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!

All aboard for a special Bilborough day. Ding ding!

This post is still a work in progress. It should be finished by 8 July 

Welcome to a unique post, based on Nottingham City Transport's 35 bus route between Bulwell and Nottingham City Centre, using maps copied from a Burrow's Pointer Guide Map of Nottingham c.1960, which you can find on the Notts History website created and managed by Andy Nicholson.

The blog has been created to accompany a one-off day organised by St Martin's Church, Bilborough, and generously supported by Nottingham City Transport.

The 35 bus route could fairly be designated Nottingham's 'Heritage Bus Route', for it takes you on a ride through history to a string of 'pre-conquest' communities, all with entries in the Domesday Book of 1086, which is a unique record of who owned what in William the Conquerer's England. Look through its pages and you will find place names at every twist and turn of a 35 bus, beginning with Bulwell, them Hempshill, Strelley, Bilborough, Wollaton, Lenton and finally, of course, Nottingham. To hear these place names in Old English is to hear our forebears speak: Bul(e)uuelle; Hamessal; Straelie/Straleia; Bileburch/burg; Waletone/Ol(l)avestone; Lentone/tune; Snoting(e)ham/quin.

If our 35 was able to go back a thousand years, it would also visit, or go very near, two 'lost' Lenton 'pre-Conquest' communities: Mortune and Sudtune/tone (now remembered as Sutton Passeys, the name having been revived in the 20th century). Nine of Nottingham's fifteen pre-Conquest communities are on its route. No other Nottingham bus route comes close to claiming the title 'Heritage Bus Route'.

The map below accompanies an entry on the Our Nottinghamshire website entitled 'A city greater than the sum of its parts'. The 

All the old photographs are from the Picture the Past website, the online image archive of Derby City Council, Derbyshire County Council, Nottingham City Council and Nottinghamshire County Council, where there are thousands more photographs not only to look at, but buy as well.

The old adverts have been taken from a c.1936 Nottingham Official Handbook issued by Authority of Nottingham City Council. It is a treasure trove of information.

The orange line on the six maps below shows the route of the 35 from Bulwell to Nottingham City Centre. Many of the places which existed in 1960 have disappeared completely or have been replaced by parks, hotels, nature reserves, tram-tracks, housing and new roads.

The 35 bus route was created in about 1983. Its predecessors were the 55 between Bulwell and Bilborough and the 63 between Wollaton Vale and the City Centre.

If this Ride into History on a 35 has a theme of sorts, then it is housing. Nottingham has much to be proud off when it comes to housing, For all its black spots in the past and its failure to build more public housing in recent decades, the blame for this can be fairly laid at the door of successive central governments of all political persuasions.

Industry runs housing a close second, though in 2014 there is not much to see. In 1960 it would have been very different.

A trolleybus in Bulwell Market Place (enter years started and finished).

Babbington Colliery also known as Cinderhill Colliery (enter dates)

Holden Square, Cinderhill c1950. Also known as Brickyard Square (check).

 Broxtowe Boy by Derrick Buttress story and link to be entered.

Roman Broxtowe link to be entered.

Broxtowe Hall, demolished to make way for the Broxtowe estate. Location marked by the present-day street name, Broxtowe Hall Close.

Oxmoor Wood, Strelley, within ten minutes walk of the 35 bus (see walk page to be added).

At first glance this could be Tuscany, Italy. In fact its a view from Oxmoor Woods.

Balloon Houses, Bilborough, on the Trowell Road, demolished xxxx.

'Tottlebrook Bridge' on the Derby Road, located a few yards west of what is now the Priory Island roundabout.

Sherwood Foresters in September 1914 crossing the River Leen in Lenton, with the old Rose & Crown pub to the left of the photograph.

Spring Close, Lenton, showing the canal. The area was completely cleared to make way for the construction of the Queen's Medical Centre (add Lenton Times reference and link).

Lenton Lodge at Hillside by the Derby Road (add info)

Lenton Times link to be entered

South-west corner of Derby Road / Lenton Boulevard junction.

Lenton Savoy Cinema in 1949, surrounded by buildings (add info about makeover and when).

Nottingham Victoria Station forecourt, with Hotel to the right. Today, only the clock tower and Victoria Hotel remain.

Trolleybuses on Milton Street, outside the Victoria Hotel, in Nottingham City Centre, c1950. The 35 passes this spot every day as it makes its way to its own stop outside the Victoria Centre, by the entrance to John Lewis.

A view of the old Victoria Station clock tower from the 35 bus stop outside John Lewis.

A view down Angel Row, towards Old Market Square, from Mount Street

(add a 2014 photograph yet to be taken).

NOTTINGHAM CITY CENTRE HISTORY RELATED LOCATIONS

Each number refers to a location. See list beneath map for details (links to be added).