolk (see also 1952). He was 70 & had gone to his bed 5 days earlier with a cold. He kept drifting in & out of consciousness. Finally his doctor administered two fatal injections.
    • Jan 20: Edward Windsor became the second monarch of his House on the death of his father, and adopted the title Edward Ⅷ (“King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire and Emperor of India”). He was 42, unmarried & had become notorious for very public, sexual affairs with numerous married women.
    • Sept 6: The last tram service (to Arnold) is replaced with motorbuses; all remaining trams are sold off, most to Aberdeen.
    • Dec 10: Edward Ⅷ signed instruments of abdication at Fort Belvedere in the presence of his younger brothers: Prince Albert, Duke of York (next in line for the throne); Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester; and Prince George, Duke of Kent. He had wanted as king to marry the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson, but political resistance in the UK & Dominions plus opposition from the Church of England left no other choice than to abdicate. He was king for just 326 days.
    • Dec 11: Albert Windsor becomes “King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth & Emperor of India” following the abdication of his brother Edward. As king he adopts the name George Ⅵ.
  • 1937
    • GNR abandoned the section of the Nottingham Canal from Lenton to Langley Mill.
    • City of Nottingham replaced gas with electric lighting. The Park Estate chose to remain gaslit; that is still it’s state today (220 lamp posts), and may be unique in England.
  • 1938
    • The Park Estate was sold by the 8ᵗʰ Duke to Nuffield Trust, which in turn passed it on to Oxford University Chest. Most of the plots on The Park had been acquired on 99 year leases, and those leaseholds were now coming near their end, which meant falls in property values. For his part, the Duke had inherited a vast fortune via his wife (including The Hope Diamond), yet was a spendthrift with little income.
  • 1939
  • 1940
  • 1941
    • May 8 + 9: St John the Baptist church (see St James in 1933) destroyed during a German air raid. What remained of the building was subsequently demolished. 4,500 houses were destroyed in just one night, and hundreds of people killed & injured.
    • June 22: Axis Powers invade the Balkans & Russia without warning (Operation Barbarossa). This resulted in the slaughter of horrific numbers of Russian soldiers & people, yet the relentless Nazi war machine was unable to progress beyond the outer suburbs of Moscow. In the end, the icy scythes of a Russian Winter finished them off.
    • Dec 7 (USA time-zones): Without warning the Empire of Japan launches simultaneous attacks on Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, Malaya, Thailand and Hong Kong.
       
      The entire world (almost) now swings into one of two blocks, each in all-out war against the other. The USA & China (in concert with the Allies) declare war on Japan, whilst the Axis Powers declare war on the USA. Russia, however, maintains the neutrality agreement that it had previously signed with Japan.
  • 1943
    • July 9: Western Allied forces invade Sicily.
    • July 12: Russian armies begin to drive west through German lines.
    • September 3: Western Allies invade the Italian mainland.
  • 1944
    • June 6: D-Day invasion of Normandy by combined Allied forces is successful, and the drive towards Berlin begins.
  • 1945
    • USA forces in Pacific find themselves fighting island-by-island towards Japan.
    • Mar: Western Allies cross the Rhine north & south of the Ruhr.
    • Mar: Russian armies reach & capture Vienna, then immediately turn north towards Berlin.
    • Apr 25: American & Russian forces meet at the Elbe River.
    • Apr: Russian troops capture Berlin.
    • Apr 29: German forces surrender in Italy.
    • Apr 30: Reichstag captured (military defeat); Hitler commits suicide.
    • May 2: Berlin garrison surrenders.
    • May 7/8: Total, unconditional surrender signed by German authority, effective end 8 May.
    • June: USA forces reach Okinawa.
    • July 26: Allied leaders demand unconditional surrender of Japan — rejected.
    • Aug 6: An Atomic-Fission Bomb (“Little Boy”) was dropped on Hiroshima. The Japanese Prime Minister continued to reject surrender.
    • Aug 9: An Atomic-Fusion Bomb (“Fat Man”) was dropped on Nagasaki.
    • Aug 9: Russia declares war on Japan, invades Japanese-held Manchuria & quickly defeats the Japanese army.
    • August 15: Japan surrenders to the Allies.
    • Sept 2: The Japanese government signs an Instrument of Surrender, ending the war.
    • Bridge Estate (pdf) registered as Charity 220716.
  • 1947
    • July 18: Royal assent is given to the Indian Independence Act which partitions British India into the two new independent dominions of India and Pakistan. This came into being on 15 August and the religious division (India is majority Hindu and Sikh, whilst Pakistan is majority Muslim) caused terrible violence and vast transfers of people in both directions.
  • 1948
    • June: George Ⅵ relinguishes the titles Emperor of India + Dominions of the British Commonwealth and instead adopts the new title Head of the Commonwealth.
    • University College (see 1881) granted a royal charter & becomes the University of Nottingham.
    • British Transport Commission (later British Waterways) took over responsibility for the canal; commercial traffic was in terminal decline.
  • 1951 Further boundary extension as Clifton & Wilford added.
  • 1952
    • Feb 9: George Ⅵ died aged 56 from a coronary thrombosis. He had died in the night at Sandringham House, Norfolk, and was found dead in his bed the next morning.
    • Feb 9: Elizabeth Ⅱ became “Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms” on the death of her father George Ⅵ. Elizabeth Windsor & her husband (and 2ⁿᵈ cousin) Philip Mountbatten had set out only 6 days previously for a tour of Australia and New Zealand by way of the British colony of Kenya. It was at Sagana Lodge, Kenya that the news was broken to her.
    • Park Estate leaseholders became entitled to buy their freehold.
  • 1953
    • June 2: Coronation ceremony of Elizabeth Ⅱ at Westminster Abbey is televised for the 1ˢᵗ time ever. Her coronation gown is embroidered with floral emblems of each Commonwealth country.
  • 1954
  • 1955
    • The City Council bought the section of Nottingham Canal from Lenton to the city limits and began filling it in.
  • 1960
    • nottshistory.org (pdf) maintain a PDF of a c1960 Burrows Street-Map of Nottingham. That means that it predates the many changes made to the Nottingham street-plan across the next 10 years.
  • 1963
    • Start Date for Maid Marian Way. As in my home town of Hull, this was the local council conducting civic vandalism; they constructed a 2-lane motorway through the old Town, slicing across the middle of all the old streets and demolishing many ancient buildings in the process.
  • 1969
  • 1970
    • Worst of the 1845 Inclosure houses are demolished in slum-clearance. However, some of the best Nottingham houses are also demolished as part of those same clearances.
  • 1983
  • 1986
    • Oxford University surrenders it’s remaining rights in The Park to the newly formed Nottingham Park Estate Limited (the management company run by the residents).
  • 1990
  • 1996
  • 1997
  • 1998
  • 2020
    • Mar 11: The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, began infecting people throughout the UK early in the year. It was first detected in Wuhan, China in 2019. It was declared to be a pandemic by WHO on this date.
      • March 23: 1ˢᵗ confirmed deaths. A national lock-down was introduced (stay at home; wear masks outside the house).
      • December: Vaccination program begun, starting with the most vulnerable.
      • 2022 February: All UK restrictions lifted.
      • 2022 December 9: more than 648 million cases and 6.65 million confirmed deaths worldwide, making it one of the deadliest in history.
    • Goose Fair was cancelled in this year due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus Pandemic, and also in 2021.
    • June 3: Nottingham Council establishes the Old Meadows Conservation Area; this is 6 of 174 Conservation Areas in Nottingham. This particular protected area is centred on the Meadows suburb.
       
      From Nottingham Conservation Areas (map-pages), established under Section 69 of the Planning (Listed buildings and Conservation Areas) Act, 1990:
       
    • Conservation areas are parts of the city/county where special planning controls apply. Within conservation areas, there are tighter restrictions on the work that can be done without planning permission, and we must try to “preserve or enhance” the character of the area when we take decisions about whether or not to grant planning permission.
  • 2022:
    • Sep 8: Elizabeth Ⅱ died at Balmoral, Scotland from “Old Age” (she was 96). She ascended to the monarchy in 1952 & reigned for 70 years and 214 days; that was the longest verified reign of any female monarch in history. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during her lifetime (15 at the time of her death).
    • Sep 8: Charles Ⅲ ascended to the British monarchy on the death of his mother Elizabeth Ⅱ. Aged 73, Charles Windsor was the oldest person ever to accede to the British throne. He thus became the “head of state of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories”.
Location: Lace Market, St Ann's, Nottingham, England, NG1 1PR, United Kingdom

Mapping Changing Street-Names in Nottingham City :: 1800 to 1899

Posted by alexkemp on 2 November 2022 in English. Last updated on 4 December 2022.

26 November 2022
The last page in this sequence of diary entries used to be “1800 to current”. It became so large as to become unreasonable, so I have broken it up into two pages: the original first half is now “1800 to 1899” (this page), whilst the second is now 1900 to current.

Details:– 1800 to 1899

  • 1800 July 2: Twin Acts of Union are enacted by the Parliaments of Great Britain and of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (this was all of Ireland; previously the union was a Personal Union due to having the same monarch — see 1541). These Acts came into force on 1 January 1801, and the 1ˢᵗ joint Parliament was on 22 January 1801.
     
    This was the moment when the modern UK Flag came into being (used as a “Union Jack” on UK ships). It is the 1707 Great Britain flag united with the red saltire of Ireland. Interestingly, the GB flag is symmetrical, whilst the UK flag is not (meaning that it should NOT be hung upside-down nor reversed).
Flag of GB: GB Flag
Flag of Kingdom of Ireland: Irish Flag
Flag of UK: UK Flag
Location: Lace Market, St Ann's, Nottingham, England, NG1 1PR, United Kingdom

Mapping Changing Street-Names in Nottingham City :: 1600 to 1799

Posted by alexkemp on 2 November 2022 in English. Last updated on 22 December 2022.

Details:– 1600 to 1799

  • 1603 March 24: Queen Elizabeth Ⅰ died; King James Ⅰ (who was at that moment the protestant King James Ⅳ of Scotland) was offered the English Crown that same evening.
     
    All events surrounding this moment are a tangled web, having their roots far into the past and with effects centuries into the future, not least upon (what now became possible for the first time) Great Britain, though initially only through the person of James as both King of Scotland and, following his coronation on 25 July, also King of England & Ireland. James initially wanted to be known as “King of Great Britain”, but was informed that that was not legally possible. It was not until 1707 that an actual 2-way Act of Union became possible and occurred, and 1801 when the United Kingdom became a reality.
     
    James’s mother was Mary, Queen of Scots (Mary Stuart). Mary was:–
    • daughter of James Ⅴ, King of Scotland
    • granddaughter of James Ⅳ, King of Scotland
    • great granddaughter of Henry Ⅶ, King of England
      (James Ⅳ had married Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry Ⅶ of England)
       
      The above means both that catholic Mary Stuart had been a potential rival to protestant Elizabeth Tudor for the throne of England, and also that James was in line for the throne of England since Elizabeth was childless at death. However, it gets worse.
       
      Five-year-old Mary had a marriage agreement with the three-year-old French Dauphin (royal son) Francis. She travelled to France and 10 years later on 4 April 1558 was married to him, having first made a secret agreement to bequeath Scotland and her claim to England to the French crown if she died without issue. If we now add into this stew the facts that Mary was considered to be vivacious, beautiful, intelligent, tall and eloquent, we are looking at the most potent & dangerous weapon to protestant Britain that could be imagined.
       
      On 17 November 1558 Mary Tudor (Mary Ⅰ of England, eldest daughter of Henry Ⅷ, born to his first wife Catherine of Aragon) died. This Mary was also Catholic and was known as “Bloody Mary” due to the utter horrors that she inflicted upon the country during her 5-year efforts to reverse the English Reformation begun by her father. I think it fair to declare that her methods (such as burning hundreds of people alive at the stake) achieved the precise opposite to her desires.
       
      Elizabeth Tudor (daughter of Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry Ⅷ) was half-sister to Mary Tudor & only surviving sibling. She was also beautiful, intelligent and eloquent and, in spite of being protestant, had managed to come through the previous insanity with her life intact. Shortly before her death, Mary Tudor recognised Elizabeth as her heir, but many Catholics were desperate for Mary Stuart to succeed to the throne of England.
       
      Henry ⅡI of France declared that Francis & Mary were king and queen of England, and even issued a flag with the royal arms of England quartered with those of Francis and Mary. This was laying down a roadmap that would lead to Mary’s death.
       
      Francis died in 1560 with zero issue from the marriage. Mary returned to Scotland as Queen, but continued to dream of ascending to the throne of England. Elizabeth demonstrated considerable skill in finding & giving power to skilled councillors. Sir Francis Walsingham in particular became spymaster & head of the first Post Office. If I recall correctly, he broke a ROT13 code to discover Mary’s plans. Mary was first imprisoned, and finally in 1586 beheaded, in the castle Fotheringhay.
  • 1605 November 5: Guy Fawkes is found within the cellars of the parliament buildings that would house James’ second session of his first parliament the following day. Fawkes was surrounded by a large amount of wood & 36 barrels of gunpowder. Oops. Fawkes was a catholic & a member of a secret cabal of provincial Catholics. Every year since that day, young children in England have spent their time asking for “a penny for the guy” each November, letting off fireworks & burning potatoes in the embers of a dying bonfire. Joyful memories, but not for Mr Fawkes.
  • 1612 King Charles Ⅰ becomes heir apparent upon the death of his elder brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales.
  • 1616 King James Ⅰ visited Nottingham.
  • 1623 Castle + Park sold to the Earl of Rutland (both dilapidated — the buildings, not the Earl).
  • 1624 King James Ⅰ visited Nottingham.
  • 1634 King Charles Ⅰ & his queen spent 5 nights at Thurland Hall (the Hall was torn down in 1831, and is the source for the name of Thurland Street).
  • 1642 Aug: Civil War: Charles Ⅰ chose Nottingham as the rallying point for his armies (hence Standard Hill). Soon after he departed the Parliamentarians moved in & made the Castle Rock defensible again. There were a number of attempts by Royalists to re-take the Rock, but the Parliamentarians held it at the last.
  • 1600s mid: Start Date for Castle Gate: [53 (Grade Ⅱ listed) (every house in this block is HE-listed)].
  • 1605 Burgess Parts: Corporation leases two/three acre plots to 30 Burgesses (freemen) of the town (beginning of St. Ann’s Allotments).
  • 1646 Goose Fair cancelled for the first time due to an outbreak of the bubonic plague (see also 1348 for the first outbreak).
  • 1651 Nottingham Castle destroyed by Parliament.
  • 1658 Smith’s Bank established in Nottingham slab-square; self-declared as The Oldest Provincial Bank in England.
  • 1663 February 6: A Guinea coin is struck for the first time (this is during the reign of Charles Ⅱ). 44½ guineas contained one troy pound of 22 carat gold (about ¼ ounce of gold in each coin). A proclamation of 27 March in the same year made the coins legal currency.
     
    This was the first English machine-struck gold coin. There were other unique features to this coin:–
    • The mint did not name the coin
    • Most of the gold within early coins was sourced from off the Gulf of Guinea (West Africa) and imported via the Royal African Company
    • The coin got named from that gold’s origin
    • In 1703 gold within the Guinea was sourced from Spanish ships captured at the Battle of Vigo Bay, and the word ‘VIGO’ was added to that coin’s inscription to commemorate that fact
    • Some coins minted between 1729 and 1739 carry the mark ‘eic’ under the king’s head, to indicate that the gold was sourced via the East India Company
    • Some 1745 coins carry the mark ‘lima’ to indicate that the gold came from Admiral George Anson’s round-the-world voyage
    • The coin at introduction was supposed to be worth 20 shillings (£1)
    • Gold began to rise in value following introduction, and the coin traded at a premium
    • Pepys in 13 June 1667 gives the price per coin at 24/25 silver shillings
    • In 1717 a royal proclamation fixed the price at 21 shillings (£1 + 1 shilling)
      (this made the coin exceptionally popular amongst the Merchant & professional classes, as they could quote a job as (eg) “14 guineas”, meaning £14 as the cost of the merchandise & 14 shillings as their fee)
    • 1813 was the last year in which guinea coins were struck (80,000 to pay the Duke of Wellington’s army in the Pyrenees)
    • See 1816 for the Great Recoinage
  • 1666 William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle Upon Tyne, becomes 1ˢᵗ Duke of Newcastle.
  • 1667 Last outbreak of Plague.
  • 1674 Cavendish purchases Castle ruins, builds his new ducal palace in Italianate Classical style, and calls it ‘Nottingham Castle’ (completed by son William Cavendish in 1679).
  • 1675
  • 1683 Northern half of Hethbeth bridge washed away by a flood; repaired bridge was reduced to 15 arches; being washed away by floods happened a lot to this bridge.
  • 1600s late: Start Date for Castle Gate: [49 (Grade Ⅱ listed)], [51 (Grade Ⅱ listed)] [55 (Grade Ⅱ listed (every house in this block is HE-listed))].
  • 1700s early: Start Date for Clifton Dovecote, The Green (Grade Ⅱ listed). This is supposed to be the largest dovecote in the country, with 2,300 nesting places. That is a remarkably large amount of bird poop to be aimed at your car windows, although the roof actually looks clean.
  • 1707 Acts of Union finally happens, and Great Britain becomes a reality (see 1801 for birth of the UK).
     
    The Union of the Crowns was in 1603, and the moment when England & Scotland began to lay aside a millennia of antagonism. It was initially achieved through the person of James Ⅳ as King of Scotland and James Ⅰ as King of England & Ireland. It then took many false starts & 100 years before both countries agreed within both parliaments to pass Acts of Union. And now all is settled forever (:sad smile:).
     
    This was the moment when the 1707 Great Britain Flag came into being. It is the red cross of St. George united with the white cross (blue saltire) of St. Andrew. See also 1801 for the UK flag.
Flag of England: English Flag
Flag of Scotland: Scottish Flag
Flag of GB: GB Flag
Location: Lace Market, St Ann's, Nottingham, England, NG1 1PR, United Kingdom

Mapping Changing Street-Names in Nottingham City :: 1400 to 1599

Posted by alexkemp on 2 November 2022 in English. Last updated on 21 December 2022.

Details:– 1400 to 1599

  • 1403 The Castle is the main residence of Joan, Henry Ⅳ’s queen. After Joan’s departure in 1437 Castle maintenance is neglected.
  • 1412 Henry Ⅳ debased the English currency further (see 1351) from 18 grains of sterling silver within a penny to 15 grains, whilst the half-noble was reduced from 60 grains of fine gold to 54 grains. The driver for this was the Hundred Years’ War.
  • 1449 A Charter of Henry Ⅵ constitutes Nottingham as a distinct county, with the right to appoint its own sheriff for the first time (wiki) (before this year Nottingham would have been subject to the High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire), + Lord Lieutenant and it’s own Assizes.
  • 1450 Start Date for 31 Holly Cottage, Village Road, Clifton.
  • 1461: Edward Ⅳ proclaims himself King at Nottingham Castle during the Wars of the Roses. As Earl of March (and distant relative of Roger Mortimer - see 1330) Edward was on the York (White Rose) side of the opposing parties.
  • 1464 Edward Ⅳ debased the English currency yet further (see 1412) from 15 grains of sterling silver per penny to 12 grains. At the same time a new gold coin was introduced; this was a half-angel, and consisted of 40 grains of fine gold and was worth 40 pence. This was in the middle of a 50-year economic slump, but the immediate driver was a Europe-wide shortage of precious metals.
     
    The currency standard in England at this time was Sterling Silver, and is the oldest currency (see 800) still in continuous use since inception. The largest unit is a ‘Pound’ (symbol: ‘£’). That refers to a “Tower Pound” of Sterling Silver (weight), which was divided up into coins. By the ninth century that had become established as 240 sets of pence (symbol: ‘d’), with each shilling (symbol: ‘s’) worth 12 pence, although that was an accounting convenience only since no such coin existed until 1551.
     
    Continental Europe had both silver and gold coins. England had significant trade with both France & Flanders due to export of English wool, and that led to large imports of gold coins. That in turn led to Edward Ⅲ adding gold coins to the English currency (see 1351).
     
    English coins were far more stable than their continental cousins (less often devalued) and, after the initial disaster of the introduction of English gold coins (see 1351), English & continental governments strove in the 1400s to keep their coinage in step with each other. However, global patterns of trading now interfered with all European currencies.
     
    Europe was obtaining large quantities of spices, silks, rare dyestuff’s, pearls and precious gems from the East via markets in Egypt, Syria and Cyprus. Coinage was now commonplace & trusted as currency, and thus there was a continuous, and increasing, outflow of silver & gold from Europe to the Middle East. The influence of war & disease affected production of new bullion and, suddenly, in the 1400s European mints began to fall silent. The population had to resort to barter to be able to trade.
     
    This Bullion Famine was not fixed until the mid-1500s, as Portugal began to access African gold & silver flowed in from Mexico and Peru. It is generally considered that one of the main drivers of European exploration of the Americas was the need to fix this famine.
  • 1485: Richard Ⅲ, brother of Edward Ⅳ & the last of the Plantagenets, departs the Castle for Bosworth, where he lost his life in battle against Henry Ⅶ. Henry was the first of the Tudors, and on the Lancastrian (Red Rose) side of the opposing parties within the Wars of the Roses.
  • 1500s: Start Date for 29 Hardy’s Cottage, Village Road, Clifton (Grade Ⅱ listed); this was originally two cottages: 27 Clematis Cottage + 29 Fern Cottage.
  • 1513 1ˢᵗ Nottingham Grammar School founded in Stoney Street.
  • 1518 Treaty of London organised by Cardinal Wolsey to attempt to stop European nations fighting each other. It was signed in London as a peace treaty by the ambassadors for Burgundy, France, England, the Holy Roman Empire (a federation stretching from Austria to Ukraine), the Netherlands, Spain and the Vatican.
     
    This was initiated in the first place by Pope Leo Ⅹ, who wanted Europe to stop squabbling for 5 years & concentrate on stopping the Ottoman Empire from expanding into the Balkans.
     
    Wolsey was Lord Chancellor, chief adviser to Henry Ⅷ, primate of England & archbishop of York, and in the end suffered the fate of being too tall a poppy to continue standing.
     
    The peace the Treaty brought was broken within a couple of years.
  • 1551
    • Feb 21: Royal Charter establishes Bridge Estate (pdf) with Nottingham Corporation as trustee.
    • A significant depreciation of English currency became a policy of Henry Ⅷ and continued into the reign of Edward Ⅶ, plus new coins (all common currency in my childhood) were introduced to replace existing ones with a 1½ difference in value:–
      • A ⅓ʳᵈ reduction in the bullion content of each pound sterling
      • Each penny reduced (see 1464) from 12 grains of sterling silver per penny to 8 grains.
      • The 40 grain gold Half-Angel (introduced in 1464) was raised in price from 40 to 60 pence, and was from this date called a ‘Crown’.
      • A silver Threepence (3d) (pronounced ‘thruppance’) to replace the silver Half-Groat (2d).
      • A silver Sixpence (6d) (commonly called a ‘tanner’) to replace the silver Groat (4d).
      • A silver Shilling (12d) (commonly called a ‘bob’) introduced for the first time.
      • A silver Half-Crown (30d) to replace the gold Quarter-Angel (20d).
      • A gold Half-Sovereign (120d) introduced for the first time.
      • A gold Sovereign (£1) introduced for the first time.

      The previous coinage depreciation was in 1464, and the Bullion Famine which largely caused that debasement took yet another 40 years to fix following Henry Ⅷ becoming king in 1509.
       
      Henry’s father was frugal & had established a good number of income streams; in consequence, Henry inherited a prosperous economy plus a large fortune. He managed to squander it all in just 10 years. In his day the monarchy had to pay all government expenses. Henry’s ambition was great in multiple directions, including wars at home & on the continent. He was also profligate & greedy.
       
      Henry Ⅷ caused the Dissolution of the Monastries & converted their wealth, treasure & income into royal revenue. Similar actions with Wales & Ireland were unable to match his ability to spend money. He had some very able ministers in Wolsey & Cromwell yet polled them when they became too tall. Henry was achieving many great things (eg establishment of an effective Navy) but was mismanaging the country’s finances.
       
      The financial mismanagement reached a true nadir with The Great Debasement which began in 1544. The bullion content of gold & silver coins was reduced. In particular, silver in some coins was almost completely replaced with copper. Merchants on the continent discovered this & reduced the value of their offers for the coins. The debasement policy was officially revoked in October 1551, and silver was returned to the pre-debasement standard.

  • 1580 Start Date for Wollaton Hall (Grade Ⅰ listed), completed 1588.
  • 1598 The first-known use of Zero (nought, oh, nothing) as a number in English.
     
    If this seems strange to you, then realise that at this time very few people were either numerate or literate. The simple fact is that, world-wide, few could add-up, multiply, divide or name a number of items greater than three. Getting close to the concept of ‘Zero’ in human history seems to have made most folks reach for amulets designed to ward off evil. And yet, many mathematical functions are impossible to derive or use without zero (eg calculus). Finally, because zero was missing from the Gregorian & Julian Calendars, this century is the 21ˢᵗ (not the 20ᵗʰ), the latest millennium is the 3ʳᵈ (not the 2ⁿᵈ), and it actually began on Jan 1, 2001.

  • 1500s late: Start Date for Clifton Hall, Holgate, Clifton (Grade Ⅰ listed) + Coade Stone Lions near the garden (Grade Ⅱ listed) + a residential home for ghosts.

  • Details:– 1600 to 1799
  • Details:– 1800 to 1899
  • Details:– 1900 to current
Location: Lace Market, St Ann's, Nottingham, England, NG1 1PR, United Kingdom

Mapping Changing Street-Names in Nottingham City :: 1200 to 1399

Posted by alexkemp on 2 November 2022 in English. Last updated on 21 December 2022.

Details:– 1200 to 1399

  • 1244 Rabbits brought into England from France, which then bred like humans; The Park was stocked with them.
  • 1279
    • May: Edward Ⅰ devalues the English currency by dividing the Tower Pound (5,400 grains of sterling silver) into 243 pence rather than the old standard of 240 pence. Between 1280 & 1281 this degrading was temporarily increased to 245 pence. And so it begins.
       
      A groat was struck for the first time in England. It was composed of 89 grains of sterling silver, and was worth four pennies (symbol: ‘4d’, and hence ⅓ of a shilling, which itself is 12 pennies or ‘1s’ or ‘1/–’). A farthing (quarter-penny) and a halfpenny (the latter in 1280) were also struck (pdf) for the first time. Before now (since Saxon times) only pennies were issued (in the language of the time these were ‘esterlings’ (‘sterlings’)), with occasional coins being cut in half to represent a half-penny, or in half yet again for a farthing.
       
      The groat was not accepted by the people as coinage, although some were made into jewellery. It seems likely that the new coins were suspended between 1281 and 1285, whilst the groat was abandoned (reintroduced in 1351). For this reason early Edwardian groats are extremely rare.
       
      A Farthing was first introduced into the 1222 Patent Roll (during Henry Ⅲ’s reign), but until very recently no such coins had ever been found. Just 5 examples now exist, but in the absence of any concurrent documentation the jury is still out on whether any such coins were actually minted before this date.
       
      Over 4 million silver farthings were produced during the whole of Edward Ⅰ’s reign. Most were minted in London, but some were also produced at the Berwick, Bristol, Lincoln, Newcastle & York mints. Very few from any mint have survived to the current day (they were tiny, not considered worthy to hoard and difficult for metal detectors to find).
  • 1284 February 12: Edward Ⅰ grants a Charter to Nottingham:
    • “St Mathew’s Fair”: the right to hold a fair on St Matthew’s Day, which leads to Goose Fair.
    • Post of Mayor created (wiki); 1ˢᵗ Mayor is Roger de Crophill.
  • 1200s (late): Gervase de Clifton buys the Manor of Clifton & styles himself after the seat. This is the likely start_date for the first Clifton Hall, although the current building is reputed to have been constructed in the 1500s.
  • 1252: Start Date for the Castle Gatehouse, Castle Road (Grade Ⅰ listed) (completed 1255). Built for Henry Ⅲ. Only 3 of these medieval gatehouses survive in the country.
  • 1290 July 12: Jews in Nottingham were forced by King Edward Ⅰ to leave the town & country, despite having lived in Nottingham for at least 2 centuries.
  • 1301 First Record of the Brodewell (St. Ann’s Well) (elsewhere called “Oswell” & “Robin Hood’s Well”); location of the natural spring that became a stream flowing through the valley towards the River Leen & was originally known as the ‘Bek’ & later the ‘Beck’.
  • 1302 Earliest mention of the Bridge Estate (pdf).
  • 1315: Start Date for St. James’s Street. It’s original name was Jam Gate, then St James Lane, and in the 1800s it became the modern St James’ Street.
  • 1319: Start Date for 56 Village Road, Clifton (Grade Ⅱ* listed)
  • 1330
    • A Parliament is held in the town.
    • Oct 19: The Castle is the scene for a coup d’état by King Edward Ⅲ against his mother, Isabella of France & her lover Roger Mortimer. The adulterous couple were rumoured to have murdered her husband (this includes the infamous rumour of use of a red-hot poker) & were now Regents for her under-age son. Shortly before his 18ᵗʰ birthday, Edward gained ingress to the castle via a secret tunnel (today known as “Mortimer’s Hole”, there is no wiki for this, but there is a short YT video utilising 3D scans to show it) + a door at the top unlocked from within. His mother was forced into retirement & Mortimer was sent to the Tower of London, then on 29 November 1330 hanged at Tyburn.
  • 1335: Start Date for Castle Gate: [The Severn’s Building (Grade Ⅱ listed (every house in this block is HE-listed))]; this was originally built in Middle Pavement & was removed lock, stock & barrel to Castle Gate in 1970.
  • 1346 King David Ⅱ of Scotland was held prisoner within the Castle. There is a subterranean structure beneath the Castle named after him (see a YouTube 3D-fly-though).
  • 1348 June: A seaman departs Gascony, France & arrives at Weymouth, Dorset. The seaman is infected with Yersinia pestis. The Black Death (bubonic plague) has arrived in England for the first time. In the next 2 years half the population of the island will rapidly die with horrific, painful symptoms (it is up to 95% loss with the pneumonic version) & the nation will be transformed.
     
    It got called the Black Death in the 17ᵗʰ Century because one side-effect can be loss of blood supply to the flesh, most commonly in toes or fingers, which then turn black. The societal side-effect was a destruction of the slave-trade (otherwise known as Serfdom), and the rise of the Day Labourer, otherwise known as the middle-class.
     
    An Acre was defined at this time as “The area of land that a man and his team of oxen can plough in a day”. Suddenly, skilled ploughmen were difficult to find, and could name their price.
  • 1351: Gold coins, received (for example) from Flanders as payment for English wool, caused changes in the English currency, which previously was entirely based on silver (also highly respected in Europe for the — almost — lack of debasement of the coin).
     
    Up to this point, and from Saxon times, coinage in England consisted almost entirely of a single coin — the penny, symbol: ‘1d’ — made of sterling silver. Edward Ⅰ had experimented with the groat (‘4d’, abandoned), the halfpenny & farthing (quarter-penny - see 1279). The money of account (notional, no coins) was the Pound (symbol: ‘£’, 240d) and the mark (160d).
     
    At first, in 1344 King Edward Ⅲ introduced a gold double-florin equivalent to 6 shillings. Unfortunately the ratios of gold-to-silver caused Europe to drain England of it’s silver.
     
    Edward got it right at the 2ⁿᵈ attempt in 1351 with a gold noble worth 80 pence (⅓ pound, ½ mark). Later, gold half-nobles & quarter-nobles were also produced in quantity, and the groat was re-introduced. In this way, England moved from a silver currency to a binary gold+silver currency:–
    • Noble : gold : 80d
    • Half Noble : gold : 40d
    • Quarter Noble : gold : 20d
    • Groat : silver : 4d
    • Half Groat : silver : 2d
    • Penny : silver : 1d
  • 1361: 2ⁿᵈ outbreak of Yersinia pestis; this is NOT as deadly as the first in 1348 (a greater proportion of the population survive, with only 20% loss), and that pattern is repeated in the following centuries as more waves of plague repeat throughout the medieval and early modern periods.
  • 1377: Start Date for St Mary’s Church, High Pavement (Grade Ⅰ listed)

  • 1392: Start Date for Plumptre Hospital, Poplar Street (Grade Ⅱ listed). The HE entry locates this building on Plumptre Square; the Highways Register places this square at both ends of Pemberton Street and many places in between & around.

  • Details:– 1400 to 1599
  • Details:– 1600 to 1799
  • Details:– 1800 to 1899
  • Details:– 1900 to current
Location: Lace Market, St Ann's, Nottingham, England, NG1 1PR, United Kingdom

Mapping Changing Street-Names in Nottingham City :: Early to 1199

Posted by alexkemp on 2 November 2022 in English. Last updated on 12 December 2022.
  • Foreword + Summary
     
    (What followed the original Foreword + Summary was a single, complete list of dates & significant events on those dates. I should have realised — but did not — how easily that would become long & unwieldy for a single post. So, whilst it is simpler for searching to keep everything on one page, for ease of loading I’ve split everything into 5 x 200-year chunks.)

Details:– Early to 1199

This first post covers way more than 200 years, and Nottingham barely features at all (the first direct mention is at 800). However, each army that travelled in the East of England from south to north (or the reverse) would have had to travel by either Nottingham or Derby due to the barrier posed by the Trent + Humber (these rivers cannot be forded below West Bridgford).

[There is one caveat to offer to the last sentence above: the roman road Ermine Street travelled from London to Lincoln to York, and the Humber Bridge did not exist at that time. That suggests that the Roman Army waded across the Humber. Graham Boanas also did that on August 21, 2005, but as someone born in Hull I would not advise it to anyone else.]

  • BCE 113: Beginning of Germanic Wars due to the Roman Republic expansion up to the German border.
  • BCE 55: August 23: Julius Caesar conducts the 1ˢᵗ Roman invasion of Britain. Eighty transport ships carried two Legions, leaving probably from Portus Itius (Boulogne), and planned to land in Kent, but eventually landed at Pegwell Bay. In his written account, Caesar claimed to have won every skirmish, yet after a few days returned to Gaul. The following year he came again to the same shore with 5 legions, 800 transport ships and (this time) 2,000 cavalry. He penetrated inland, won more battles, obtained hostages and, once again, after a few weeks went back to Gaul & never returned to Britain again.
  • BCE 27 January 16: Roman Senate rename Octavian as Augustus (“Emperor”, and the first emperor of what before was the Roman Republic, but is now the Roman Empire).
  • CE 43: Invasion & conquest of England by the Roman Empire under Emperor Claudius.
  • 64: The 1ˢᵗ Roman Pope St. Linus (#2) is elevated to the Orthodox Roman Papacy.
  • 117: The greatest reach of the Roman Empire, achieved during the reign of the Emperor Trajan.
  • 286: Emperor Diocletian splits the Roman Empire into West & East, with separate Emperors in each. The split occurs upon the historic Silver Line which runs from the Dead Sea up and through the Balkans and includes the Field of Blackbirds (Pristina). This is the moment when the double-headed Eagle — one head facing West & the other facing East — starts to become a thing. Notice also how, once the Empire forces it’s dirty fingers into Christian affairs (see 313), that the Orthodox Roman Church also splits along the same line into Western Catholic & Eastern Catholic.
  • 303: The beginning of the Diocletianic Persecution of Christians across the whole of the Roman Empire (but particularly in the East). It lasted for 10 years.
  • 312: Constantine won the battle fought against Maxentius at the Milvian bridge, even though Maxentius’ army was four times as large as his (Maxentius was found dead in the Tiber the next morning). The following year the Edict of Milan was issued, rescinding the former persecuting Diocletian edicts against Christians and granting them full & unlimited toleration. Christianity soon became the official religion of the Roman Empire (see 380).
     
    Constantine was the son of Constantius & Helena (Constantius was the Western Emperor — see 286). His father named him as successor, but when his father died in York, England in 303, even though his army saluted him as Augustus (see BCE 27), Constantine became just one of six pretenders to the sovereignty of the empire. The scenes of contention that followed are likely to be unrivalled in the history of the world.
     
    In the days before the battle in 312 at the Milvian bridge, Constantine and his army knew that Maxentius, as a dutiful heathen, was devoting himself to pagan ceremonies & invoking supernatural powers ready for the battle. Constantine had been trying to decide what gods he should devote himself to, and had recalled that his father had prayed to the Christian god for help & been successful. Constantine now declared that, shortly after midday, he & some of his army had a waking vision in the skies above of a glittering cross & inscription.
     
    The following morning Constantine declared that Christ had appeared to him during sleep, had told him the meaning of the previous day’s vision, and given instructions to create a banner based on the vision to become a Standard for the army. This was created in gold, precious stones and purple cloth, called the Labarum, and carried at the head of his army. And lo! they won the battle, with the Chi-Ro at the forefront.
  • 313 March: Emperor Constantine & Emperor Licinius jointly issued the Edict of Milan, which granted to all Christians the “right of open and free observance of their worship”. It was from now that the term “Catholic” began to appear within official Roman documents, and that the Roman state began to settle religious questions.
  • 324: Emperor Constantine founds the city of Constantinople upon the existing city of Byzantium in an effort to “represent the integration of the East into the Roman Empire as a whole”.
  • 325: Emperor Constantine calls the Council at Nicaea, which defined & endorsed the Nicene View (the Father and the Son are of one substance) over the Arian view (the Father and the Son are similar, but the Father is greater than the Son).
  • 380 February 21: The Edict of Thessalonica was issued by Emperor Theodosius. It established one specific branch of Christianity as the ‘official’ religion of the Roman Empire. This branch was Nicene Christians. It thus outlawed pagan beliefs from the Empire, but it also endorsed punishment & exclusion of other christian creeds. It is from now that the Roman Catholic religion as an official function of the Roman state is a thing. This event is considered by historians to mark the end of classical antiquity (see also 476).
  • 381: Emperor Theodosius calls the Council of Constantinople, which reasserted the Nicene view and rejected the Arian view.
  • 390: The Gauls sack Rome.
  • 407: The end of the Roman Empire in Britain: Constantine Ⅲ leads the whole of the army in Britain across the channel into Gaul to attempt to set himself up as Western Roman Emperor. The Empire was suffering major problems from all sides, and was unable to sustain it’s presence in Britain.
  • 410: The Visigoths sack Rome.
  • 432: Arrival of St. Patrick in Ireland from Scotland (just about every solid fact concerning St. Patrick is challenged, and that includes the precise date of this ecclesiastical arrival in Ireland).
  • 449: Saxon ships carrying Angles, Saxons & Jutes plus their leaders Hengist and Horsa landed at Ebbsfleet on the Isle of Thanet in Kent (see also BCE 55). Bede & others record that this was at the invitation of Vortigern, King of the Britons, asking them to act as mercenaries to assist in fighting off Picts & Scots who had begun to predate the Britons following the departure of the Romans in 407. Bede also records that this was as successful as asking foxes to guard the chicken coop.
     
    Modern historians regard the above as mostly mythical. It starts like that because ‘Hengist’ is Old English for ‘stallion’, whilst ‘Horsa’ is Old English for ‘horse’, and both men are said to be descended from ‘Woden’ (the god that gave his name to ‘Wednesday’).
  • 455: The Vandals sack Rome.
  • 476: The Roman Senate sends the Imperial insignia to Constantinople following the capture of Ravenna by Germanic barbarians (see also BCE 113). This event marks the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, and is also considered by historians to mark the beginning of the Middle Ages.
     
    The Empire had been split into West & East in 286, but the nominal capital was still considered to be Rome (until this event). The actual western capital at this time was Ravenna.
  • 483 March 13: The first imperial Roman Pope (#48) St. Felix Ⅲ is elevated to the Orthodox Roman Papacy.
  • 525: Anno Domini / AD (“in the year of our Lord”, or currently: “common era / CE”) introduced by Scythian monk Dionysius Exiguus (c. 470 – c. 544), who used it to identify the years on his Easter table, so that he did not need to use the roman-numbering system of counting from the ascension of an emperor.
  • 565: The Irish abbott Columba & 12 monks made pilgrimage from Stroove, Ireland to Iona in the Western Isles of Scotland, where they founded a monastery.
  • 590
    • The Irish missionary Columbán travelled to Saint-Malo, Brittany from Leinster, Ireland with twelve other monks. They established a school at Annegray, teaching Celtic christian traditions.
    • The last imperial Roman Pope (#64) Gregory Ⅰ begins his pontificate.
       
      Gregory was an Orthodox Roman monk before his elevation to the Papacy. On one of those days he was in the marketplace and spotted some beautiful fair-haired boys for sale (they were slaves — slavery was ubiquitous throughout the world for centuries until Britain forcibly ended it in the 19ᵗʰ Century). The boys had been captured by slave-ships in their home town in Northumberland, England. Gregory resolved to become the first missionary to that far-off land. He arranged his affairs, and was 3 weeks into the journey when his permission was revoked & he was forced to return.
  • 596: Pope Gregory organised a mission of 40 monks to Britain under the leadership of Augustine. They landed on the Isle of Thanet. Ethelbert, King of Kent, whose his wife was a christian, had his court at Canterbury and invited the mission to preach & live there.
  • 604 September 13: Sabinian (#65) becomes the first Pope of the Orthodox Roman Church to be controlled by the Eastern Roman Empire (continues for two centuries).
  • 612: Columbán travels to Italy, but St. Gall, one of the 12 companions, is ill & has to be left behind in Switzerland (or, as Miller calls it, “Helvetia”). Gall becomes a venerated hermit in the forests near Lake Constance.
  • 622 July 16: Muhammad makes Hijrah (migration) to Medina from Mecca (this date is according to the Julian calendar). By 630 his strength had increased to the point that he was able to return to Mecca, cleanse the Kaaba of it’s 360 idols & devote it to the worship of Islam. Muhammad died in 632. The Caliphs of Islam went on after his death to spread Islam throughout the world at the point of a sword.
     
    Islam split almost immediately after Muhammad’s death into 2 strands:–
    1. Sunni
      (“The tradition of Muhammad”) (largest group, ~85% of all Islam)
    2. Shia
      (Ali Abi Talib is Muhammad’s successor) (largely Iran, Iraq & Azerbaijan)
  • 635: The newly-crowned King Oswald of Northumbria invites the monks of Iona (see 565) to make mission to his lands. He allots Lindisfarne as a place for their monastery, and is assigned Aiden as the bishop. He & his fellow monks spread the Gospel into the northern, eastern & midland provinces of England. Augustine (see 596) was doing the same in the south & south-west of England.
  • 637 Jerusalem is surrendered to Caliph Omar by Patriarch Sophronius. This was a significant part of the battles of the Rashidun Caliphate against the Byzantine Empire.
  • 664: King Oswiu of Northumbria convened the Synod of Whitby to decide whether the Celtic practices that had been inherited from the monks of Iona (see 635), or the Roman practices (see 596) would be accepted within his kingdom. In both these matters, the Iona practices were identical to the Eastern Orthodox churches. Ultimately, this was going to decide whether religion in England was going to be Celtic Orthodox or Roman Orthodox. There were two main bones of contention:–
    1. Tonsure
    2. Easter
       
      Tonsure
      The Celtic monks shaved all hair from their skull from a line forward of each ear. The Roman monks shaved a circle of hair from the crown of their head.
      Easter
      The great difficulty here was that the Jews (just like the Arabs) had a calendar based on the Moon (strictly, it is Lunisolar, which means that extra months get added every couple of years to keep the months more-or-less in sync with the solar year) whereas the Western calendar was based only on the Sun. However, Easter is based on the culminating point of the ascending node of the solar ecliptic (which is the equinox — equal day & night), which timing comes solely from the Sun. That means that Passover (which is the Jewish origin for Easter) is the same date every year in the Jewish calendar & a different date each year in the Western calendar. Deciding which precise date involves complicated calculations, and the Western & Eastern churches differed in their application. Also, the Eastern Orthodox date slips more every year away from the equinox, since it does NOT take account of the Precession of the Equinox.
       
      The Synod chose Rome. In fact, large parts of the Celtic church in Ireland had also chosen the Roman method for Easter, but Iona had stuck with the original Eastern Orthodox method (which the Eastern church still uses today).
       
      In response to the decision, the Lindisfarne monks returned to Iona, and Roman Orthodoxy became triumphant throughout England.
  • 711: Islamic forces of the Umayyad caliphate invade the Iberian peninsula (Portugal & Spain).
  • 732 October 10: The Battle of Tours in which forces of the Umayyad caliphate are defeated in battle by Charles Martel, Duke of the Franks, and return to the Iberian peninsula. This was a crucial turning point in the struggle between Europe & Arabic forces; all historians are agreed that if the battle had gone the other way, then the pattern of European development would have been radically different.
  • 793 June 8: In the 1ˢᵗ recorded Viking raids on England (in this case by Norsemen), Vikings landed on Lindisfarne, slaughtered monks & plundered their treasures.
  • 794: In what turns out to be their last attack on the English mainland, a small Viking raiding party gets completely routed at Jarrow, with all leaders & crews killed. The Vikings now transfer most of their attention to raiding Scotland & Ireland.
  • 800s:
    • Nottingham is one of the “‘Five Boroughs’ of the Danes” (Danelaw).
    • Pound Sterling currency is introduced during the reign of King Offa of Mercia. This is silver-based currency, and is based on 240 pennies to the Tower Pound (5,400 grains, 349.9 grams of silver). This is 12 pence makes a shilling, and 20 shillings makes a Pound (called £ s d); half-pennies & farthings also existed. This is the currency that was normal for me until my 20s & decimalisation, and a pint of the best bitter cost less than a silver shilling in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in 1968. Naturally, the actual amount of silver in a shilling got reduced as each century passed.
  • 868: King Ethelred Ⅰ and his younger brother Alfred the Great force the Danes to make peace & retreat to York.
  • 875: After 8 decades of repeated raids + decision at the Synod of Whitby (see 664) the monks abandon Lindisfarne.
  • 911: King Charles the Simple of France cedes Normandy to Rollo, one of the Viking raiders that have used the Seine as passage for their ships to attack France. Rollo is great-great-great-grandfather of William the Bastard.
  • 924: First Hethbeth bridge constructed (original Trent Bridge) by King Edward the Elder, who also fortified the town with a wall.
  • 1066
    • January 5: Death of the Anglo-Saxon king, and last of the House of Wessex, Edward the Confessor. Aged 60, his death was probably from a stroke.
    • January 6: The Witan select Harold Godwinson to be crowned & that occurs immediately; he is the last Anglo-Saxon king of England.
    • January: William the Bastard, who is descended from the Viking invaders of France (see 911), desires the English throne and begins to build 700 warships and transports at Dives-sur-Mer on the Normandy coast. King Harold assembles an army on the Isle of Wight to wait for them.
    • September 8: The Norwegian (Viking) King Harald Sigurdsson, who claims the English throne, lands with his army at the mouth of the Tyne. They defeat local forces & march south.
    • September 12: William sets sail for England, but storms sink many ships & force him to seek shelter.
    • September 25: After a 4-day forced-march north with his army, King Harold surprises the Norwegian King at Stamford Bridge, engages them immediately, and defeats and kills most of the invaders.
    • September 27: William sets sail from Saint-Valery-sur-Somme and arrives at Pevensey the following day.
    • October 14: Harold & William battle at Senlac Hill; after 9 hours of continuous fighting the Anglo-Saxon forces are defeated and Harold and his brothers Gyrth & Leofwine are killed. After this point William the Bastard begins to style himself as William the Conqueror.
  • 1068
    • William the Conqueror orders building of a Royal Castle (wiki); this would have been full motte & bailey with all the trimmings, though in wood, built on the then-barren Castle Rock which overlooks The Meadows & The Park; council Conservation areas are in place for all 3. The Castle’s wooden structure was replaced with a stone structure during the reign of King Henry Ⅱ.
       
      Main items within the Castle timeline:–
      • 1068: Start Date
      • 1194: Battle: King Richard Ⅰ (‘Lionheart’) & Prince John
      • 1252: Start Date for Castle Gatehouse
      • 1330: Mortimer’s Hole
      • 1346: King David Ⅱ of Scotland held prisoner
      • 1403 — 1437: Queen Joan in residence
      • 1461: Edward Ⅳ proclaims himself King
      • 1485: Richard Ⅲ departs towards a car-park in Leicester
      • 1623: Sold to Earl of Rutland
      • 1642: Civil War: Charles Ⅰ plants his standard
      • 1651: Destroyed by Parliament
      • 1674: Cavendish buys ruins, builds new Castle
      • 1768: Holles dies, Castle is abandoned
      • 1831: Reform Riots: trashed & burned by mob
      • 1832: Duke takes the money & runs
      • 1876: Burnt-out shell rebuilt
      • 1969: Castle Conservation Area declared
  • 1086
    • Domesday Book records Nottingham as ‘Snotingeham’ and ‘Snotingham’ with 165 households. I certainly agree with this — Nottingham folks can be extremely snotty in my experience. I came here in the 1980s & my nose runs most every day since arriving.
    • Domesday Book records the Manor of Clifton:– “one priest, one church, a population of 33”. A council Conservation area was put in place for this in 1969 & extended in 1997; there is a pdf available.
    • Sneinton is recorded in the Domesday Book as 11 households.
  • 1000s late (date uncertain): The Park created as a deer park; stocked by deer from Sherwood Forest (which, at that time, came right up to Nottingham border within Clay Field); for four centuries the Castle was the Kings’ principal residence in the Midlands; there was a substantial fishpond in The Park (only the street-name survives).
  • 1100: Start Date for St Peter’s Church, St Peters Gate (Grade Ⅰ listed).
  • 1140: The town is almost destroyed by fire.
  • 1153: A second attempt to destroy the town with fire.
  • 1155: Henry Ⅱ granted Nottingham a Royal Charter.
  • 1156: Second Hethbeth (Heath-beth, or Heck-beck) bridge started; >20 stone arches.
  • 1158 Henry Ⅱ switched the currency from the 99.9% fine silver that had previously been used since the 800s to 92.5% sterling silver. Sterling Silver was much harder-wearing, and therefore the new coins lasted for much longer.
  • 1169: Norman invasion of Ireland.
  • 1177: Pope Adrian Ⅳ (#169) endorses the Norman Invasion of Ireland by creating the Lordship of Ireland for Henry Ⅱ, destroying the ancient High Kingship of Ireland in the process.
     
    Adrian Ⅳ is the only English Pope, and is notorious for having given Ireland to Henry Ⅱ. In addition, even the Papal Bull (‘Laudabiliter’) involved is notorious, since no copy of it is extant. There are lots of early references to it, but the document itself is gone.
  • 1180: St Peter’s Church, St Peters Gate (Grade Ⅰ listed) rebuilt following a fire, plus continuous rebuilds ever since.
  • 1189: Start Date for Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, Brewhouse Yard (Grade Ⅱ listed). A splendid pub with many rock-cut nooks & rooms at the rear. Good food & beer, too!
  • 1190: Start Date for St Mary the Virgin Church, Holgate, Clifton (Grade Ⅰ listed) + Churchyard Walls & Gateway (Grade Ⅱ listed)

  • 1194: Battle at the Castle between King Richard Ⅰ (‘Lionheart’) & supporters of Prince John, including the Sheriff of Nottingham. Yup, those guys. This is indeed supposed to be history, and the battle lasted just a few days with victory for Richard (it was the “Sheriff of Nottinghamshire”, since Nottingham did not have a sheriff at that time).

  • Details:– 1200 to 1399
  • Details:– 1400 to 1599
  • Details:– 1600 to 1799
  • Details:– 1800 to 1899
  • Details:– 1900 to current
Location: Lace Market, St Ann's, Nottingham, England, NG1 1PR, United Kingdom

Forgotten Heroes

Posted by alexkemp on 23 September 2022 in English. Last updated on 14 October 2022.

Arthur Brown

Joseph Bazalgette is rightfully lauded as an accomplished Engineer & heroic in many actions, including in his role as chief engineer of London’s Metropolitan Board of Works, implementing gargantuan sewage works that will have saved millions of Londoner’s lives from the threats of cholera & other water-borne diseases. Few people will realise that there are many similar Victorian-era heroes within Nottingham’s history, and it is likely that even fewer people could name any of them.

Go to this diary entry for more info on any year quoted here.

Today’s diary will commemorate Nottingham’s Borough Surveyor and Engineer Arthur Brown, and underline his achievement in designing & building the 1884 Beck Valley Storm Water Culvert.

Beck Valley Culvert The picture above is of the Trent Lane end of the culvert, which is 4.11m x 2.95m (13′ 6″ x 9′ 8″); built with Staffordshire Blue engineering brick below (Victoria Works, Aldridge; waterproof); go to substormflow.com for this & many other very fine views + their story on exploring this culvert.

The Engineer

Sources:–

  1. Nottingham Civic Society
  2. Grace’s Guide To British Industrial History
  3. Wikipedia
  • Born: 21 November 1851
  • School: Nottingham High School (Free Grammar, Stoney Street; in 1868 that school transferred to Waverley Mount, Forest Road)
  • Age 16 (1867): articled to Marriott Ogle Tarbotton, the Borough Engineer
  • Age 23 (1874): promoted to Deputy following collaboration on Trent + Gunthorpe Bridge (the 1875 bridge was replaced in 1927)
  • Age 28 (1880): promoted to Borough Surveyor and Engineer (Tarbotton had become Engineer at the newly-purchased Nottingham Waterworks Company)
    (over the next 40 years Brown transformed Nottingham)
    (following are highlights of just some of his projects):
  • 1880: Gregory Boulevard, Radford Boulevard, Lenton Boulevard + Castle Boulevard built
  • 1883 March 3: report on defects at University College, opened 30 June 1881
  • 1884 Aug 7: Beck Valley Storm Water Culvert officially opened (begun 1883, completed 1885)
  • 1885: Plans for a new Cattle Market in the East Croft
  • 1889: King Street and Queen Street built (redevelopment of The Rookeries)
  • 1894
    • May 8: Victoria Park opened (former Bath Street Recreation Ground)
    • September 18: Construction of 1ˢᵗ Electricity Power Station on the corner of Talbot Street & Hanley Street (only a Substation remains) (wiki).
  • 1896 June 30: Victoria Baths (former Sneinton Baths) redeveloped
  • 1899 September 11: Following a trip to the USA to research electric trams, Brown (Borough Engineer) + Herbert Talbot (Electrical Engineer) make a report to the Council. The core of the issue is whether to use electrified ground rails or overhead lines. They state their personal preference to be for an underground conduit system, but that both the British weather + local ground conditions make such a system impractical (more on this in the next section).
  • 1900 Development of the entire Victoria Embankment
  • 1901 Start Date for 2nd Electricity Power Station on St Ann’s Well Road (at this stage the stations primarily are to power the new Electric Trams).
  • 1902 Bulcote Corporation Model Farm designed & constructed, including laying 150 miles of drains (Grade Ⅱ listed).
  • 1904 Improvements to the Carrington Street Canal Bridge

The Storm Water Culvert

Foundation StoneBeck Valley Storm Water Culvert foundation stone
cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Alan Murray-Rust - geograph.org.uk/p/7041196

The Old Beck Sewer

Sources:–

There are lots & lots of sites with excellent reports on walking through this culvert, but there is something that I need to debunk at the outset about all of them:– they all conflate the Old Beck Sewer & the Beck Valley Storm Culvert and, to the best of my knowledge & research, the two are NOT connected.

  1. An ancient spring originated near (what is now) the junction of Kildare Road with The Wells Road, and flowed down the valley of St. Ann’s towards Nottingham Town. There is every chance that, through historical aeons, that that stream actually carved out the valley that it coursed through.
  2. In more ancient maps that stream is called “The Bek”
  3. In the 1820 map by H. Wild and T. H. Smith it is called the “River Beck” & still runs through the town until it empties into the River Leen at East Croft, and thence into the River Trent.
  4. In the 1862 map by Edward W. Salmon it has already been culverted (it is known as the “Old Beck Sewer” (OBS), though I have not yet found any full mapping for it).
  5. The 1883 plans (see MSS:R/HR/3/1/25) produced by Arthur Brown show that the Storm Culvert met the OBS at Cathcart Street but did NOT join with it (Cathcart was demolished in the 1960s; it was opposite Southampton Street).
  6. The 1900 plans (see MSS:R/HR/1/7/196) produced by Arthur Brown show the Storm Culvert being extended up from Cathcart to where the spring originates but still does not indicate any join between the two systems.

Initially the river was simply covered over, and council workers kept getting called out as the stream kept getting blocked by rubbish (or worse), so eventually a proper OBS culvert needed to be built. The 1861 Map produced by Frederick Jackson (NA: CA 8212) shows that culvert on the north-side of St Ann’s Well Road, and that is accurate up to the 5-ways junction (see below).

The 1883 plans showed that the OBS was 2′ 6″ diameter & was siphoned around the Storm Culvert and then continued in it’s original track, side-by-side with the Storm Culvert. Meanwhile, a conventional sewer had a track on the south side of the street.

There was a major 5-street junction at that time, at the point in the modern roads where St Ann’s Well Road turns south (see Northumberland Road):–

  1. Alfred Street South
  2. Alfred Street Central
  3. Union Road
  4. St Ann’s Well Road (2 roads)

The Storm Culvert + OBS crossed over to the other side of the road at the junction, and in addition the Storm Culvert was increased from 6′ 9″ to 9′ 0″ diameter.

When the Storm Culvert reached the North Wall of St Mary’s Cemetery (which at that time extended all the way to the street) it turned to the east & crossed the cemetery whilst the OBS continued down the street.

The Beck Valley Storm Culvert

You will read above that on September 11 1899 Brown & Talbot made a report to the council on the reasons for their proposal for overhead lines for the electric trams rather than underground conduits. What follows now are the extraordinary reasons for this astonishing storm culvert, including some details from that report:–

  • During the era of the super-continent Pangea the UK & it’s near-neighbours was under an ocean, near the equator & opposite the mouth of a huge river much in nature to the modern Amazon. That led to the deposition of alternating layers of clay & sandstone that cloak all of Nottingham.
  • Clay is impervious to water, whilst sandstone is water-permeable, and that causes such landscapes to be prone to springs, and also to flooding due to surface-water runoff.
  • The UK sits halfway between cold-air masses that originate at the North Pole & warm-air masses that originate at the equator. That is responsible for the UK both suffering more tornadoes than any other country & also being prone to Flash Floods (I’ve experienced the latter dozens of times myself).
  • Until 1845 everything north & west of Brook Street was part of Clay Field and could not be built upon as it was Common Land (and yes, Brook Street is where the River Beck ran).
  • After the 1845 Inclosure Act St Ann’s Well Road is a steeply-sloped valley running through newly-populated streets. The flash-floods now no longer runoff just the clay, but also off tarmacadam on both those hills.
  • In his 1899 report, Brown & Talbot spoke of the way that, after heavy showers, water on Mansfield Road near the Grosvenor Hotel would reach 12″ (30cm) deep, water spread from kerb to kerb on St Ann’s Well Road, and that many other roads also suffered flooding.

Such flooding threatened the viability of the expansion of the town. Something needs to be done! The Beck Valley Storm Water Culvert was the response, and you can get some idea of the magnitude of the problem by the size of the culvert in the picture at top.

The Navigators

My research on these culverts was made on 6ᵗʰ July 2022 at the Manuscripts and Special Collections (MSS) department of Nottingham University, Lenton Lane, and I was blown away at the detail & quality of the work put into the 26 sets of engineering drawings archived by the MSS. These were full-size high-quality Drawing Paper (almost certainly each Arch E), backed with linen, and gathered into a continuous roll of 104′ (31.7m) of architectural x-sections of every pipe, section & joins that would be encountered by the pipe-layers from Trent Road to Cathcart Street. A truly stupendous piece of work, and it blew me away to experience it.

But, what about the Navvies?

Railway Navvies (Picture obtained from & © Railway Museum)

So, what is a Navvy?

Wikipedia says:–

“Navvy, a clipping of navigator (UK) or navigational engineer (US), is particularly applied to describe the manual labourers working on major civil engineering projects”

However, that definition misses a high-status feature of the navvies that worked in Nottingham. Digging a culvert through a road is one thing, but having the ability to navigate a tunnel from the bottom of one end of a hill to the other end and to emerge exactly where your employer needs it to emerge is another. Nottingham was full of both sets of people.

One Set of People

1818: A man within a canal warehouse named Musson decided to drop a hot cinder onto a little spilt gunpowder “to see what it would do”. 21 kegs (1 ton total) barrels of gunpowder were stored all around him whilst in transit from Gainsborough for use in the Derbyshire mines, and one of them had been damaged whilst being moved. Boats were destroyed, buildings damaged, and Musson was blown 126 yards (115m) by the blast.

Probably not the sort of person that you would want within your tunnelling gang.

The Other Set of People

There was already over 100 years of continuous navigating experience gained within Nottingham before Brown ever began his Storm Water enterprise. I do not want to take a millimetre of glory away from Brown — as you can see here he estimated the job at £38,000 GBP (£5,135,536 in 2022), and brought it in at £28,000 GBP (£3,784,079 in 2022), and how many infrastructure projects can say that today — but without the skilled workforce he could not have even started.

  • Canals:
  • Trains:
    • 1839 Midland Railway (MR) open a station terminus in the town west of Carrington Street
    • 1889 Nottingham Suburban Railway opened
    • 1900 Victoria Station opened
  • Coal Mines:
  • Tunnels of Nottingham

The Statistics

Here are the relevant stats, drawn from a newspaper article at the time:–

  • Max estimated flow: 54,941 cubic-feet/minute (1,556 m³/minute)
    (based on max 14 inches of rain received in 30 minutes)
  • Total length: 10,750 ft (2.04 miles / 3.28 km)
  • Estimated cost: £38,000 GBP (£5,135,536 in 2022)
  • Actual cost: £28,000 GBP (£3,784,079 in 2022)
  • Soil excavated: 50,000 yds³ (38,228 m³)
  • Concrete used: 80,000 yds³ (61,164 m³)
  • Bricks used: 4.5 million
  • Cement used: 12,000 bags
  • Lias Lime used: 600 tons (544 metric tons)
    (this is hydraulic lime, concrete that can set under water)
  • Contractors: Messrs Foster & Barry
Location: Thorneywood, Sneinton, Nottingham, England, NG3 2PB, United Kingdom

Egg On Face

Posted by alexkemp on 20 September 2022 in English.

Time for a humiliating admission.

Year-dates below can be cross-referenced within my last diary-entry: Mapping Changing Street-Names in Nottingham City.

This was sparked by a visit to the Manuscripts & Special Collections (MSS) at the University of Nottingham on 6 July this year. I was conducting research into water & sewage history within St Ann’s and was there to research (what turned out to be) the 1883 Beck Valley Storm Water Culvert. That needs a diary entry all for itself, but today I need to stay on subject.

Mapping the culvert began on 15 September and, fortunately, began at the River Trent end (on Trent Lane). ‘Fortunate’ because, 5 years ago, will_p had mapped it and — my assumption — had found the culvert outflow nameplate and had both recorded and used it in his mapping.

So, mapping started at the southern, riverside edge of Trent Lane & continued northwards towards Bath Street, ending today as I reached The Wells Road, following what had been recorded in the MSS.

I was in great mood as I started, since I now had an official name for the culvert. That mood began to deteriorate as it continued. Roads were skew-whiff & houses off their centre. It seemed that earlier mappers had not used any imagery-offset corrections. I was fixing everything that I met as good as I could, but it was beginning to wear me down.

After a couple of days of this I took some moments away from the culvert & mapped a 1884 Water Reservoir (west), Water Reservoir (east) & associated Police House on Mapperley Plain (this one was obtained during research at Nottinghamshire Archives). That brought me into contact with Porchester Road, and that is bang in the middle of mapping that I was the first to conduct in that area. I looked more closely and oh! dear!:– roads were skew-whiff & houses off their centre. A couple of deep breaths, and I got stuck in to correct the errors. After a couple of hours or so doing that I finally got the point. I started mapping in 2016 & did not use any imagery offset for quite some time. My mapping at that time was, consequently, pants.

It Could Be Worse

Mountza The image above is of a Greek physical insult known as The Moutza. I believe that I have worked out the genesis of this gesture, and why it is considered insulting, and thus the reference to today’s headline.

All civilised places these days conduct sewage away from their houses by means of underground piping. Indeed, in ancient Rome the wealthy did the same, including culverting water from streams & using that also as disposal in their lavatories. Life was very different in medieval times in towns in England.

The upper floors of homes in medieval towns extended over the lower floors. That was because the habit was to use chamber-pots to accumulate their bodily waste overnight and then to empty those slops in the morning. They would fling the windows open & empty the chamber pots directly into the street, crying out “Gardy-Loo” as they did so (a corruption of French:– “garde à l’eau!” (watch-out! water!)). The streets had primitive gutters — actually, just a depression in the cobbles next to each pavement (US: sidewalks) — and that was to allow the slops to drain away when it rained.

That gets us halfway to the genesis of The Moutza, for Greek towns & villages would have been little different from English towns in sewage disposal. The last part is what happened when Greek citizens were arrested by their police.

When arrested, their criminals would have their hands bound, and then the person would be walked to the jail. During this perambulation the townsfolk would gather and, using the plentiful nuggets gathered in the road gutters (it doesn’t rain as much in Greece as it does in England), those empathetic citizens would throw their missiles at the criminals.

So, ‘egg’ on face sounds very moderate in the circumstances.

Mapping Changing Street-Names in Nottingham City

Posted by alexkemp on 9 July 2022 in English. Last updated on 26 November 2022.

Foreword

I live in the St. Ann’s electoral ward of the City of Nottingham. As well as wishing to be able to improve the coverage of old_name + start_date for each street in Nottingham, I am intrigued to be able to discover when streets were laid out, metalled, drained & provided with sewers. Today that all seems normal, but I was astonished to discover that Blue Bell Hill Road had no street drainage nor sewers until the 1970s; a friend in Dowson Street has a well in their basement, whilst their road also has zero street drainage nor sewer, plus no water main through the street (water supply, sewer + drainage only at the rear of the terrace).

Like many cities in the UK, Nottingham has suffered shed-loads of physical upheaval/churn across the years. That has led to the appearance, alteration, disappearance and/or reappearance of streets and thus of street-names. I’ve recently gotten access to definitive information on (at least some of) those changes, and decided that I should strike the iron whilst it is hot. This diary is going to concentrate on local streets + national communication (rivers/canals/railways) as they apply to Nottingham City; it will also filter in items of national importance that occurred in Nottingham and/or affect the whole UK.

First, here is the OpenStreetMap Wiki on names.
Second, the principal sources I’ve been using:

  1. Enclosure-1845-67.pdf: Enclosure, Improvement and the Rise of `New Nottingham’ 1845-67; by J.V. Beckett and Ken Brand, 2013; available from NG Spaces. A weebly.com blog maintains an extensive collection of maps for download that will assist in researching streets affected directly or indirectly by the Inclosure (the failures of the Inclosure were responsible for much of the clearances of the 1920/30s and 1960/70s).
  2. Nottinghamshire Archives web-search (this is an index search; documents NOT available for web-view, but are stored onsite & can be viewed in person at the County House; please make note that many index books can only be viewed in person, and also that many web-search page links lead to a 404 page (whoops); for similar reasons the best web-page for Nottinghamshire Archives is this National Archives page).
  3. Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections web-search (this is an index search; documents NOT available for web-view, but are stored onsite & can be viewed in person by arrangement at the MSS).
  4. Nottingham City Council Conservation Area PDFs: Canal; Castle; Clifton Village; Old Meadows; Station; The Park.
  5. OpenData Nottingham: shapefiles and multiple other formats for a large variety of GIS data for Nottingham; the search facility does not work for me under Chromium with script suppression, but will probably work well for you if it is 1990 & you use Internet Explorer (sarcasm).
  6. Nottingham Highways Register: this GIS website, maintained by the City Council, “shows you which carriageways (roads), streets, lanes, footways, courts, alleys, passages, verges, footpaths, bridleways, byways and cycle paths are maintained and repaired at the public expense by Nottingham City Council” (known as “adopted highways”; see also this 2016 post).
  7. Nottingham Caves 1: this GIS website is maintained by the City Council. There are a stunningly large number of caves within Nottingham (approx: 1,000). The original cave mapping was maintained by BGS (British Geological Society, based in Keyworth) and was transferred across to Nottingham Council about 10 years ago. I obtained the email address of the relevant person in the council and asked to receive shape-files to release them in OSM. He flat refused, and then ghosted me (“I am away from work … I will not be available by phone or email during this time.”).
    Update: This paragraph was added very early on Mon 24 Oct am; later the same afternoon I could not access the site. I thought it was me! but no, the site is very flaky, they were rebooting the server, and I had tried to get access whilst that was happening. You may find yourself having to shutdown/restart your browser with this site.
  8. Nottingham Caves 2 (wiki) (the YouTube site features many short, frenetic videos made from 3D-scans of many of the caves & tunnels known of in Nottingham; the website linked from YT has been hacked — either externally or internally — and is now a scam site, so the link provided here is to the archive.org copy from 2015).
  9. Nottingham Tunnels: the same geology that makes it so very easy to dig your very own wo/man-cave in Nottingham (see above) has also produced a plethora of tunnels (12 so far in the Nottingham collection).
  10. Christian History: I’m using Miller’s Church History by Andrew Miller (Pickering & Inglis; ISBN 0 7208 0111 7).

Summary

The national view of Nottingham in the early 18ᵗʰ Century was of it as a “garden town”. As one example, the land immediately south of the town was a large meadow, was flood-lands for the Trent, Leen & Tinker’s Leen, was common-land (meaning that it could not be bought or sold), and was used by all town-folk for recreation. In fact, most of the town was surrounded by common-land, and that fact acted as invisible walls which kept the town constrained in size for centuries.

The town was two centres (Castle + Lace Market) surrounded by 5 fields (see Sanderson’s map immediately below for the fields as following):–

  • Clay Field (north-east)
  • Sand Field (north-west)
  • The Park (west)
  • The Meadows (south)
  • Sneinton (east; town + fields)

old (left) + new (right) Trent Bridges; 1871

The town came into prominence nationally because a mile or two south of the town was a bridge across the Trent (the old Hethbeth stone-built bridge is pictured above left in 1871, whilst the 1868 cast-iron bridge completed in 1871 is above right; Creative Commons CCO License). For centuries Hethbeth bridge was the only means to safely obtain passage between south & north of England on the East side of the Pennines (the Trent flows into the Humber, and both rivers are far too wide & strong-flowing below West Bridgford to be easily forded in medieval or earlier times). In fact, the bridge was so important to England that a Bridge Estate (charity) (pdf) was established in 1302, and grants of land continued to be made by the king up to the days of Edward Ⅵ (1551), so that finance was available to keep the Bridge maintained. One of the most famous lots in that estate is St. Ann’s Allotments (originally fields let out to graze cattle) and I see them from my attic window each morning, as the allotments are pitched across the opposite slope of the St. Ann’s valley to the one that I live atop. They are the largest garden allotments in Europe, and can be seen as “Hunger Hill” in the map below. They were originally agricultural lots & first became garden allotments in Victorian times; the council had a bad habit of snipping off perimeter lots from this Bridge Estate property for their favoured building projects, and that only stopped when the Allotments obtained a Grade Ⅱ* status.

George Sanderson map 1835Above is part of the Map of the County of Nottingham from ‘a Careful Survey Made in the Years 1834 & 1835’ by George Sanderson; note that this circular map is kept as one of the 80,000 maps within the collection of the University of Nottingham School of Geography in the Edwards Resource Centre, that they have an Inventory (pdf) and that they also have an online-browser.

Nottingham Rail StationAbove is the Nottingham Rail Station on Carrington Street, the 3ʳᵈ & final station on the site & Grade Ⅱ* listed.

As the late 18ᵗʰ Century approached, Nottingham began to be degraded by an on-setting revolution. The Industrial Revolution began to pickup steam & at that time gained it’s greatest expression in the UK. There was a massive move of humanity from working on the land to working within factories & workshops. At the same time, general population numbers began to grow, slowly at first and then exponentially as the 19ᵗʰ Century began to age. Nottingham needed to change if it was to survive & safely enter the new age.

The first essential was to be able to expand the size of living space available within the town. That was fatally underlined when the 2ⁿᵈ Cholera Pandemic (the first English cholera epidemic of 1832) filled all remaining spaces within town cemeteries, and thus the establishment in 1835 of St. Ann’s Cemetery outside of the town’s boundary.

Nottingham Arboretum

Enclosure of the common-lands north & south of the town were the obvious next step and finally, on 30 June 1845, the Nottingham Inclosure Act got Royal Assent to enclose Clayfield, Sandfield + the Meadows (“Inclosure” is the more ancient form of the modern word “Enclosure”; the ancient word tends to get used in parliament bills). The act contained provisions for parks & recreation allotments which would create a ‘green collar’ in the town. That can be seen very clearly in the photo above looking east across the Arboretum towards Elm Avenue & the Corporation Oaks Reservoir, the line of Robin Hood Chase below (to the right in the photo, below the circle of the Reservoir) and the green spread of St. Ann’s Allotments beyond Corporation Oaks. The routine of Inclosure was long-established from other districts with many other enclosures that had preceded it: a couple of years of argy-bargy, lots of hard work & those in power could then decant large amounts of money straight into their own pockets.

In this case it took 20 years. Almost up until the end, the issue of roads & sewers was left unaddressed. It needed both council & commissioners to agree to work together and that rarely happened. In the 1920s the old-town slums were cleared, and in 1970 the St. Ann’s & Meadows slums (which the requirements of the Inclosure were supposed to prevent) were cleared. That’s an awful lot of new (or cleared, or renewed) roads.

As this Nottingham Post page details, at the time of the 1970s clearance, out of the 10,000 houses in St Anns:–

  1. 65% had no piped hot water supply
  2. 75% had no bath
  3. 25% had no toilet within or attached to the house

Sun Street

Our final, deeply septic view of Nottingham’s changing scenery, is going to be with the 1912 photograph above of Sun Street (featured within MSS Photographs). The view is of 4 “pail closets (privies)” directly under the bedrooms of the end-house. The pails were emptied into a cart at night & pulled through the streets to the Sanitary Wharf near the Low-Level station at London Road. The carts were emptied into canal barges. The contents were transported to Grantham fields & spread as fertiliser.

The photograph was used as evidence by the city council, and the street was torn down, probably in the 1920s. That photo will likely be our only evidence for it’s existence - the street does not feature in any maps (that I know of).

MSS reports it as being formerly Sherwin Street, and that does feature within the 1862 Salmon map (refer to the MSS maps page). Sherwin Street ran south from Southwell Road, and the next street to the east is Manvers Street. Both of those latter streets still exist, but apart from Nelson Street every other street in the vicinity (including Sherwin Street & Sun Street) has disappeared, and been replaced with Market or City Transport buildings.

The point of this photograph is that the 1845 Inclosure Act carefully detailed acceptable building practices & required provision of Sewage disposal, and stipulated the position of Official Referee & Umpire to enforce them, and those houses above prove that the regulations were often worthless if money spoke louder. Thomas Hawksley reported in 1844 that “the average age at death amongst males was only 20.5 years”, and this photo shows part of the reason why.

Location: Lace Market, St Ann's, Nottingham, England, NG1 1PR, United Kingdom

Mapillary No Longer Allows Photos to Show on Foreign Sites

Posted by alexkemp on 7 July 2022 in English. Last updated on 20 July 2022.

My last fortnight has been spent updating the photo-URLs within these diaries of pictures that I’ve taken whilst mapping. By default the Mapillary page will normally show a small version of any photo in it’s GIS-database, whilst behind it is a map using OSM-mapping; here is an example of that, showing the front of a business called AST, as it was displayed in a 12 July 2019 diary.

In the past the owner of the photo — the person that uploaded it to Mapillary — was given a button that would give them a URL that allowed them to download the raw file of the original photograph. That was useful for webpages such as these diaries, since it allowed the photograph to be displayed. However, Mapillary has changed it’s policy on the usage of those download URLs.

At some time in the past Mapillary changed the URL format for both map-display pages & download-file pages. The original map-display URLs had the following format (1st line below) whilst the download-files were 2nd-line below (the IDs in each URL were identical for a specific photo):

  • https://www.mapillary.com/map/iM/<12-digit-alpha-ID>
  • https://d1cuyjsrcm0gby.cloudfront.net/<12-digit-ID>/thumb-2048.jpg

Mapillary changed the format to the following (sorry about this):

  • https://www.mapillary.com/app/?pKey=<16-digit-numeric-ID
  • https://scontent-man2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/m1/v/t6/<150-digit-alpha-ID>?stp=s2048x1152&ccb=10-5&oh=<61-digit-alpha-ID>&_nc_sid=122ab1

Mapillary also made 3 crucial extra decisions:

  1. The map URL would auto-rewrite via a 302 between the old & new format
  2. The old Download URL would NOT rewrite to the new
  3. The new Download URL would timeout after 14 days (or maybe less) (appears to be just 2 days)

Thus, after 14 days of trawling through every relevant page & changing all relevant URLs the photos are still not showing. I’m not happy.

And here the relevant photo to see what happens:

AST Auto Centre

Update 7 July 2022

Mapillary has changed it’s download URLs & therefore all links within my diaries that used a Mapillary download URL in the old format are broken (the Mapilliary map URLs, which show a photo within the context of an OSM map, have also changed and are redirected via a HTTP/1.1 302 Found, but the download URL hostname no longer exists and gives a “No address associated with hostname” DNS error). I’m slowly going through to update them. The new URLs are terrifyingly long, but show OK on my screen (and I hope also on yours).

Update 7 July 2022 evening

I discovered just now that the Mapillary photo on this diary page was broken yet again, as are others on other diary pages. Loaded into a web-page by itself the download-URL gave the error: url is timed out. It seems that Mapillary has decided that these freely-donated photographs can only be used for it’s benefit.

Fixing JOSM Launch Error

Posted by alexkemp on 7 July 2022 in English. Last updated on 8 July 2022.

I tried to launch JOSM for the first time in a little while & got the error:

failed to execute josm-latest no such file or directory

It had worked fine the last time I used it & had been continuously updated every since.

Searching for the Fix

An internet search did not reveal anyone reporting the same error, but did point me towards the GitHub site (more on that later, with the eventual fix at bottom of this diary post). Searching the computer did not help much, but it did reveal the .desktop menu file:

$ locate josm-latest
/etc/default/josm-latest
/usr/bin/josm-latest
/usr/share/applications/org.openstreetmap.josm-latest.desktop
/usr/share/josm-latest/josm-latest.jar

My local .desktop menu file is identical to the GitHub-code latest .desktop file. I tried running the exec-line in that file from a console (I work under Devuan, which is a Linux distribution):

$ josm-latest %U
bash: /usr/bin/josm-latest: /usr/bin/bash: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

Here is the reason why:

$ file /etc/default/josm-latest
/etc/default/josm-latest: ASCII text
$ cat /etc/default/josm-latest
# Options to pass to java when starting JOSM.
# Uncomment the JAVA_OPTS lines to enable their use by /usr/bin/josm-latest

# Increase usable memory
#JAVA_OPTS="${JAVA_OPTS} -Xmx2048m"

# Enable OpenGL pipeline (2D graphic accelerators)
#JAVA_OPTS="${JAVA_OPTS} -Dsun.java2d.opengl=True"
$ file /usr/bin/josm-latest
/usr/bin/josm-latest: Bourne-Again shell script, ASCII text executable
$ head -1 /usr/bin/josm-latest
#!/usr/bin/bash
$ la /usr/bin/bash
ls: cannot access '/usr/bin/bash': No such file or directory
$ which bash
/bin/bash

(translation): Neither josm-latest provided within the latest JOSM is fit for purpose:

  • The first (in /etc/default) is a set of commented-out lines.
  • The 2nd (in /etc/default) is a script file intended to load JOSM, but the SHEBANG line (first in the script) does NOT point at the BASH executable.
  • The %U parameter is never taken into consideration within the script

The JOSM on GitHub README gave a different exec line than the josm-latest.desktop:

github README:

https://github.com/JOSM/josm/blob/master/README:

type “java -jar josm-latest.jar” to launch. If this does not work, try to set your JAVA_HOME variable to the java executable location (the root location, not the bin).

It still did not work:

# (/usr/share/josm-latest/josm-latest.jar)
$ java -jar josm-latest.jar
Error: Unable to access jarfile josm-latest.jar
$ echo $PATH
~/.local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games

The GitHub README is talking about errors in locating JAVA but that is not the problem. The system cannot find josm-latest.jar, and that is the problem. The following works:

$ cat /usr/share/applications/org.openstreetmap.josm-latest.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Version=1.0
Name=JOSM (latest snapshot)
…
# 2022-07-07 next line always throws "No such file or directory"; replaced by line following
# Exec=josm-latest %U
Exec=java -jar /usr/share/josm-latest/josm-latest.jar
…

SA School Mapping Started

Posted by alexkemp on 25 May 2020 in English. Last updated on 8 July 2022.
Carmarthenshire Ceredigion NPT
Find a Carmarthenshire School Find a Ceredigion School Find a Neath Port Talbot School
List of schools (PDF) List of schools (PDF) List of schools (PDF) )
Pembrokeshire Powys Swansea
Find a Pembrokeshire School Find a Powys School Find a Swansea School
List of schools (PDF) List of schools (PDF) List of Schools (PDF)

 

English :: Welsh Cribsheet
  • Carmarthenshire :: Sir Gaerfyrddin
  • Carmarthenshire County Council :: Cyngor Sir Gâr
  • Ceredigion :: Sir Ceredigion
  • Ceredigion County Council :: Cyngor Sir Ceredigion
  • Neath Port Talbot :: Castell-nedd Port Talbot
  • Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council :: Cyngor Bwrdeistref Sirol Castell-nedd Port Talbot
  • Pembrokeshire :: Sir Benfro
  • Pembrokeshire County Council :: Cyngor Sir Penfro
  • Powys :: Powys
  • Powys County Council :: Cyngor Sir Powys
  • City and County of Swansea :: Dinas a Sir Abertawe
  • City and County of Swansea Council :: Cyngor Dinas a Sir Abertawe

I was impressed with the accuracy & fullness of detail in the English EduBase after doing ~1,000 schools. After only 3 entries my sentiments are at the opposite end of the bar where Welsh schools are concerned. That reached rock-bottom when the 3rd one (Ysgol Y Bedol, link above) turned out to be wrong in every respect - the site is being redeveloped for domestic housing (as best as I can tell) and a new building is built & functioning up the road at Twyn.

Type: Welsh establishment

Each school so far is marked as School type: Welsh establishment; I’ve searched & searched but cannot discover what on earth that is supposed to mean. My initial assumption is that it means bi-lingual (Welsh + English) (certainly how each website operates) and possibly has the local council as the operator. I would appreciate feedback from someone that knows, and also what mapping to use.

All of the 4 schools that I’ve updated so far are dual Welsh + English instruction. That does not get dealt with in the wiki dealing with schools, but here’s an example of the tags to deal with that:–

name=Ysgol Uwchradd Aberteifi
name:cy=Ysgol Uwchradd Aberteifi
name:en=Cardigan Secondary School

You will find a full list of language subtags at the iana.org subtag page;
English == ‘en’
Welsh == ‘cy’;

Information from the Horse’s Mouth

The Carmarthenshire Council Info-for-Parents PDF supplies all the info that is missing from EduBase, and then adds some.

Here is a précis of the language situation in Welsh schools (and just to say that it must be terrifying to have a behemoth like English breathing at their neck whilst trying to ensure that their native tongue survives):–

General Principles
Carmarthenshire believes in the educational value of being conversant in two languages and is strongly in favour of a bilingual policy in its primary schools. The long term aim of this bilingual policy is to teach children to be completely bilingual in the use of Welsh and English by the time they leave primary school, to enable them to become full members of the bilingual society of which they are a part.

Language categories applied to Primary Schools
WM: Welsh Medium:at least 70% of teaching through medium of Welsh
DS: Dual Stream:both languages side-by-side
TR: Transitional School:both languages used but with greater emphasis on Welsh
EW:mostly English
EM: English Medium School:Welsh taught as a second language

 
Finding the school Operator is as much a nightmare with Carmarthenshire schools as it is with English schools. The PDF talks in terms of “Admission Authorities”, and I suspect that that is as close as I am going to get. It’s a Minator’s labyrinth:

  • There is no automatic right to a place at a school
  • You must make an application to an admissions authority for your child to be admitted to a school
Admission Authorities
Community and Voluntary Controlled Schools:(name of Authority not mentioned; probably Carmarthenshire County Council)
Voluntary Aided Church Schools, Protestant:(name of Authority not mentioned; probably Church of Wales)
Voluntary Aided Church Schools, Catholic:(name of Authority not mentioned; must be Catholic Church)

 

Website gone awol

Website was the one EduBase weakness (sometimes missing, often wrong) but here it is completely absent. Even Google let me down but, thankfully, schoolswebdirectory came through and had each one so far.

27 May Update:
I found the website for full details on all Carmarthenshire schools, including their websites, via a Carmarthenshire Council Info-for-Parents PDF.

28 May Update:
Full details on all Pembrokeshire schools via a Pembrokeshire Council List-of-schools PDF & Ceredigion schools via the Council website (cannot find a PDF compilation).

29 May Update:
It has belatedly dawned on me that many of the schools that I’ve dealt with so far - and particularly the Welsh Medium schools - are predominantly Welsh-speaking. In that situation I should map them in Welsh & add the English version words as extras (rather than the other way round). I’ve been attempting to do that for each school. It does mean that my updates are terrifyingly slow, and I cannot guarantee to be doing it perfectly. But I’m doing the best I can.

30 May Update:
Swansea council added to the list at top. Unfortunately the webpage means clicking through 9 lists to find the single school that you want. Also found better replacements for logos + missing PDF compilations of schools (hint: “info for parents”).

1 June Update:
Powys council added to the list at top.

2 June Update:
NPT (Neath Port Talbot / West Glamorgan) council added to the list at top.

3 June Update on Diary Tables:
(this is info on editing these Diaries rather than about the Welsh Schools)…

HTML Tables were badly misused in the previous Millenia as layout devices, both because of the very poor CSS available + brain-dead decisions on the box-model chosen. There are, however, situations in which a Table is the precise layout required. In addition, in these Diaries the only way to get images to display side-by-side (horizontally) is to place them into a Table.

kramdown will accept Tables as both HTML (as “<table>”) or kramdown code (as Pipe chars “¦”) (the char shown there for a Pipe char is actually a broken vertical bar, since an actual pipe char will never show).

  • Tables as HTML: These will NOT display kramdown code as kramdown
  • Tables as kramdown: These will NOT display HTML code as html

7 June Update:
Welsh names added for NPT (Neath Port Talbot / West Glamorgan) + Swansea councils.

8 July 2022 Update:
Swansea logo updated (changed from a beta.swansea.gov.uk to a swansea.gov.uk).

Ah well, I’ll keep buggering on, as Churchill always advised.

HU School Mapping Completed

Posted by alexkemp on 24 May 2020 in English. Last updated on 25 May 2020.

Phew. ~200 schools.

Hull was my birth-town and where I lived until ~30. I have now lived in Nottingham longer than I did in Hull.

It was fascinating to see the scale of change in the schools that I know. I do not think that a single school that I attended or knew remains in use, let alone is unchanged.

That’s Hull for you.

Now it is hello SA (Carmarthenshire / Sir Gaerfyrddin).

Tranby Croft, Hull Grammar School & Hull Collegiate School

Posted by alexkemp on 19 May 2020 in English. Last updated on 21 June 2022.

We are still in Covid-19 Lockdown, I’m still diligently mapping schools in the HU (Hull & East Riding of Yorkshire) Postcode, and I’ve reached an interesting school near Anlaby that incorporates my family’s Alma Mater of Hull Grammar School (I wondered where it had gone).

Tranby Croft

HE tags for Tranby Croft (these are specific for the UK):–

  • heritage:operator=Historic England
  • heritage=2
  • listed_status=Grade II
  • HE_ref=1103387

Hull Grammar School

My father, myself & my son all went to Hull Grammar Schools. Because of the vast churn in Hull, we all went to very different buildings (my grandson goes to a grammar school in Hertford, but if it had been in Hull then it would also have been at a different building to all the other three). Hull has zero respect for history; it used to have some medieval buildings, but they got torn down following WWII, even though they had zero war damage, presumably because they were too old.

Founded 1330

Hull Grammar School (for boys) is reckoned to have been founded in 1330. A house in the old-town Market Square was built for the school in 1486 (Blue Plaque) (picture below) and remained a school until 1878. It had two very famous old-boys in William Wilberforce & Andrew Marvell.

old Hull Grammar School

I had a table at the market held there each Saturday when a young man, and my back was to that wall. Sadly, no-one in Hull seems to have thought to map the buildings properly nor to photograph them for Mapillary. That’s a shame, so I’ve mapped it, at the least.

HE tags for the old Hull Grammar School (these are specific for the UK):–

  • heritage:operator=Historic England
  • heritage=2
  • listed_status=Grade II*
  • HE_ref=1197660
Transferred to Leicester Street 1892

grammar school Leicester Street

My father was at the school in the 1930/40s, and presumably that means at (what is now) Pearson Primary School on Leicester Street. There is zero info that I can find to confirm that, but the wiki information is that Hull Grammar moved into “a new and commodious building … on Leicester Street … officially opened by the Mayor of Hull on 27 January 1892 … built in the Collegiate Gothic style”. That matches Pearson perfectly, but there is nothing within the school website about it’s history. The school is round the corner from Mayfield Street where my father lived with his family.

My father had to pass the 11+ Examination in order to be accepted in to the school. I had the same-name exam to pass in 1961 at the end of my year at Hopewell Road Junior School. When my father heard this he passed on a piece of advice:–

One of the questions that I got at my 11+ was:–
    “Which is heavier: a pound of feathers or a pound of lead?”

Naturally I scoffed at that. That was a question from the Stone Age. What was the point in telling me that? (yes, it was one of the questions on my paper).

Transferred 20ᵗʰ Century to Bishop Alcock Road HU5 4RL

2012 Hull Grammar School

The place I attended in the 1960s was a nondescript post-war (1953) building that taught boys (only) from 11 up to 18 years. It has since been torn down, and now just a plain field on the edge of the city boundary remains. I doubt that anyone will miss it. I hated the place; it was soul-destroying.

One of my clearest moments with the school is a Stockholm Syndrome moment. It was 1969 & my last day attending; my future was to go to Newcastle-upon-Tyne University after the summer, and I was elated that my imprisonment was over. But then, as I stood on the steps of the school to go, I suffered pangs of regret that I was about to leave (and considerable confusion at my mixed feelings).

  • 1969: the school became a Comprehensive
  • 1974: Humberside County Council created nationally; all education transferred from local City Council to Humberside CC
  • 1988: re-organisation of Hull schools; the Grammar school is stripped of it’s Sixth Form (years 17, 18) & renamed; the 6th Form eventually became incorporated as Wyke Sixth Form College together with the boys & girls from the nearby Kelvin Hall comprehensive school
Renamed as William Gee School for Boys

This is the failed branch of the family. Amy Johnson School was an 11-16 years girls school at Ringrose Street, a few miles away (edubase=118110, the area has been redeveloped). It merged with William Gee in 2001, renaming the combined school as “Endeavour High School” (edubase=133422, Fountain Road, also redeveloped since then).

  • 2015: the school was put into special measures (not a good thing) and closed forever at the end of the school year.
Resurrected within Marist College

This is the more-intelligent branch of the family.

Marist college was a RC school for boys (edubase=129325) that got closed down as a part of the carpet-bombing that affected all Hull schools in 1988. It amalgamated with St Mary’s Grammar School (a RC school for girls on Anlaby Road) and successfully became St Mary’s College. Marist & St Mary’s were the only Catholic secondary schools within the whole of the East Riding, and thus had a large region to draw their intake from.

A group of folks got wind of the impending changes at the 1988 school reorganisation and decided to rescue both the name & ethos of the Grammar School. Thus in 1989 they created a new independent Hull Grammar School, a co-educational school for pupils up to the age of 18 years, using the former Marist College building as it’s base. This is the school that my son went to (he was born February 1973).

An interesting personal feature is that, following divorce, my son was living at his (maternal) grandparent’s house at Ventnor Street. And so, in an odd twist his situation was virtually identical to my father’s in the sense that the Grammar School was literally just around the corner from where he was living. That was the polar opposite to me, in that I lived next to the City boundary, and the Grammar School was 180° (and tens of miles) away at the other City Boundary.

My son went to university in 1991, but in that year the Grammar School hit severe economic difficulties and was acquired by Nord Anglia Education plc from the administrator.

  • 1989: new independent Hull Grammar School opens in former Marist College building
  • 1991: Nord Anglia acquire new school from the administrator for GDP £0.9m (keeps operating)
  • 2004: sold for GDP £4.18m by Nord Anglia to United Church Schools Trust (CoE + owner of Hull High School + Hull Preparatory School)
Transplanted within Tranby Croft as Hull Collegiate School

Tranby Croft

  • edubase=118126 (Hull Collegiate; Anlaby HU10 7EH; opened on July 2005)
  • edubase=135068 (Hull Preparatory; Anlaby HU10 7EH; closed on 10 Jan 2006)

United Learning (formerly United Church Schools Trust) is a Church of England-affiliated body that ran Hull High School — a co-ed 11-18 Independent School, with a girls-only senior school — since 1890 (EdBase states 1918). They bought Hull Grammar School in 2004, merged it with Hull High, and opened in July of the following year as Hull Collegiate School at the same site as Hull High, which is Tranby Croft.

United Learning also ran Hull Preparatory School — an independent Primary school for 2-10 year olds — at the same site between 31 Aug 2004 & 10 Jan 2006.

The only place that I have been able to find Grammar School in the new school is in their School badge:

Hull Collegiate badge

Fun facts:
The 3-crown flag (LHS of the Collegiate badge) is:

  1. The badge of Hull Grammar School since inception
  2. The Coat of Arms for Hull
  3. The Coat of Arms for King Arthur

I should not finish without mentioning that Tranby Croft is just outside the Hull city-boundary so, for the first time, the Grammar School has been transplanted outside of it’s home.

Location: Old Town, Hull, Kingston upon Hull, England, HU1 1JE, United Kingdom

A YouTube Video on Mapping Buildings

Posted by alexkemp on 16 May 2020 in English.

JOSM HowTo: map buildings

YT thumbnail

After the glorious success of mapping Schools with JOSM it was obvious to produce a series of shorts showing how-to-map elements of the schools, and let’s start with howto map school buildings.

Less than 8 minutes long, it does what it says on the can; it shows how to map a school building.

…and now a YouTube Video on Mapping Schools

Posted by alexkemp on 12 May 2020 in English. Last updated on 15 May 2020.

JOSM HowTo: map schools

YT thumbnail
(above: using roundabouts to align imagery offsets)

My very first video(s) uploaded to YouTube. The first is very long, very slow. Hopefully, an easy entry-ramp for those considering using JOSM to map for OSM. Otherwise, 35 minutes of boredom.

(later videos are much shorter)

Utilities that help whilst making YT desktop videos:

SimpleScreenRecorder (Wikipedia):–
SSR

Clapperboard:–
Camera slate

Key Status Monitor:–
KSM

Utilities for Desktop presentation (14 May addition):

I made all my mistakes (probably not ALL!) in that first video. Certainly, the best way to learn is to do the work. Here are some useful lessons & utilities drawn mostly from the lessons of those mistakes:

Do NOT use RecordMyDesktop

I actually used SimpleScreenRecorder (links at top) for the first video, and it worked fine. However, most links that I saw on the inter-webs seemed to be for RecordMyDesktop.

The 1st video was general rather than specific, and a bit long, so I made a point with the next 3 to make them short & to the point. Unfortunately I used RecordMyDesktop (thinking that I had used it for the 1st video) and only afterwards discovered that it had made a complete abortion of rendering the desktop for each video — the only fix was to delete all three. I work under Devuan ascii; YMMV.

I have SimpleScreenRecorder set to record the desktop as a MP4 file (there are many other options). It does that on the fly, so the file is ready immediately the stop-record button is pressed. I’ve used it under high memory-load conditions without problems.

RecordMyDesktop renders the video only after recording is stopped, and takes some time to do it. Output is to an OGG file, with zero options. On playback the screen kept ‘tearing-up’ whenever the desktop image changed. I tried reducing the memory load, but nothing made any difference. As I had a working alternative I removed RecordMyDesktop from my system to stop me from making the same daft mistake again.

Use a Camera Slate (Clapboard / Clapperboard)

The link at top is for a 1-second YT video, which does what it states on the can; it gives a high-volume crack so that you can co-ordinate sound & vision.

This was missing for my first video, and you can tell.

With all my videos there are separate recordings for sound & vision. SimpleScreenRecorder is capable of recording sound and, indeed, I set it to do so, though there is virtually none to record. Voice is recorded on to my mobile from a bluetooth headset (nice & clear). The problem then is to sync the two.

The YT video (“clapperboard.mpeg”) is a direct copy of the classic way to synchronise the two tracks. The video track from SimpleScreenRecorder shows a single audio-spike at the point of the clapperboard crack, and the audio track from my headset shows the same (I make a point of staying silent whilst the video runs). It is then a simple method of lining the two spikes up to each other (I use Kdenlive and the two tracks are laid out on top of each other). Very simple, very elegant.

Use Key Status Monitor

This is a simple utility that provides a continuous read-out of all keys pressed. That is essential if making a demonstration of how-to use a keyboard-driven computer to do something. The viewer gets a direct readout of which of the 3 mouse buttons and/or which keyboard keys were pressed when you do something. So useful.

OSM in Practical Use — By Historic England

Posted by alexkemp on 12 May 2020 in English.

(Noticed this for the 1st time)

Ploughing through East Yorkshire schools, using a combo of mathmos.net & the government Schools Information Service to add full Address & Contact details to all HU schools, I’ve reached St George’s Primary School off Anlaby Road in Hull. Whilst checking that this was the correct school (very few EY schools — and how absolutely fantastic is it that the entire County has refused to accept the 1975 “Humberside” as their county & gone in their entirety back to “East Riding of Yorkshire”? yeah! — are properly mapped & registered, so it is necessary to check most carefully the mathmos.net correlation) I came across a photo showing on the front of the building that this was a “Board School”, and thus probably established in Victorian times (start_date=1881).

I spent a little time living not too far from this school and, after completing the main mapping, began to try to find when it was built. That brought me to the Hull Carnegie Heritage Centre, where I discovered that the road was started in the 1870s & the school was built in 1881 by the Newington School Board in the very classic Gothic style of that era. The page also states that it is “now a Grade II Listed building and one of Hull’s oldest surviving school buildings”. And here it is (list entry:1197690):–

St George's Primary School

Thus, the HE tags to use for the school (these are specific for the UK):–

  • heritage:operator=Historic England
  • heritage=2
  • listed_status=Grade II
  • HE_ref=1197690
Location: Avenues, Hull, Kingston upon Hull, England, HU5 3EU, United Kingdom

OSM in Practical Use — By an Irish School

Posted by alexkemp on 8 May 2020 in English. Last updated on 10 May 2020.

Just to show how forward-reaching & intelligent the Irish are! You will find the OSM map in use at the extreme bottom of this Contact page for Hazelwood College, Newtownabbey, County Antrim:

It is a remarkably complicated set of <div>s which, at it’s heart, makes use of 4 x .png images to draw the map. It looks very professional (well done NI mappers!).

…and this map at the bottom of Hazelwood Primary School Contact page (just like buses, huh?):

**10 May update:
Having moved on to the HU (East Riding of Yorkshire) postcode, the 5th school I map shows an OSM map at the bottom of the page; hoorah!:

Location: Greencastle, Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

(literal) Crop Circles in Northern Ireland

Posted by alexkemp on 7 May 2020 in English.

5 or more occasions each day currently I go hunting through JOSM imagery looking for road roundabouts. I’m not completely mad; they are the best way (short of making GPS tracks whilst personally surveying) to correct the Imagery offsets for Bing & Esri satellite photos.

The above has happened so frequently lately during this Lockdown period (not being able to go out & survey) that I’ve become utterly obsessed with them, spending half the day, on one occasion, hunting out grass-filled roundabouts to map.

I’m currently mapping schools in Northern Ireland, and the Irish have just a bare fraction of the number & variety of road roundabouts that we English have. However, what I have observed them to have is large road-enclosed circles within their fields. Don’t believe me? Well, I’ve observed more than one. Here is the latest, which I mapped (due south of Downpatrick):

What on earth is that about?

Location: Ballystrew, Marshallstown, Newry, Mourne and Down District Council, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

St Edmund’s College, Hertfordshire

Posted by alexkemp on 5 May 2020 in English. Last updated on 12 May 2020.

I’m astonished at the quality of Herts. schools and, so far, all in close proximity to Ware.

St Edmund’s College

This is a 400 acre site for a co-educational, Catholic college originally established in 1568. It was founded on that date in Douai, France, as a seminary to train priests and (later) also a Catholic school for boys. It transferred to the current site in England in 1793 to escape the depredations of the French Revolution. Girls from the adjacent Poles Convent were first admitted into the Sixth Form in 1975, and the College became fully co-educational in 1986.

St Edmund’s uses the founding date to claim their school as “the oldest Catholic School in England”.

I’m hoping to be able to construct a relation of all the site features, as with Haileybury and Imperial Service College, and have left a message on their answerphone. I’ll bring this little missive up to date if they respond.

Ermine Street

I seem to keep mentioning in these diaries schools that are close to Ermine Street.

Ermine Street runs next to this College (on the East flank). Heath Mount School (see also 21 April) is close to Ermine Street because it is close to Ware (the A10 essentially follows the route of Ermine Street near Ware, whilst Haileybury and Imperial Service College (see also 24 April) virtually has Ermine brushing it’s Western flank as it runs almost due North-South past Hertford Heath.

Ermine Street is an astonishing path. I was aware of it as a young man because I often would travel from my home town of Hull to Lincoln & back, and the main part of that road was the A15/Ermine Street, running straight as an arrow due North-South except for a kink at RAF Scampton.

Whenever you come across the name ‘Street’, then you may be looking at a Roman road; that is certainly true for Ermine Street. It was built to allow speedy travel between London & York, and went via Lincoln. All three, of course, became important centres for Catholic worship.

Interesting Factoid on the Lincolnshire Ermine Street

A great many RAF airfields are built alongside Roman Roads; for the Lincolnshire section of Ermine Street north of the town that is RAF Scampton1. It suffered continual bombardment from German planes during WWII, and that was because it was so easy for them to accurately navigate to the site. It went like this:–

  1. Fly west from Europe across the German North Sea
  2. If north of the Humber then turn left when reaching the coast of England, else turn right, until you reach the mouth of the Humber
  3. Fly due west along the Humber until reaching the kink at Hull, when turn due south
  4. Follow the line of Ermine Street until it kinks to the left
  5. Drop all your bombs on the airfield on the other side of the road

Easy!

  1. For the southern section immediately below Lincoln, it is:

    … and that’s only got us down to Grantham!

    As a bonus extra, I spent a few hours with some friends one night at their cafe somewhere near RAF Waddington in the late 1970s (or early 1980s, I forget which). They said that the cafe was built directly on Ermine Street. As I was getting ready to set off back to Hull a line of geese flew overhead, directly following the line of the Road. It seems that not just the Luftwaffe use Ermine Street for navigation! ↩

Location: Standon, East Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom