Why Nottingham City Transport's 35 History Bus deserves to be better known

Preparing for Nottingham City Transport's official launch today of their 35 History Bus Guide I came across this poster published in 2014 to publicise the first free day out organised by TravelRight and led by me. The poster below was designed by local historian and graphic designer Chris Matthews and put up in community centres and libraries along the route of the 35.

That bus on Saturday 24 May 2014 was one of a new generation of double-decker buses returning to the route after a decade of it being single deckers and it was driven by Anthony Carver-Smith, NCT's Publicity Manager, the man behind this latest guide. Without him none of these things would have happened and that I thank him sincerely.

I love the crisp lines of Chris's poster and how it draws in the eye in.

Chris has an online link to his version of my 35 History Guide (click here to see Chris's version), which uses my text but is very different to mine. I love it all the same as I do NCT's version designed by Nicola. I doubt if there is another bus route England which has received as much attention. By my calculation five guides in five years, albeit three by me (one for Bilborough, one for Lenton and one for the city centre)

Chris's poster gives away our shared interest in promoting and remembering the historic importance of municipal housing, better known to most as council housing. I love the juxtaposition on the poster of prefabs in Bulwell, which the 35 passes right by as it makes a final dash from Cinderhill Island to Bulwell Bus Station, with Wollaton Hall. The latter might fairly be described as a rich man's folly insomuch as it served no useful purpose as far as the ordinary folk who lived in its shadow for over 300 years before it was bought by Nottingham City Council in the early 1920s, except to remind them whose power and wealth it was that condemned them to live in poverty (I suspect that most did not see it in these terms, that was the way life was ordered and they made of it what they could). A good comparison for us in 2018 is to think of our childhoods and how we accepted the world we knew as the order of things. Time and again people say, despite the comparative poverty, how much they enjoyed their childhood. It's certainly how I feel about growing up in the post-war 1940s and 1950s.

The 35 is such a great urban bus route as much for what it represents as for what it is. Here, on a 54 minute bus journey, is a little glimpse of England!

This will be my message today when I attend the launch of NCT's 35 History Bus Guide at Wollaton Hall in less than 80 minutes from now!

A page about the 35 bus route and the new Nottingham City Transport Guide which has been published in the latest issue of Breeze, a door-to-door free magazine on the west side of Nottingham.

Click on image to enlarge and read.

A Homemade 35 poster

A photograph I took in 2008. I have it mind to create some stark posters promoting the 35 History Bus. One a week I think.

How the 35 History Bus helps reveal a city which grew from the outside in

I admit to getting a little buzz every time I see a 35 bus with its History Bus 35 logo emblazoned on its sides, because it can be traced back to a question I was asked at the end of 2013: 'If you had a Nottingham bus for a day where would you take people to see the city's history?'

I didn't need to think. I knew the answer already. 'On a 35 bus from Bulwell to Nottingham Central Library'.

At the time, Nottingham City Council was funding a temporary initiative to promote cycling, walking and using public transport on the north-west side of city, called TravelRight, which was based in Bulwell and they had come up with the idea of a series of local history walks and recruited, Chris Matthews, one of Nottingham's top local historians to help them.

It was to Chris that TravelRight first posed the question and he kindly suggested that it was a question they should ask me. At the time I was mid-way through a six year stint of running the Angel Row History Forum, which met quarterly in Nottingham Central Library's Local Studies Library, with the support of Library staff and the Nottinghamshire Local History Forum (NLHA).

The 35 was the progenitor of a response by me to the 900th anniversary events held in 1986 to mark the compiling of William the Conquerer's survey of England, which became know as 'The Domesday Book' because it was subsequently used to settle arguments about who owned what and records, for much of England, in minute detail who owned what and where in 1086, including Nottinghamshire.

The local historian in me has always been (and remains) a vocal critic of Nottingham City Council's 'citycentric' approach to local history and promotion of Nottingham as a tourist and visitor 'destination' — I did live in Lenton between 1979 and 1984, a place which has played a large part in the making of the Nottingham we know today. Had there not been the powerful Lenton Priory a mile south-west of the town, the Nottingham we know today would be very different.

The coalescence of Nottingham into a city greater than the sum of its parts remains a largely untold story. Without the likes of  Bulwell, Bilborough, Wollaton, Lenton, Radford and its other Domesday settlements, Nottingham today might be no more than a small town with a ruined castle. The map below dates from 2008 and shows places recorded in the 1086 Survey/Domesday Book by Nottingham City Council ward boundaries (these will change in May 2019)

I subsequently compiled another map in 2010 showing extant Domesday communities (Sutton Passeys disappeared during the medieval period, but is believed to have been subsumed into the Wollaton Hall estate and when the City Council built council houses on the estate's eastern edge in the 1920s the main road on the new housing estate was given the name 'Sutton Passeys Crescent' (Morton was another lost medieval village, now under Nottingham University's main campus, near the Portland and Trent buildings. My wife, Susan, took part in trial excavations in c.1970 whilst studying history and archaeology at the university, so its location is known).

So, what I hope the above maps show you is that there is no truth in the story that 'In the beginning there was just Nottingham and as it grew it took over the surrounding land...' You might argue that the 35 bus reveals a city which grew from the outside in — not the other way round — all of which makes it worthy of its new name as Nottingham City Transport's History Bus 35. Look carefully and you can see these roundels on the side panels of every 35 bus:

Ride the 35 on You Tube thanks to a guy called Matt

I am not a great user of the web when its comes to things like Facebook and You Tube, but I have recently found two wonderful videos on the latter, posted by a guy called 'Matt' showing the full journey of the 35 in both directions from the front seat on the top deck. The videos are each just over 5 minutes long, so the journey is done in 'quick time'. Here are the links (just click on the underlined link to open):

VICTORIA CENTRE TO BULWELL JOURNEY

BULWELL TO VICTORIA CENTRE JOURNEY

Ideally it would be great to add a brief commentary to the videos for the bus stops where you can get off to explore. I will try to make contact with Matt.

The first 35 ran on 26 October 1980, linking the city’s very new University Hospital (better known as ‘the Q.M.C.' to locals) with Bilborough, Strelley, the Broxtowe Estate and Bulwell direct for the first time. 

In other words the 35 bus is within weeks of celebrating its 35th anniversary. When I lived in Lenton I could see the 35 bus from my living and bedroom windows, living, as we did, within view of the Derby Road in on one of Nottingham’s three Promenades (ours was Devonshire, overlooking Lenton Recreation Ground; the others are The Promenade and Waterloo Promenade). All Victorian, all elegant, overlooking open space. From then on I was using the 35 regularly to reach The Headstocks pub on the edge of the ward I was fighting in the 1981 Nottinghamshire County Council election, which was six months away, and the home of my agent. The 35 was always there, reliable, convenient, full of life. It was, and remains, everything a bus route should be, with the added bonus of being rich in history and places to visit.

Finally, at the same time as I found Matt’s 35 videos I found this one. Enjoy...

ALSO LOUGHBOROUGH TO NOTTINGHAM ON A NOTTINGHAM CITY TRANSPORT NO.1 BUS.

Nottingham City Transport’s 'Orange 35 History Guide’ goes public

Last Saturday (23 September) saw a gathering of Nottingham buses in the Old market Square to mark Nottingham City Transport's 140th anniversary. It was busy and I, so wrapped up talking to people I knew, came away with only a couple of photographs and one of these was taken by someone else.

As I was taking this pic of one of my homemade Nottingham bus boxes placed on the engine cover of the most handsome bus on show (excluding the trolleybus)...

Chris Gent from Sherwood was taking a pic of me in the process, we then spent the next 20 minutes talking about our shared interest in local history.

The event saw a new (free) Nottingham City Transport leaflet and guide being made available to visitors:

It is based on previous leaflets about the 35 bus route I have published in conjunction with other groups (TravelRight; Nottinghamshire Local History Association and Bilborough Local History Society) over the past four years. NCT approached me earlier this year and of course I said 'yes' and was more than happy to help them. Like all such guides the hardest decisions are about what to leave out! This decision was made, in the end, by NCT and I am happy with the decisions they made.

You can pick up a copy from NCT's Travel Office on Old Market Square. It has yet to be officially launched, so this is all I'll say for now.

I am working on updating my 35 walking maps, but there are distractions (which you can read about on my BeestonWeek blog).

A 35 visit to Bulwell

Over the next 10 weeks I am planning to  create and publish in this blog a new collection of 35 History Bus maps and guides, together with photographs. Nottingham City Transport's 35 bus route is one I never tire of despite being an on and off user since it was first introduced in 1983.

Back then I was a (Labour Party) Nottinghamshire county councillor living in Lenton and representing the then Portland ward, which covered Cinderhill, Stockhill, Old Basford and Highbury Vale. My agent lived in Cinderhill, so the coming of the 35 enabled me to go as good as door-to-door, which I did most weeks. I had a car (I still do), but the great advantage of a bus is that you can get on and off where you please, whereas with a car you always have to go back to where you started. 

The map below is the first of a collection which I am creating 19 x 19 cm square. This makes them easy to capture and print off. I hope, at some point, to add the maps as downloadable pdf files (I also have a website at www.historybybus.org.uk, but this is out-of-date and needs to be rebuilt, which I plan to do over the next few months. In the meatime this blog is the easier option).

The Bulwell map is followed by a selection of photographs. Over the next week I will add captions. In the meantime simply enjoy.

Click on an image to enlarge.

Add caption

The 35’s wild side - more than a walk in a park

A long time since I've posted. The good news is the 35 bus continues to run as frequently as ever. I've been going through a poorly patch (you can read about other parts of my life on my beestonweek blog (see link in right-hand column).

I have a sponsor for a revised 35 History Bus Map and will be updating the map as soon as I have finished some existing commitments (bus boxes for a friend's wedding and a new Beeston Town Centre map for Beeston Civic Society, and a birthday commission for a friend).

The new map will highlight the 35's 'wild side', making more of the nature reserves it goes close to and and other 'overgrown places' within a few minutes of a 35 bus stop.

I hope to find the time to bring together the 35 bus walks you can find littered across this blog and my old parkviews blog and the beestonweek blog too.

I have it mind to create a series of themed walks around history, housing, people and the wild side. To start with the latter, a selection of pics from older blogs, complete with links:

River Leen by Bulwell Bog in view of 35 teminus.

Oldmoor Wood, Strelley, a tree creeper. 10 minutes walk from Wigman Road Top.

Oldmoor Wood at bluebell time.

View from Trowell Moor, a 5 minute walk from the top of Wollaton Vale.

A stream through Harrison Plantation Nature Reserve, 15 minutes from Bracebridge Drive enroute to the Derby Road, both served by the 35.

Old Nottingham Canal Nature Reserve path 10 minutes from Wollaton Vale.

Dunkirk Pond Nature Reserve, a pleasant 15 minute walk across Nottingham University's main campus from the 35 North Entrance bus stop.

The Tottlebrook footpath linking Nottingham University's main campus with Dunkirk.

Nottingham City Council cut-backs have resulted in Tottlebrook and its corridor of green not getting the attention it used to. There have always been blackberries to pick, but now they overhang the footpath in bunches like grapes. 

This footpath follows the old course of the River Leen from Grove Road in New Lenton to Gregory Street in Old Lenton before it's diversion c.100 years ago. A short half-hour walk from the Derby Road Savoy Cinema 35 bus stop to the route's DErby Road Hillside bus stop within sight of where the present-day course of the Leen goes beneath the Derby Road. The walk passes the sparse ruins of the medieval Lenton Priory, then along beside the Leen to Hillside.

The Leen between Abbey Street and the Derby Road follows the course of the old Nottingham Canal and runs beside Nottingham's QMC Hospital and Treatment Centre. It can fairly be described as a green watery corridor.

Not as overgrown as it was, but the Priory (pocket) Park at the junction of Gregory Street and Abbey Street, still seems a little wild to me. Perhaps that's because it's one my favourite Lenton Places.

Lenton's Holy Trinity (parish) Church is on Church Street, across Lenton's historic recreation ground, and within view of the 35 bus stop beside the park. Much of the year the churchyard is overgrown which allows snowdrops and the Lenton Crocus to form carpets of white and mauve across the ground. The crocuses are said to have come from France with the Cluniac monks who founded Lenton Priory in c.1109 (it lasted until 1538 when Henry VIII's Dissolution brought about its closure and subsequent destruction).

And what makes all these links possible is a large fleet of orange coloured Nottingham City Transport buses on routes 34, 35 and 36.

Which nicely brings me to what has prompted this post, a BBC news story yesterday about a scenic bus route in North Yorkshire called 'The Coastliner', which makes just 4 journeys a day, and one of my favourite Radio 4 programmes, 'Open Country'. Whenever buses make the news I am delighted. They get scant attention, so the Coastliner story prompted me to email Open Country and suggest they come and spend a day exploring Nottingham's wild places on a 35 bus:

I've been a long time Open Country listener and, living in the Beeston part of the Nottingham conurbation, I particularly enjoy the urban episodes. The ‘Most Scenic’ Bus Route Vote news story (BBC News website today, 28 May) prompts me to contact you about my historybybus blogspot which promotes Nottingham City Transport’s 35 bus route between the city centre and Bulwell on the city’s north-west edge. During the course of its journey it passes by or near many ‘wild locations’, a good few of which are nature reserves. The 35 runs every 10 minutes during the day Monday-Saturday (3 per hour evenings and Sunday).

Nottingham City Transport have given several local groups buses for the day over recent years so that I could introduce folk to the joys of the 35 bus route. 

The idea just struck me that perhaps Open Country could get a 35 bus for a day and fill it with Nottingham folk who Open Country could talk to about the city’s  open country you can easily explore by 35 bus? 

The idea is, I hope, novel, and will, of course, help publicise one of England.’s great urban bus routes, that is very wild in places.

Visit my historybybus blogspot to get an idea of just how of Nottingham can be fairly described as ‘open country’! 

Yours

Robert Howard.

We shall see...