In plain sight: The name above the door is clue to familiar building’s past
It is easy to miss, says NICOLA RIPPON, but a city doorway offers a glimpse into the history of a familiar landmark
IT is a building every Derbeian will know – although many may struggle to recall its name, still carved over the doorway. For more than a decade it was the home of Derby’s main post office which, in 1997, had relocated there from much larger premises just a few yards away. Then it housed individual food outlets. Today, it is home to a bar and comedy club.
The former Derby Tramway Office in Victoria Street has had several uses since the last tram rattled its way through the town centre almost 90 years ago.
Built in 1903 to an Arts and Crafts design, by Alexander MacPherson, its original purpose was as headquarters of the Derby Tramways Company.
MacPherson’s work is familiar to Derbeians – he was the architect responsible for many of our buildings, including much of the Co-operative Society’s former premises in East Street and Exchange Street, as well as Littleover’s Old Hall, Reginald Street public baths, and his last known public work, Bemrose School.
The Tramways’ office features stonework displaying its name, and, like most public or public servicerelated buildings of that era, it is quite a grand and attractive building that was Grade 2 Listed in 2000.
Derby Tramways Company had come into being in October 1877. Two years later, the first tracks were laid, on London Road. However, the introduction of trams to the town was not universally welcomed.
In part this was because several of the main streets on which trams were to run had only recently, and at considerable expense, been improved. Now they were, according to one newspaper report, being “ruthlessly torn up by the invaders”.
The immediate effects of the construction work – steaming black kettles of pitch – was dramatically described as “more obnoxious than the Witches’ cauldrons in Macbeth”.
Derby’s trams began running in January 1880. Four tramcars, drawn by bell-wearing horses, plied the routes, the first of which ran from the Market Place along St Peter’s
Street and as far as the Midland Railway Station. Services ran on Sundays, although thousands of people had signed a petition in an attempt to prevent this.
Other lines, which opened later that year, ran along Osmaston Road
and Friar Gate and Ashbourne Road. Almost instantly, the system proved profitable.
One depot, built on land beside Friar Gate Bridge and opposite Friar Gate Station, had accommodation for more than 80 horses and 21 tramcars. Another, near the Midland Railway station, could house 20 horses and five tramcars. The company ran both single and double-deckers as well as eight omnibuses.
In May 1881, a further extension,
along the length of Normanton Road, was opened, and in June, a special line was opened to take visitors to the Royal Agricultural Show at Osmaston.
These lines proved less profitable and so plans to extend along Uttoxeter Road were put on hold.
In 1899, under the Derby Corporation Act, the Corporation purchased the company renaming it Derby Corporation Tramways. Another Act, in 1901, allowed new construction, new lines and electrification of the existing lines. The fully electrified service opened in July 1904.
The tramways continued to operate until 1934, when they were replaced by trolleybuses.
Although this new transport still relied upon overhead electrical power lines, they no longer required rails on which to travel.
Most lines were eventually buried below new road surfaces, although occasionally they temporarily come to light when roads in the city centre are repaired.
They are all that is left to remind us of the golden era of Derby’s trams.
Them and the building that people walk past every day …