Lofty views show a changing city
TODAY we have a bird’s-eye view of a few well-known buildings in the city, some taken when they were in better condition or before they were demolished. And in the case of the school featured before additional extensions and even a whole primary school had been added.
It was in the news again recently, when another fire broke out – one of many over the years. Yes, it is a wonderful view of Great Northern Road , the Friar Gate Goods Yard and the former bonded warehouse in photograph (1).
Prevented from being demolished by being Grade II listed, the building appeared to lose much of its roof in the recent blaze but its solid construction dates back to 1877.
It was used to receive, store and dispatch goods through Friar Gate railway station, which closed to public use in 1963.
Freight services were discontinued in 1967 but the building remained in use until 1971 to house the rolling stock of the British Rail Research section.
Taken in 1987, this photograph shows a roof that was very much intact. It also shows the East Midlands Electricity Board building with the flat white roof in Great Northern Road and Stafford Street towards the bottom of the image, going from left to right.
The new Derby Cathedral School is currently being built on 11 acres of the land which is adjacent to the warehouse.
In photograph (2), the warehouse is seen from a different angle, alongside the outline of the old Friar Gate station, where trains stopped with goods for the warehouse.
To the right of the same image, which was taken in 1984, is the former greyhound stadium – and former prison site – in Vernon Street.
The greyhound track opened in 1933 after the old prison was largely demolished apart from the walls and dramatic facade, and the last race was run there on December 7, 1988.
Towards the top of the picture is Uttoxeter New Road cemetery, the first to be opened in the town in 1843.
Further along Uttoxeter New Road, we find Bemrose School in photograph (3). Taken at the same time as the previous two images in 1987, the school has been enlarged considerably in the past 32 years.
The gap between the wings of the main building nearest the main road has now been infilled with a modern addition, not universally greeted with affection by architectural purists.
Some of the other buildings have also been altered and where there are a group of five trees and tennis courts marked out on the 1987 photograph, just to the far side of these there is now a primary school, making the school an all-through school from three to 18.
Photograph (4) takes us away from the Uttoxeter New Road area and over to Nightingale Road, near Allenton, in 1984 where we find the extensive main factory site of RollsRoyce
and its impressive Grade II listed Marble Hall, also known as the Commercial Block building, at the front.
Marble Hall, which houses workspaces and meeting areas for social enterprise groups, is the only remaining building of the complex after clearance of the site ready for the proposed building of around 400 homes.
Rolls-Royce built its Nightingale Road site to move production of the Silver Ghost car to Derby from Manchester in 1908. It later became synonymous with the Merlin engine, which powered Lancaster Bomber, Spitfire and Mustang planes. In the 1990s, much of the workforce moved to the Sinfin site and it closed.
In 2008, Rolls-Royce decided that the Nightingale Road factory was too small and too expensive to modernise. This resulted in its closure and operations were moved to the nearby Sinfin plant.