There are hidden gems at the corner of Arnold Lane & Mapperley Plains, both above & below ground.

The first item to be found travelling out from Nottingham town is a gas pipeline site, but let’s gloss over that.

Next is the 3WScouts site, and I think that it may be the best pocket-location for Scouts in the UK (it was locked up when I called last Wednesday, but this shot taken through the gate may give an indication of the delights behind) (or look through the photos at the 3WScouts website):–

The 3WScouts training ground is called “Pepperpots”. The photo below comes from the 3W website (I’m hoping to be able to arrange to take one of my own), and is one of the two sources for that rather odd name (the other Pepperpot is hidden within the woods at the eastern end of the site):–

The reason for these odd structures and for the long, thin nature of much of the site lies beneath the ground. Mapperley Tunnel was built to carry the Great Northern Railway under Mapperley Ridge (I love tunnels! see here to find someone that is even madder than me about these things). As geology would have these things, Plains Road and Mapperley Plains (they are one road in spite of the name-change) run along the ridge, whilst the tunnel passes diagonally directly under the place where Arnold Lane & Gedling Road (also one road) cross the ridge-line.

That tunnel explains the Pepperpots, as they were built on top of the tunnel vents. In more recent years those Pepperpots were used as dumping grounds for rubbish, and that may also explain how the Scouts managed to obtain their grounds. Whatever is the full story, the Pepperpots training site is based directly above & along the Mapperley Tunnel.

Further geology interfered with the tunnel after only 50 years of it’s existence. The tunnel was in use by 1875, but in 1900 the first shafts were sunk by the Digby Coal Company almost on top of the tunnel entrance. The railway now became a Mineral Railway, and was mighty useful for what became Gedling Pit, but only 25 years after the pits were established Mapperley Tunnel suffered it’s first subsidence. Such problems continued & in 1960 the whole line was shut down.

As a sad postscript to this story, the Gedling Access Road (GAR) threatens this wonderful site. Read more on http://www.savepepperpots.com/.

Update 2 July 2022

Mapillary has changed it’s download URLs & therefore all links within my diaries that use photos stored in Mapillary 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).