I am in no doubt that the Beeston Fields (Garden City) Council Estate is the poor relation of Beeston, almost forgotten between three main roads and the town's centre.
To to its east, on either side of Woodside Road is Nottingham City Council's Lenton Abbey Council Estate, also a 'garden city estate' dating from the 1920s. The two estates are barely distinguishable, the housing looks the same unless you look closely. Parts of the estate has a real 'arts and crafts' feel about it. At a first glance these house are the same as houses on the Lenton Abbey estate but there are differences. I will add a picture from the Lenton Abbey side in a couple of days and then you can look for the differences without any help from me.
This is where Tottlebrook passes under Brook Road, which almost certainly takes its name from Tottlebrook. Not a trace of the brook remains, no signs mark that is a boundary point between two councils. I took the picture looking east towards Woodside Road. The houses in the background are on Woodside Road, part of the Lenton Abbey estate, in Nottingham.
I live on the Beeston Fields estate, albeit a detached corner built on infill land left isolated by the fact that Central Avenue should have originally been between the Derby and Wollaton roads, but the Wollaton Road Allotments were in the way and fought off the building of the road. This is a story, if already told has been lost. It is clearly part of local memory because I have heard variations of the same story several times.
I am a regular visitor to the parade of shops on Central Avenue, where its small sub-post office is open every day as it the relatively new DoughMother bakery. A good few of the shops have been in business for a very long time and all are occupied although not all open at the same time.
I also deliver for the Labour Party and, with elections coming up, there is more to do than usual and, somehow, I spot things which have previously gone unnoticed by me, such as the remains of the Brook Road / Tottlebrook bridge. Another thing was this pink littler bin at the junction of the Boundary and Brook roads.
Below is a view of the triangular open space which is part of Abbey Court. I suspect that 'Abbey' reference relates to Lenton Abbey, then probably the house and not the council estate which is separated from Beeston Fields by Tottlebrook. Something to research at sme point.
I chose the word 'forgotten' to describe the Beeston Fields estate because of this public noticeboard in front of the Central Avenue shops at the Dennis Avenue end. It is as good as empty and which I take as a measure of the interest shown by the estate's present councillors. Knowing the two Labour Party candidates for Beeston North ward (which includes Beeston Fields), Jennifer Birkett and Javed Iqbal, as I do this notice board won't be empty for long once they become our councillors.
Anyone who reads The Beestonian, the town's free alternative street magazine, may have read about DoughMother which I have got in the habit of visiting most weeks. Click here for link to Beestonian story.
Here is a picture from inside DoughMother with its owners, Alican (2nd left) and Houlia (3rd Left) and Labour's Jennifer Birkett and Javed Iqbal. The welcome is always warm and friendly and there are a number of tables where you can sit and eat.
The leek pasties I take home to eat on their own or with a small cous cous salad of small tomatos, peppers, peas and celery, with beetroot on the side (I usually eat a chocolate brownie in DoughMother with a lovely cup of black coffee. I hold a bite size piece of the brownie in my mouth and let it melt as the coffee washes over it — never have two things ever been so made from one another if exclude your true loves).
And whilst I'm talking about food I should mention Cob Central at the south end of the Central Avenue shopping parade, where the owner, Michelle, has been doing café fare since just before Christmas. I call in whenever we fancy a bacon cob. Michelle is always generous and at £1.50 for a large cob she offers the best value I know. She also does lunchtime meals like egg/sausage/beans/chips in a range of combinations. I took this pic of Michelle on my last visit and those are our bacon cobs she is holding!
I have written about Beeston Fields Recreation Ground before and make no apology for doing so again. I feel passionate about green spaces like this and pocket parks, and can trace my love of them back to my childhood. For 35 years we lived in a house overlooking Lenton Recreation Ground in Nottingham, also with a bowling green. It helped me lose 6 stone because it had a footpath all the way around it and that is the only thing missing from this lovely neighbourhood park — a path which goes all the way around. My Beeston Fields spider map at the beginning of this post marks the 'missing footpath'.
This is where we need to path, along the west, north and east edges of the park. At a distant it looks perfect...
..but close up you can see why we need a path. The grass has gone in places and if the ground is anything but dry it sticks to your shoes. Once the election is over and we have elected Jennifer and Javed as our new Beeston North ward councillors I plan to work with them to help establish a Beeston Fields Recreation Ground Friends / Support Group open to all park users.
Finally a reminder that at the south end of Central Avenue there is a modern health centre and a pharmacy. The house numbers at this end of Central Avenue provide tangible evidence that the avenue's southern end was not intended to be here.
I will return to Beeston Fields again before very long when my map has been incorporated into a postcard promoting the shops on Central Avenue.
Finally, an insight into how Broxtowe Borough Council regard Beeston Fields. They see its greens as a dumping ground for repair equipment and the like and we are all polite that we let them. A few weeks ago Wollaton Crescent was one of the Council's chosen dumping grounds. The company invloved did knock on our doors and told us what they were doing and full credit to them for that but as nice as they are the damage to the grass will take a long time to disappear...
...whilst on Dennis Avenue right now there is yet more equipment. I admit to not having an answer to the problem in the absence of residents being pro-active themselves and turning these garden city green spaces into mini-meadows or some other kind of communal space.
All this has prompted me to think about publishing my own Beeston Fields newsletter of sorts. Watch this space...
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