‘They used to hang people right above my home’
The area around Narrow Marsh in the city centre was once notorious for being one of the worst slums in Europe. JOSEPH LOCKER speaks to some of local the residents to find out what life is like there today
THE infamous Narrow Marsh district, located off Canal Street and London Road, was once densely populated and shrouded in poverty and crime, but eventually the cramped tenement blocks were wiped from the map and a new council estate was built there in the 1930s.
Hilary Silvester, chairwoman of the city’s civic society, said she was told to stay away from the area by her mother until its transformation shortly before the Second World War.
Cliff Road was one such street. It sits at the bottom of a 70ft retaining wall and still has visual markers which tell of the area’s grisly past, including the old jail off High Pavement where criminals were once executed until the late 1800s.
Keith Spencer, 79, a former semi-professional boxer who fought the likes of Derbyshire native Jack Bodell before becoming a carpet fitter, told the Post “almost everything has changed”.
He recalled the days of visiting to the Loggerheads pub for a pint before “staggering” back across the road to his home early in the morning.
The pub is one of the last remaining buildings from the former Narrow Marsh district and was first mentioned in records as early as 1743.
“This used to be Red Lion Street and they used to hang people right above my home at the county jail,”
Mr Spencer said.
“I’d imagine people used to stand at the bottom here to watch. I used to go to the Loggerheads about 10pm and roll out there about 2am and stagger across the road.
“It is very quiet here now. It is lovely to live here. Everything has changed. There used to be a playground up where the Nottingham College is now.
“At one time everyone used to mix down here, I still know all the old ones down here. It’s a good location, near the train station and we once had the Broadmarsh down the road.”
Mr Spencer said the Loggerheads eventually closed and went on to become an illegal cannabis farm in more recent years.
He added: “I could see the cannabis from my window and when the police came they had big bags of cannabis. I do miss having the pub.”
Narrow Marsh for many years comprised of slum dwellings, which were the result of a mass expansion of manufacturing and industry in the 1820s.
Commoners’ rights also prevented expansion of the urban centre, leading to severe overcrowding and the eventual spread of Cholera which ripped through the tenement blocks.
It was described as a “terrible place to live” at the time and was known as one of the worst slums in
Europe, perhaps even worse than the Gorbals in Glasgow.
Resident Alan Weston, 78, said the street today, however, is very much a “friendly neighbourhood with a wonderful history”.
He told of a time when residents took shelter in the basement of the Loggerheads, when Nazi bombs fell on the city during the Second World War.
He said: “I was a haulage contractor and my company in the early ’90s went bankrupt so I was made homeless. My wife was in the US at the time. Fortunately I had a great friend who helped me find a home. I was in a flat in Lenton until the council gave us the keys to our home here in Cliff Road.
“There were these big Victorian houses along here before and quite a few hundred people shared them. Eventually my wife and I rented out the [Loggerheads] pub and we opened a restaurant about eight years ago.
“We did that for about three to four years but there was not enough trade. At Christmas we used to put on a big meal for the residents, but it was hard to make a good living.”
However, Mr Weston said he was forced to move out of his home in Cliff Road around nine weeks ago following a fire.
“We’re hoping to move back in soon,” he said, “we were very happy here.”