Sadly, it is now too late to put your name forward to be elected on to the Management Committee (nominations are required 14 days in advance) but you can still attend & vote. Of course, it will help if you live close to Gedling Village, Nottinghamshire, UK.

Friday 19 May 2017:– Annual General Meeting

### Youth Centre Trust, Shearing Hill, Gedling The Notice:–

I’ve just mapped the Youth Centre & thought that I should give all the publicity that I could to try to help gather support as it attempts to relaunch itself. It is based within the Old Railway Station for the Great Northern Railway (1875-1960), and thus has extensive facilities available (there is a vast extra building to the RHS of the one pictured), but possibly needs a barrow-load of money to bring them up to scratch:–

… See full entry

Another interesting little snippet from the far north-east section of the Nottingham Suburbs called Gedling Village.

This is to do with Gedling House (see the bottom of Gedling Treasures for Grade II listed information). This posting is to make note of the Walled Garden that the house had, but I’ll first make some brief notes on the origin of the house itself:–

Rear:–

… See full entry

Wood Lane is possibly the original heart of Gedling Village (although after a talk & a meal with the elders of the local tribe last Wednesday, 3 May, I’m moving that node close to the 1,000-year-old All Hallows Church, near the area that the villagers themselves call “Gedling Village”). The average recent prices of houses in Wood Lane is ~£500,000 GBP (€590,000 EUR; $650,000 USD), which is 3 or 4 times a typical price for Nottingham. Much of the area is a Private Road (unadopted), but I’ve got to say that the folks there are most welcoming & not at all snooty (my grandkids & their mum visited me this last Bank Holiday and, after looking at some recent Diary postings, we all decided to take Buddy, their dog, in a walk through Gedling House Woods & Meadows, and had a fantastic time making friends with other, local dogs; Buddy enjoyed it as well).

I had a similar warm welcome & assistance from Dr Soar at Gedling Manor:–

… See full entry

Friends of Gedling House Woods (schools pack)

Here is a (virtual) walk through a wood on the north-east periphery of Gedling Village. These woods & meadows are well looked after by local residents, and they try to help, so here is a taster of what you may see during your journey:–

Text (for Translators):– > Beautiful things to see today
> Small white wood anemones are in flower in the woods. You can see them as you look among the trees from the bottom path of the woods just above the first meadow (the meadow nearest to Wood Lane).

Overhanging the second meadow, but growing in the woods, is an elm tree which has a lovely shade of light green ‘foliage’. On close inspection you can see that what look to be leaves are in fact clusters of seeds.

… See full entry

[See #1 for “Who stole Willow Brook?”]

Did someone steal a Footpath?

Waterhouse Lane was a recent survey, and I’ve never seen so many footpaths & Service Roads coming off the top of a road before — makes it look like a tree. The north-south footpath travels eventually to Lambley, is complete, but has to appear on the OSM map in numerous segments due to the mapping constraints (1-6 is within Gedling streets, 6-10 is within fields & 11/12 are within Lambley):–

• (s-to-n):– [1][2][3][part of Yew Tree Lane][YTL#2][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]

So the North-South public footpath seems complete.

There is also an East-West public footpath (seen clearly on this NLS Map but make sure that you choose “OS 1900s” as the “Background Map”). The E-W footpath appears on those maps to travel from Lambley Lane & stop at Waterhouse Lane, but an access strip is clearly visible on some maps between the end of the footpath & the bend in Wood Lane.

A resident close to the footpath asked me if I knew anything about a continuation of the footpath as described above. He thought perhaps that it had become sealed off. I had to both profess my ignorance in his case & state that I had seen such an occurrence many times elsewhere.

For the record, these are the segments of the E-W public footpath:–

• (w-to-e):– [1][2][3][4][Alma Close][part of Oak Tree Drive][part of Willow Lane][8]

What I find most interesting is the way that these ancients paths persist down the centuries, and how Waterhouse Lane was far more important to Gedling than it at first appears.

My last survey included the best-surfaced https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:unadopted=yes road that I’ve yet seen:– Waterhouse Lane. In the course of that survey I discovered:–

1. Why Willow Brook was dry
2. Yet another (possibly) stolen footpath

Who stole Willow Brook?

One of the residents on Waterhouse Lane told me that it was so-called due to a Water Pump that originally existed in that lane. Today, that Pump has gone. An old OS map shows a stream falling north to south, eventually along this lane, and finally emptying into Ouse Dyke. Only a bit of that old riverbed remains, and it is dry.

Recently the local School’s caretaker showed me the dry riverbed of that stream (this was taken over the fence from Willow Farm School):–

… See full entry

I referred to the wiki entry for https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:man_made=water_well & used the following tags to produce this result:–

• https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:historic=yes
• https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:image=https://www.mapillary.com/map/im/6dIxP4t24DxXw8GWw-YGIQ
• https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:man_made=water_well
• https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:pump=manual

This is not exactly my best photo ever, but the chap that I woke in the middle of the day with my knock on his door was a shift-worker (speaking to me naked from his cottage bedroom window) & I really did not want to disturb him any further, so fled without a better one (the pump handle is on the unseen side; the pump stands at the centre-boundary of two semi-detached cottages):–

… See full entry

(my problem is not in starting, it is in stopping)

1. Begin
2. Desk survey
3. Sources found to Lambley Lane
4. Culvert + stream traced to Willow Park

• Q: When is a stream not a stream
• A1: When it is dry
• A2: When it goes underground

I got to Willow Farm Primary School & it should have been closed due to Easter, but the school gates were open. My good fortune, because the School Caretaker lives in the bungalow near the entrance & came to check me out. After a little conversation he took me to see the stream that ran alongside the school, travels in a culvert beneath the abandoned high-level mineral railway then empties into Ouse Dyke.

This is the stream on the other side of the metal fence but look carefully - there was no water in the stream when I took this photo:–

And here is the culvert (middle of picture) that runs beneath the railway line:–

… See full entry

It has been a mighty long time since I documented some Street Art (the last was some Lions in Gedling, Gedling’s obsession with stick-men, then in Wollaton Avenue but the main last entry was back in November).

This first is Gedling’s variation on Nottingham’s Plaster Boys ‘n’ Girls:–

(that variation appears to be positioning them on the street such that motorists get a sporting chance to mow the actual schoolchildren down, and only then are presented with a line of Plaster Children to warn them not to do so) (the school entrance is behind the photographer & in front of these school_sentrys) (also, notice how Mapillary has carefully blurred every face)

See also:– > https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:man_made=school_sentry

Next is a house-elf (at his feet are rescued cobbles from a Nottingham street):–

… See full entry

I’ve just uploaded some changes to this proposed road on OSM (I’ve also made it an associatedStreet Relation so that all the various connecting roads + roundabout(s) can be viewed together):–

Gedling Access Road (GAR)

Note:– the GAR cannot be viewed in ordinary circumstances on the OSM map until it is built. It has, however, already been mapped. Therefore, the link above will show the whole of the GAR as planned in the context of the current map.

See also:–

• Gedling Council GAR homepage
• Gedling Council LocalPlan homepage
• Gedling LocalPlan Map
• GAR Planning Application (2014/0915) (pdf)
• Notts County Council GAR announcement (20 May 2016)
• Keepmoat Homes announcement of 1,050 new homes (1 June 2016)
•  
• Chase Farm (Diary)
• Mapperley Tunnel (Diary)
• Glebe Farm (Diary)

The map provided from the council shows it passing through the middle of some Retention Lagoons (I certainly hope not - our route misses them).

No GIS is available (that I know of) so I’ve used a combo of what appears to be a detailed, accurate (but tiny) map & a much larger, and out-of-date, inaccurate map to hand-draw as accurate a route as I can manage.

The planned Gedling Access Road (GAR) is a 3.8km road which will run from Mapperley Plains to the A612 at the Burton Road/Nottingham Road and Trent Valley Way junction.

Planning permission for the road was approved in December 2014. Construction works for the road is due to start in (Spring) 2017 with completion set for (Spring) 2019.

Added 10 May 2017:
I’ve recently photographed + mapped the fields north-west of the abandoned Chase Farm (killed by the GAR). The fence on this photo (first one below) is the line that the GAR will take, and the land dead ahead for many miles is what it will travel over (initial work for the Arnold Lane interchange can be seen beyond the fields).

… See full entry

Yet another first:– the first working farm that I’ve mapped (other, non-working, farms in Gedling have been Manor Farm Arnold Lane, Glebe Farm Lambley Lane, Phoenix Farm Arnold Lane 1, Phoenix Farm Arnold Lane 2 & Scot Grave Farm Arnold Road). You can find Gedling Wood Farm farmyard & fields here:

• Gedling Wood Farm

The farmer was enormously helpful; she made a photocopy of the field layout for me and named every field. In return I’ve spent an hour moving the existing https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:landuse=farmland out of the way & have entered the first 6 fields on to the map. I like the way that they are rendered on the standard map; much more subtle than drawing the hedges in.

I’ve got one difficult decision to make. Ordnance Survey have two “Gedling Wood” on the map, which OSM have duplicated + added a third:– [1] is to the north & larger; [2] is invented; [3] is close to the farmhouse & smaller. The farmer named the field containing the smaller wood as “Little Wood”. I’ve got a suspicion that the farmer will know the names of the fields & woods better than the OS do, so am tempted to rename it (and remove the invented wood). Still, that is for tomorrow.

This is the farmhouse; it is ever so much older than you think (1600s - she named some feature about the windows as being an example of that period, but I could not retain it; naturally, the farmhouse also has a well):–

… See full entry

It’s not often that I get the chance to enter something utterly new onto the Map, so please forgive me if I crow a little about this one. However, it will not be very loudly since, although I’m most certainly not an arboriculturist, IMO this copse of trees should be levelled to the ground, burnt to ashes & started again from scratch.

PS
IANAA makes a pleasant change to IANAL, does it not?

Harvey’s Plantation
A circular copse of trees; close to though unconnected with local buildings, it stands amidst farmland and, whilst a couple of hedges and a small stand of trees connect, it is alone. On the ground, local trackways appear to get close, though none connect directly & few are officially mapped. Gedling Council have stated in connection with a Preservation Order on the copse (below) that “…the woodland had been a local landmark for over 100 years and makes an important contribution to the landscape.”

This is a distant view from the North-East (the copse starts at the break in the tree-line at the left):–

… See full entry

My first discovery of a drovers’ road was last February (see also a terrific description by one of the History Girls). I think that I’ve just found another one in Gedling, plus an odd trackway nearby, plus a vast long Public Footpath, and a circular Plantation, all of which are most odd. However, one thing at a time, and for this diary entry it is to be the Public Footpath and a (possibly) unmarked Drovers Road.

The drovers’ road in Ware showed that, typically, Drovers Roads are marked as Public Byways on local signs. There is no such signpost for this one, which is why I keep using the words “if” & “possibly”. The field at the start of a very long Public Footpath [1+2+3+4+5] is most odd & when I saw it I went “THAT’S A DROVERS’ ROAD!!!”. See what you think:–

The original mapper was perplexed by what he saw & put in a fixme within the area (now removed):–

• “not sure of the tagging here - basically it’s just full of thistles and not crops”

… See full entry

Buildings in Gedling worth a second look:–
(see also Key:heritage + Key:listed_status + Key:HE_ref)

Gedling Borough Council claim 200 buildings to have been listed by Historic England within the area that they control, and offer a PDF to download with all such buildings listed by district (the PDF is based on information from a very old listing and not updated). There are just 7 listed for Gedling Village itself. Here are six that I mapped recently + an unlisted extra:–

Hardstaff Almshouses, Gedling

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:heritage=2
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:heritage:operator=he (“Historic England”)
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:listed_status=Grade II
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:HE_ref=1268312 (listing)
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:start_date=1935
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:name=The Mary Elizabeth Hardstaff Homes
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:wikipedia=en:Mary Hardstaff Homes
One of the ladies living here gave me the 3rd Degree interrogation, and with good reason. Many folks photograph these Almshouses on Arnold Lane due to their Grade II listing. The lady did not mind that, but she did mind folks that saw the photos then came round & nicked stuff from the gardens (there are many fine displays of gnomes & such-like in front of the homes). I was sorely tempted to picture some of them, but promised her that, on this occasion, I was photographing only the building:–

… See full entry

[See Part #3 for Summary & Detail on the 2 streams that constitute the source of Ouse Dyke]

Part #3 brought the story of Ouse Dyke from it’s sources up to an old bridge across the lowest point of Lambley Lane. The bridge used to carry the Lane across the Dyke, and the stream still flows in a culvert below that bridge. That culvert follows the course of the original stream through modern housing north of All Hallows Church. I met residents living close-by that recall the original stream as lads & they confirmed each length & dog-leg on it’s way to Willow Park.

From the bridge the stream flowed at the bottom of the South Recreation Park; the culvert today (and the stream yesterday) travels under a walk between #122 & #124 that lets folks get to the Park from Lorimer Avenue.

Here is the bridge, the path of the culvert/stream through the Park & the walk to Lorimer Avenue:–

… See full entry

[If any of the following does not make sense, then read Part #1 / Part #2 first]

Another survey yesterday (Thursday 30 March 2017) & I think that I can now say that the trace from source (or rather, both sources) & the beginning of the line of Ouse Dyke can be established. I needed to return to determine the line of the dyke from the Southern Basin to the beginning of it’s culvert, and then it’s passage between Lambley Lane & Jessops Lane. I’ve not only done both, but have met residents (and in particular a former Gedling Colliery miner) who have told me their memories from 40 years ago (1970s) as children or young men when the Ouse was placed in a culvert, and thus where it now travels, confirmed it’s course within Gedling Country Park and some have expressed concerns that the many streams that fed it may currently be undermining the culvert.

Below is a summary, and then horrible amounts of detail, of those findings:–

Summary

There are 2 streams that are the source for Ouse Dyke:–

1. A stream to the west (name currently unknown) that originates within Mapperley Golf Course, empties into a culvert just north of Kneeton Close, and then travels south and east along the line of a stream which was part of the northern boundary of Gedling Village. After crossing at the dip in Arnold Lane the stream (now culvert) ran almost due east-west and met the 2nd stream in the middle of what is now Lambley Lane Recreation Ground.
2. The eastern stream originates now as a Northern Retention Basin, which overflows into a Southern Retention Basin, which itself overflows into a dyke, which enters a culvert at it’s southern end and flows down to the original line of Ouse Dyke to a bridge across the lowest point of Lambley Lane, then south to Willow Park.

Detail

… See full entry

Just received this PM:

Hi alexkemp,

Fatty200 has sent you a message through OpenStreetMap with the subject Good morning,: > Fatty200
> 31 March 2017 at 11:30

My name is Fatima, please lets talk very well with my email address[ [email protected] ] for good friendship and i will send you my pictures if you want. Thanks and take care.

(someone with the necessary admin clearances, please delete this idiot)
(he has gone - thank you)

(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:–

… See full entry

Oh yes! History is full of the names of famous Explorers, searching for the source…

• 1804 Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark (source of the Missouri River & also the astonishing Lewis and Clark Expedition)
• 1856 Captain Sir Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke (source of the Nile)
• 1866 David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley (source of the Nile)

…and so, in honour of these & other, similar noble exploits, on Sunday 26 March 2017 your mapper selflessly set forth into the wildlands of the heights of Gedling Country Park to discover the source of …, erm, Ouse Dyke (I do wish that they could have given it a bit of a more romantic name) and …, erm, got my Clarks muddy. So yes, no trouble nor expense shared to nobly & selflessly bring the wonders of Gedling slag heap to your door.

A short length of Ouse Dyke was marked up in those heights on the Nottingham City Adopted Highways Register, and I’d noticed obvious signs of a bridge across Lambley Lane that should contain Ouse Dyke (although now culverted), plus manhole covers for a culvert North-South across Lambley Lane Recreation Ground, so I was confident of a result.

Here are some highlights of that mapping session, using my new-new smartphone for the first time:–

A northern basin (mapping), fed by culverts & natural drainage from the surrounding hills. As best as I can tell, this is NOT a source for Ouse Dyke, although goodness knows what Severn Trent does if the rainfall is too large (correction: see later diary with photos of the overflow channel that allows the upper, northern basin to drain into the lower, southern basin and the way that the latter basin overflows into a culvert that is at the head of Ouse Dyke):–

… See full entry

My current mapping is on the eastern edge of Gedling. Gedling prides itself as a village, with an Anglican church that was established in 678 A.D. (the current church is a youngster at 1089 A.D.). Today, someone that lives in a bungalow at Field Close at the rear of the church was proudly pointing out to me the Peregrines that lodge in the niches of the spire. The tower is 90 feet high (27.4m) and the spire is yet another 90 feet, so that gives those dive-bombers an unrivalled perch for launching their attacks.

In spite of it’s history, Gedling is now more or less just another suburb of Nottingham. It does, however, skirt the countryside and I’m mapping on the edge of that country, so here are some views.

Want any Horse Sh.., er, Manure?

Glebe Farm is an abandoned stables just outside of the residential spread that has crept up Lambley Lane. It has suffered decades of blight due to development, the latest of which (“Gedling Access Road”, or “GAR”) looks like it may go ahead. There were some horses in the East fields, a Detectorist scanning the West fields, and below is Milo the dog, an energetic bull terrier that belongs to the lady that looks after the horses. Milo leapt up at me & introduced my buff-coloured trousers to the farm speciality (there are twin piles of the stuff in abundance near the gate if your garden needs any).

… See full entry