(If any of the following does not make sense, then read Part #1 first)

It’s raining heavily this morning so no field survey (it kills the smartphone), but some most valuable desk-surveys using NLS - OS 1:25k 1st Series 1937-61 imagery within JOSM + a phone-call (+44 (0) 800 783 4444) to Severn Trent Water.

The culvert from Mapperley Golf Course was (badly) mapped using one of the NLS maps — probably NLS - Bartholomew Half Inch, 1897-1907, which is very low resolution and, in any case, few of them help much in accurate mapping. I’m going to trim the line of the culvert from Mapperley Golf a little to match the higher-res NLS maps; one of the reasons for this is that this brings the line of the culvert not only into line with the stream on those maps (one of the points where the earlier mapping went bad) but also with the point where that stream crosses Arnold Lane. At the moment the culvert passes straight through some houses on both The Fairway and High Hazles Close (not very likely) then across Arnold Lane north of the Village boundary. It is far more likely to have followed the original line of the stream, which would also have been Gedling Village boundary at that point. That would have taken it under the line of The Fairway (a private road) and across the bottom of the High Hazles Close’ gardens (that is almost due East-West, with the gardens to the north & a playing field to the south, a line of hedges in between. The old stream/OSM culvert then pops out close to the signpost on Arnold Lane that says “Gedling Village”, which also the lowest point of Arnold Lane on that section of road and thus where you would expect a stream to flow:–

All of the pre-WW2 maps show two streams meeting within the Northern Recreation area, and that has put a big grin on my face!

The conversation with STW concentrated on culverts and was considerably complicated by my need to give him X-Y references drawn from the Adopted Highways register map and to keep cross-referencing to my marker points within JOSM. However, I was able to establish that yes, an (almost) East-West culvert joins with the southern man-hole cover and then runs south to the bridge. I’ve also established the precise location of where the northern spur meets the surface-drain. Most excellent! Final mapping on this section will have to wait for a final survey to establish some GPS tracks for the current drain/Ouse Dyke to the north (hopefully tomorrow).

One feature that I find so very interesting in all this is the way that modern culverts (as just one instance) follow ancient streams. I guess that it is simply engineers taking the line of least resistance (as, indeed, did the stream before them). In this particular case, the meeting point for the two streams in the maps is almost exactly on top of the southern manhole, which makes life very simple.

To try to help keep some eyes on the page, here is a couple of photos showing the bridge for Ouse Dyke across Jessops Lane (originally called “Hanging Lane”, the old road made a dog-leg at this point, although the modern road is straight) and then the stream (plus duck) on the other side as it makes it’s way into Willow Park, and finally at the opposite end of Willow Park before it becomes culverted again:–

(see Part #3 for completion of the search)

Update 4 July 2022

Mapillary has changed it’s download URLs & therefore all links within my diaries that used photos stored in Mapillary in the old format are broken. 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).