West Bridgford

West Bridgford

View of Trent Bridge and Nottingham from West Bridgford
West Bridgford
 West Bridgford shown within Nottinghamshire
Population 45,039 (2011)
OS grid referenceSK585365
DistrictRushcliffe
Shire countyNottinghamshire
RegionEast Midlands
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post town NOTTINGHAM
Postcode district NG2
Dialling code 0115
Police Nottinghamshire
Fire Nottinghamshire
Ambulance East Midlands
EU Parliament East Midlands
UK ParliamentRushcliffe
List of places
UK
England
Nottinghamshire

Coordinates: 52°55′N 1°08′W / 52.92°N 1.13°W / 52.92; -1.13

West Bridgford is a town in the Rushcliffe borough of Nottinghamshire, England, immediately south of the city of Nottingham, delimited by the River Trent. It forms a continuous urban area with Nottingham, effectively making it a suburb of the city, and means it was chosen as the administrative centre for Nottinghamshire County Council. The population of the town at the 2011 census was 45,039.

As part of the Rushcliffe constituency its MP is The Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke, QC (Conservative Party). The headquarters of Nottinghamshire County Council moved to the town in 1959 from the traditional county town of Nottingham. The town is enclosed by the A52 and the River Trent.

History

Most of the main roads in central West Bridgford are named after wealthy families that dominated the town's early history. There are also, however, new developments that are, in effect, suburbs of the suburb named after different things. For example, the Gamston development has roads named after the Lake District, and Compton Acres has roads named after Dorset and the Purbeck Coast.

There are no 'Streets' in West Bridgford. When the town was planned in the Victorian period the roads were originally named as streets: for example, Musters Street and South Street. However, the planners eventually decided that the term 'Street' was too urban, so today the town has Musters Road and South Road.

West Bridgford is notably different from the other suburbs of Nottingham in a variety of ways. During the Victorian period, Nottingham was growing rapidly, but development in West Bridgford was restricted, as much of the land was owned by the Musters family.

At the end of the First World War the Musters family sold the Trent Bridge Inn and the Trent Bridge Cricket ground to the cricket club. The club only briefly owned the inn as they resold it to a brewery for a sum in excess of the money they had paid to the Musters.[1] After much pressure, the Musters sold land for building, but they applied strict planning regulations to the area then known as the West Bridgford Estate. This estate was planned over a grid of tree-lined streets. The main roads such as Musters Road had restrictions on the density of housing and house size. All houses were specified to contain a certain number of bedrooms. Smaller houses were permitted on side streets, and terraces were erected on roads such as Exchange Road for the servants of the wealthy Nottingham merchants who bought up property in West Bridgford.

What has resulted from these strict plans is a community that is still very separate from Nottingham. The town has no formal ties with Nottingham. In Nottingham itself, West Bridgford is often called "Bread and Lard Island" in the belief that its inhabitants spend most of their money on big houses and fur coats so they could only afford to eat bread and lard behind closed doors.[2][3] Chris Arnot in the Independent commented, 'Bread and lard? Not likely – it's all ciabatta and tapenade these days'.[2] Population:

Public transport

Nottingham Express Transit, a light rail system opened in Nottingham in 2004, runs from Hucknall in the north to Nottingham railway station and onwards to Clifton in the south or Toton/Chilwell in the west. Plans had been made to include West Bridgford in future phases of the project. Analysis by the joint City Council project has determined it unlikely that the centre of West Bridgford will be part of further evolution of the tram line: it now extends south of the Trent to Clifton along the route of the former Great Central line, which forms part of the boundary of Nottingham and West Bridgford. As the city boundary runs to the immediate west of the line the three stations on this part of the route (Wilford Lane, Compton Acres, Ruddington Lane) are in West Bridgford, and serve western parts of West Bridgford, which opened August 2015. Extensive bus services frequently serve most of the town.

Bus services

Nottingham City Transport

Nottingham Community Transport

Trent Barton

Gamston – Tollerton – Langar – Granby.

Kinchbus

Centrebus

Marshalls

West Bridgford UDC ran its own fleet of buses with a 'chocolate and custard' livery of brown and yellow, merged with Nottingham City Transport in 1968.

Bridges

Several bridges across the River Trent allow access to the city of Nottingham. The access to Nottingham has been an aspect of the popularity of West Bridgford as a suburb.

Trent bridge A road bridge with three lanes in both directions. It is highly decorated on the sides with carvings that can be seen from the river.

Wilford Suspension Bridge

A bicycle and pedestrian bridge to the west of Trent Bridge, linking the town with The Meadows, Nottingham.

Wilford Toll Bridge

Since August 2015 this bridge carries part of the tram route (Nottingham Express Transit) connecting Clifton, Nottingham, Ruddington and Compton Acres suburb of West Bridgford to the centre of Nottingham and beyond. The small suburb of Silverdale is served by the adjacent ring road. The tram passes by the Becket school and travels through Compton Acres into Clifton.

Lady Bay Bridge

A two-lane road bridge, originally the rail crossing for the Midland Railway's "alternative route" from London to Nottingham via Melton Mowbray. Despite passing right through the middle of West Bridgford, mostly on a high embankment, there was never a West Bridgford station: the nearest station on this line was at Edwalton, and even that closed in July 1941, the line itself in May 1967. Today much of the embankment has been removed and its route built over, however part of the line's embankment has been converted into a public footpath. As a result, parts of railway sleepers and stones can still be seen on the path.

Local government

West Bridgford was created as an urban sanitary district in 1891. It became an urban district with an elected council under the Local Government Act 1894. In 1935, the parishes of Edwalton and South Wilford were added to the urban district. This then became part of the larger borough of Rushcliffe under the Local Government Act 1972.

Geography

The northern boundary of West Bridgford is the River Trent, spanned by two road bridges, Trent Bridge and Lady Bay Bridge, and two pedestrianised bridges consisting of a suspension bridge and a toll bridge near the Ferry Inn linking nearby Wilford village with the Meadows area of Nottingham city. The pedestrianised bridges link particularly well with cycling routes to Nottingham, the railway station and the university areas, making several rapid, safe, car-free routes available.

Two spans of the original mediaeval bridge still remain, surrounded by a traffic island on the south side of the river, adjacent to Trent Bridge.

Architecture and housing

The central West Bridgford area has a rich diversity of buildings, mostly Victorian, although the larger properties are being demolished for development as no protection exists for common housing stock. St. Giles Church is medieval but heavily restored at the end of the nineteenth century.

Planning permission has been granted in 2015 for approximately 1600 houses. Much work on the details is soon to be finalised.

Neighbourhoods

Nearby places

West Bridgford should not be confused with East Bridgford, which is some miles away and much smaller.

Sporting heritage

West Bridgford is renowned for its sporting facilities and heritage.

Nottingham Forest Football Club play at the City Ground on the banks of the River Trent. The club was founded in 1865 and have played at the City Ground since 1898. Their best achievements came between 1975 and 1993 when they were managed by Brian Clough and won a Football League title, two European Cups and four Football League Cups as well as fielding some of Britain's highest regarded players including Peter Shilton, Trevor Francis, Stuart Pearce and Roy Keane.

At local level, West Bridgford also has a number of football teams for all ages. West Bridgford Colts FC are one of the largest youth football clubs in the country with over 1000 Club members, running over 50 teams; the club includes West Bridgford Football Club the Senior section for Colts, which started in 2011 on Saturday afternoons in the Nottinghamshire Senior League. Holy Spirit Celtic Sports Club and Edwalton Cavaliers also provide coaching and opportunities for boys and girls to play youth football. While adult football is very well catered for, with clubs such as AFC Bridgford who have been established for many years playing in Nottingham's biggest Saturday League.

Trent Bridge cricket ground was first used for cricket in 1838 and hosted its first Test match in 1899, for England playing against Australia. It is the third oldest ground to be used as a Test cricket venue after Lord's in London and Eden Gardens in Calcutta, India. It has been described by some as the finest Test cricket location in the world.

Trent Bridge is also home to Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, a first-class English cricket club.

The Holme Pierrepont National Watersports Centre is Britain's centre for water sports and is located in Holme Pierrepont, next to West Bridgford. Its facilities include a regatta lake, a white water slalom and water‐ski jumps. West Bridgford also hosts two rowing clubs, Nottingham Rowing Club and Nottingham and Union Rowing Club, and a rowing shell manufacturers, Raymond Sims Ltd. Several of the town's secondary schools have rowing activities on their curriculum.

West Bridgford is home to a number of Rugby Clubs, most notably Nottingham Moderns R.F.C in Wilford village and West Bridgford Rugby Club. Additionally Nottingham R.F.C moved their training base and reserve team ground to Lady Bay following the 2005/6 season in Ireland Road Beeston. They currently play 1st team fixtures at Meadow Lane, just over Trent Bridge from West Bridgford.

Retail

West Bridgford's main shopping district runs from Central Avenue through Tudor Square to Gordon Road. Multiple retailers in the central area include Specsavers Opticians and Hearing centre, Vision Express, Boots, Greggs, a large Co-operative supermarket, Iceland. Marks & Spencers opened a food supermarket in early 2006. These established chains complement a variety of independent specialist shops.

The numerous cafés include Caffè Nero, Costa Coffee and Philos. There are pizza chains including Pizza Express and Mud Crab (specialist burger restaurant) as well as contemporary restaurants, typified by Spanish restaurant Escabeche, and oriental tapas brasserie Yumacha. Cafe Indulge, serving crepes, pancakes and waffles, replaced Five Rivers (Indian restaurant) in late 2014.

Carluccio's Italian deli and restaurant opened mid 2014 on Central Avenue, and The Parlour tea room and bar opened mid 2014 next to Costa Coffee.

There are two large food superstores in the area: Asda in West Bridgford and Morrisons in nearby Gamston. A Sainsbury's is currently planned for Wilford Lane opposite Roko, next to The Becket School. Planning permission has been granted for a large Waitrose in Edwalton next to the planned Sharphill housing development. A small Sainbury's was meant to be built on Melton Road, opposite Dovedale Road, but was pulled out of by Sainsbury's.

West Bridgford has a place in British retail history as the location of the UK's first major out-of-town shopping development. In 1964, an American company called GEM opened a store on Loughborough Road. However, despite ambitious expansion plans, GEM's British operations were not a success, with only two other stores (at Cross Gates, Leeds) and Cliff Mill, Dundonald Street, Preston being opened. National concessionaires withdrew from the stores and, in 1966, the fledgling Asda company (then known as 'Associated Dairies') of Leeds acquired a controlling interest in the GEM operations. The Loughborough Road site still houses a major Asda store, although it was resited and rebuilt some years ago. (For a fuller history of the site and GEM, see Whysall (2005) in The International Review of Retail Distribution and Consumer Research, 15(2), 111–124).

Education

The secondary schools are now both academies in West Bridgford, the West Bridgford School[4] and Rushcliffe School respectively. The Becket School is a local Catholic school, although in a separate Local Authority from West Bridgford, as is The Emmanuel School, a local C of E school. The largest site of Central College Nottingham is in West Bridgford and the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University are within three miles.

The Becket School is fed by primary schools around Nottingham but only one school in West Bridgford; this school is St. Edmund Campion Catholic Primary School. The feeder schools are; Blessed Robert, St Edmund Campion, Our Lady and St Edward's.

The main primary schools in West Bridgford feed into the West Bridgford School. They are West Bridgford Infants and Junior School, Jesse Gray Primary School, Heymann Primary School and Greythorn Primary School.

Local facilities

Notable residents

Stuart Broad England and Nottinghamshire cricketer.

The Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke, QC MP lives in West Bridgford.

Leslie Crowther born 6 February 1933.

Harry Wheatcroft, the famous rose grower lived in West Bridgford.

References

  1. ↑ Wynne-Thomas, Peter. "A Brief History of Trent Bridge". espncricinfo.com. Retrieved 21 April 2013.
  2. 1 2 http://money.independent.co.uk/property/homes/article354181.ece
  3. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20061014105516/nottingham.openguides.org/?Locale_West_Bridgford
  4. ↑ http://www.wbs.notts.sch.uk/site3/index.php wbs.notts.sch.uk
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