I’ve been seeing a lot of lions during my recent surveys in Carlton, Nottingham NG4 (possibly starting with this house), and therefore decided to make this Diary post.

We English seem to be obsessed with Lions – or at the least, obsessed with Lions cast in concrete or stone. One of my open-mouth-in-astonishment moments occurred when I went to see my brother at his home in Huddersfield. The sight that greets you when you leave the train station is of an 11 foot (3.4m) long lion on top of a building (the Lion of St George’s Square — the building had to be specially reinforced to support the original beast that graced the plinth):

The Huddersfield lion has been replaced with a fibre-glass replica, but the 2 Nottingham Lions in Slab-Square are (as best I know) the 1920s originals carved from stone. This is the Oscar, the southern Lion (RHS), photographed by myself a week ago:

… See full entry

2 months ago in my first diary entry I quoted Eriks Zelenka from his diary entry recounting how he had trouble with a “middle-class ‘paranoid guy’” and, eventually, ended up in a police station under arrest. And all of this was because Eriks was surveying for OSM in Wokingham, England. Hmm. Last Thursday I found my very own ‘paranoid guy’ (following me up his street, all the while shouting at the top of his voice “where’s your ID? where’s your ID?”). However, I managed to avoid being thrown into choky.

Much earlier I’d gone past a house with a piece of humorous garden furniture. Later it seemed to refer to this chap, so I went back on Saturday 2 July and photographed it:

… See full entry

The photo below was shot in Carlton on the last day of June. Alistair Cooke (the British writer & presenter of Letter from America until his death in 2004) said that America was the best country to be in to witness Autumn/Fall, and Britain the best country for Springtime but, as we all know, in June the flowers do bloom.

Many thanks to the (unknown) householder at #12 for a wonderful display.

It has taken 4 months, but it seems that finally, yesterday, I may have got the hang of how to photograph a sequence for Mapillary that works.

1. Photo of the top part of a terrace on Carlton Hill
   (click the down-arrow, twice)
2. 2nd photo
3. 3rd photo

With sufficient overlap between the frames Mapillary will stitch them together, then show them in an interesting way. In really slow motion. It’s a good facility, which can be used to show stuff in a useful manner.

The terrace seems to be a typical Victorian terrace of 4 houses. However (and as the 1st photo shows below) for some reason it has a small-width extension at the left side which extends at an angle forward to the length of the terrace (scaffolding had been recently erected at that end of the terrace):

… See full entry

The main trunk roads out of Nottingham are on the West & lead either to or across the M1 (the main English east-coast 6-lane motorway built in the 1970s). On the East side – which is where I live – most of the roads leading out of the town are B-roads, such as the B686 which can eventually take you to Southwell (pronounced locally as ‘suth-ell’) and Newark. That road is better known in Nottingham as Carlton Road then – at the point where Nottingham ends & Gedling begins – as Carlton Hill. At the top of that hill is (surprise, surprise) Carlton + Carlton shops.

If you are getting an impression of small-town & suburban for Carlton, then you are exactly right. The oldest date that I’ve spotted for a house in Carlton is 1906. The housing is mostly 1920/30s semi-detached with some Victorian (or later) Terraces + detached houses sprinkled amongst them.

The development of the shops is also a classic tale. Carlton is built upon a hill, and Carlton Hill is the road that leads in and out of Carlton on both sides. Enterprising householders at the top of the rise would have begun a shop in their front-room & extended into the back-room if successful.

However, there is not much room; the B686 is just 2 lanes and the maximum width on the pavement is only 3 metres. How very surprising, then, to see (what appear to be) two 10m+ surveillance masts in the middle of the pavement, one at either side + either end of the shopping street:

… See full entry

Tesco Carlton provide a well-maintained grassed area with trees, tucked unobtrusively between their store & Foxhill Road East. It has a wooden seat + rubbish bin, and was the perfect area on Thursday 23 June to eat a sandwich, choccy-bar + can of coke after a hard afternoon’s surveying.

Refreshed, I went on to acquire the contact details for the Carlton Police Station (it turned out to be ‘999’) (joke), then went home.

Coda October 2016:

I order to be able to build their superstore at the centre of Carlton, Tesco needed to be able to get a demolition order on a Children’s Primary School and also — and this is the one that blows my mind — get a churchyard deconsecrated (almost impossible for other businesses, but Tesco managed to do it). Guess where the old churchyard was located? Yes, you guessed it… it is the “well-maintained grassed area” where I took my rest.

On the Bing imagery within JOSM and (sacrilege!) Google maps (make sure that ‘Earth’ is enabled) you can find a Flood Lagoon nestled amongst all the Nottingham houses in Carlton, Nottingham NG4. The problem is that OSM does not have a “man_made:flood_lagoon” key/value, so I cannot show it to you on the OSM map (I made up what seemed to me to be the closest to what it should be but, of course, openstreetmap.org will neither store it nor show it).

Discovery:

I was surveying the even numbers on Foxhill Road Central on Monday 20 June when I came across a kiddie’s playground at the corner-junction of Foxhill & Carnarvon Grove. See if you can spot in this picture the single sign of this flood lagoon (hint: it is the locked-gate entry to a narrow strip of grass + workman’s hut at the back of the playground):—

My spider senses were tingling, but none of the locals that I asked knew what the hut was for.

… See full entry

I guess that I may be becoming obsessed, but I really like some of these front-door leaded light displays. Just 2 from yesterday’s (Thursday 23 June) survey down the odd numbers on Foxhill Road (signs of intelligence? I started at the top of the hill):—

Who’s that fool taking a photo?

Ah! Stayed out of the picture this time:

… See full entry

I was eulogising about House Art in these Diaries last Sunday 19 June, starting with a fine example of etched glass set within Leaded Lights in Hillview Road. The following day I set off on a long trek down the length of Foxhill Road West, followed by Central & East. Blow me down, but it was not very long before another superb example showed up:

It got worse. Halfway down was the Richard Herrod Sports Centre and, just beyond it, a former golf course recently converted into a housing estate. Every single house had a similar front door!

A little earlier was a more light-hearted example of this species: a house with a red squirrel climbing up a metal fence:—

… See full entry

Each School Crossing in Nottingham NG3 & Gedling NG4 has little plaster guardians. Here’s the very first one that I pictured on the OSM map (placed 3 April 2016, it is on a traffic choker on Gordon Road, outside of the Bluebell Hill Primary School:—

…and here is the latest one, which is on Foxhill Road East, placed on the Zebra Crossing outside of the Carlton Central Infant & Nursery School (school was turning out as I took this picture last Monday, as you tell by all the cars parked close to the zebra):—

… See full entry

Here are some nice examples of art expressed in the houses themselves. Only one full example, but first let’s start with a very beautiful front door in Hillview Road, Porchester, Nottingham NG4 (etched glass + stained glass leaded-lights):

Next is a modest little shield on the wall of a house in Ernest Road, NG4 (we English have been much influenced by the heraldry of the 14th Century):

… See full entry

I use Mapillary to upload photos to & to store in the OSM map (a JOSM plugin allows them to be uploaded + shown on the map) (that also allows them to be shown in these diary entries). Mapillary sends me weekly emails, telling me currently that I’ve uploaded a total of 724 photos & have a total of 741 views. Which is not a lot.

This was last week’s most popular photo:—

I think that my photo viewers need to get out more.

You will need to be of a certain age & British before the words “Bill & Ben” or The Flowerpot Men mean anything to you (both of those caveats ring true for me). In this next bit of garden/street art, the home owner in Highfield Drive, Carlton has decided that they prefer Little Weed to Bill & Ben:—

The final example of house/street art is from Standhill Avenue, Carlton and, as a silver salamander, is very different to Bill & Ben:—

… See full entry

The streets & civic boundaries (though not Parish/Ecumenical boundaries) are well sorted for Nottingham & district; well done SK53 & will_p for a fantastic amount of effort to create that (at least in my neck of the woods). That prior work occasionally needs a small trim here or there, but mostly my survey work is to add house number/names. It is useful exercise & gets me out of the house, but can be very boring. Fortunately, Nottingham folk are house-proud, love their gardens & are naturally creative, and spotting the results all helps to keep me awake. Here are some more examples from Standhill Road, Gedling:—

As I understand it, it was british Victorians that began to name their terraces as “Villas”, and to often include the start-date. There are good examples of this in a little terrace of 5 houses; I especially love the ‘bird’s nest’ below the number for Hazel Villa:

…but it’s the owner of Vivian Villa that has really gone to town with the pot plants:

… See full entry

Thursday, on a blistering 9 June (followed up by thunderstorms on the weekend, which is classic weather for England) and I finally get to do some surveying out of my Home patch.

My Home patch is Nottingham NG3 – just a kilometre from the town centre – and everything that I’ve surveyed so far has been more-or-less well known to me. Now, finally, I get to the end of that patch. Here is the proof, with the 1877 Borough of Nottingham Boundary Marker outside the Peacock Health Centre where Carlton Road becomes Carlton Hill (it is also a node on the map; you can discover what the node-number is in JOSM by using View | Advanced info (Ctrl-I)):—

This is where Nottingham becomes Gedling, and also where the NG3 postal-district becomes NG4.

My first houses were Carlton Hill & Standhill Road. I’m going to keep surveying the houses west across the hill & to the other side. I’m interested to see what I will find.

… See full entry

Whilst surveying on Florence Road last Sunday 5 June, I finally began to get some answers to a perennial question that has come up ever since I began surveying for OSM back in March of this year:—

“Why is that house number missing?”

Now, this may never affect you and, if so, I congratulate you on your mental stability. For myself, years of computer programming have deepened my natural state. Something like the situation in Florence Road can create the equivalent of a mental itch that I cannot scratch that can last for days or weeks, months or years…

The house numbers in Florence Road flow naturally from Porchester Road to Hillview Road; even numbers on the south-side, odd numbers on the north-side. There are additions here and there (‘48’ & ‘48a’, ‘19’ & ‘19a’) and some “teeth” missing (only a gap between numbers 20 & 26), but what causes me to stare hard is number 43, which has 45 on the up side (no problems there) and 39 on the down side. What has happened to 41! Whilst contemplating this, the lady owner pulled up in her car & gave me the answer.

Florence Road was originally part of the Earl of Carnarvon’s estate, and was divided out into Allotment plots + sold off for houses. Her house was built on 2 adjacent plots (thus originally designated for 2 houses but only the one actually built). She also mentioned that the nearby Punch Bowl was originally the Earl of Carnarvon’s Estate House and, in so doing, transferred all of my original itch (missing house number) to “Earl of Carnarvon”. Who he?

… See full entry

In the fewest possible words:—

1. Clothes — keep covered from the heat with cottons/silks
2. Hydration — small, continuous drinks of water
3. Salt ‘n’ sugar — water is not enough
   (surprise: Coke/Pepsi are ideal, if expensive & burpy)

It is currently 21:25, 20℃ & 68% humidity in Nottingham. It was far, far hotter whilst surveying this afternoon on Carlton Hill, and I was struggling to keep my head intact (losing too much salt via sweating).

The message about hydration seems to have got through to the young, but I’m not sure if the message on electrolytics (salt) has. Here is a tale from the 1970s; it was sufficiently dramatic that I learnt it for ever.

I was in my 20s, married with a young child, and the collapse in the value of the £ (GBP) + soaring inflation had meant that my so-called good job would no longer pay the mortgage. I found another job. That saw me canvassing for lemonade sales door-to-door 10am-4pm at this time of year in similar weather. I was guzzling lemonade throughout the day at an astonishing rate of knots.

The residential estate I was working was at the top of a hill, so the route home was downhill all the way. The vehicle I was driving was a Commer van, heavy in itself and still loaded up with crates of lemonade. My first intimation that I was not in a fit state to drive was when I drove smack into the back of a car parked at the side of the road.

I knew it was there, but had become transfixed at the wheel and my reactions were so slow that I hardly diverted away from the vehicle. The back of the car was written off, the Commer van was barely scratched. The folks that owned the car had just loaded it up ready to set off on holiday. Thankfully, no-one was hurt; just bent metal & disappointed dreams.

… See full entry

What’s this about Nottingham & Donkeys?

Close to where I live is what is (reputed to be) the steepest hill in Nottingham. It’s official name is Saint Bartholomew’s Road, but every local calls it “Donkey Hill”, and the name seems to go back some distance. It was apparently known as Bartholomew Stile Footway in 1882 (my house deeds show the first lessee at 24 June 1883, and it is likely that the first houses built locally date from then, or shortly before that date). It seems that Donkey Hill itself was a footpath surrounded by fields & allotments for quite some time. Finally, a St. Bartholomews Church (CoE high-church) was built in 1902 on Blue Bell Hill Road, in the area now known as Wickens Walk, and torn down as part of the St. Anns clearances of the 1970s.

According to the nottstalgia.com forum, “Bartholomews stile (or style) marked the edge of the borough of Nottingham”. Gedling & Lambley borders are further away today.

Freda Avenue is in competition as the steepest hill in Nottingham, and Lascelles Avenue (the next avenue on the same hill) is also called Donkey Hill by the locals.

Finally, I was surveying last Sunday 5 June at Hillview Road. Opposite where Standhill Road meets Hillview is a Footpath that runs between 64 & 66 Hillview and goes steeply down to Simkin Avenue, passing across Pilkington Road on the way. At the bottom of Simkin Avenue is the bottom of the hill, and dead ahead is Marshall Hill Drive which climbs the other slope.

As I walked down a lass was walking up the other way. I asked her if the Footpath had a name. She confidently told me it was called “Donkey Step”. What is it about Nottingham & Donkeys!

The line of Donkey Steps is a touch eerie:— the footpath itself is very straight, as is the line with Simkin Avenue & Marshall Hill Drive. Here is the view from the top:

… See full entry

• March 2016: I begin using JOSM + Terracer
• March 2016: my first bug-report
  Leaving “keep outline way” NOT selected + associatedStreet relation IS selected causes an exception when ‘OK’ is pressed
  (the developers have more important matters to attend to than Terracer)
• April 2016 - May 2016: (after each JOSM update, another bug-report)
  Leaving “keep outline way” NOT selected + associatedStreet relation IS selected causes an exception when ‘OK’ is pressed
  (each time, the developers have more important matters to attend to than Terracer)
• 5 June 2016: Debian Jessie Updates to 8.5
  (Debian updates 4 June; I update the following day)
• 5 June 2016: JOSM Updates to 10327
• 5 June 2016: JOSM Plugins Update to 32158
• 5 June 2016: the ‘normal’ bug-report, with an extra twist
  Leaving “keep outline way” NOT selected causes an exception when ‘OK’ is pressed.
  Leaving “keep outline way” IS selected causes an exception when ‘OK’ is pressed
  (essentially, terracer is almost unusable if relation is also selected )

It is important now to NOT select “keep outline way” within the Terracer dialog, as otherwise the original house is left beneath the terrace and, for some reason, it is now almost impossible to separate the two. In addition, previously the associatedStreet relation was correctly created for all houses. Now, many houses do not have it created (although the odd one does).

I find the combo of Building Tools + Terracer to be the best method for entering any house (detached, semi-detached or actual terrace) onto the map using JOSM, and the simplest to do so + create an associatedStreet relation at the same time. Now, each & every house causes a software exception.

Oh, spit.

… See full entry

Friday 3 June was spent surveying Norman & Morley Roads, both off Porchester Road, Nottingham NG3, and the previous days in the week were spent surveying Forester Road & Cherrywood Gardens + Porchester Road itself.

I live in NG3 but these lands are more foreign to me, since they are within the Gedling council district (my local council is Nottingham town). It is only a kilometre or so away from my home, yet feels very different. One immediate (and welcome) difference is that the signposts each have their postcode upon them. Very useful.

I also make use of the postcode lookup provided by Raggedred.net. The following URL added within Preferences (menu:Edit|Preferences|WMS/TMS) gives the postcode within each centroid within JOSM:

tms:http://www.raggedred.net/tiles/codepoint/{zoom}/{x}/{y}.png

… See full entry