Photographs | Memories | Map
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This narrow detached property is No. 84, the first house you see on the western side of Highfield Road as you turn into the road from Greenfield Street.
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Nigel Mann provided us with this photograph of No. 84 Highfield Road, and he suggests it was possibly taken some time in the 1950s. Apart from the paintwork the exterior of the building is much the same as is shown in our 2004 shot of the property although the view beyond the side garden is very different today.
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The house on the right of our 2007 photograph with the circular porchway painted white is No. 66 Highfield Road. From the mid 1930s onwards this was the childhood home of Richard Gadsby. His recollections of attending Dunkirk School during the Second World War are featured in Lenton Times No.27. |
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No. 26. The earliest part of this building is likely to have been the portion on the right. The section on the left definitely looks of a more recent vintage. Doubtless it is possible to date both sections of the building from the original plans lodged for building regulations approval, which can now be examined at Nottingham Archives. |
No. 24. This property was known as Highfields Cottage in the 1930s. The design of this building plus the fact that it is a detached property set back from the road would suggest that it was among the earliest to be built after the streets were laid out by the Osmaston Land Company in the late nineteenth century. |
This site used to house just one property which has since been demolished to make way for this set of town houses, No. 14-18, situated opposite the junction with Lace Street. |
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The three sets of semi-detached properties, No. 2-12, situated at the Clifton Boulevard end of Highfield Road. It is not every property that has a crenellated top to its side entrance. |
With this photograph we have more or less returned to the junction with Greenfield Street. The photograph, taken in 1959, shows a four year old Bill Holloway, sitting in Hillman Minx belonging to his near neighbour, Ken Russell. The building on the left is No.61 Highfield Road with the back of No.64 Ednaston Road visible in the background. The asbestos garage actually belongs to the end property on Greenfield Street. The bird table was, Bill states, quite well known in the neighbourhood. |
My family lived at the end house on Greenfield Street from about 1964 to the mid-1990s. So the asbestos garage in Bill Holloway s photograph was ours. It was my father, Geoff Russell, who actually took down the garage. Before that we used to live at No.24 Highfield Road. You have a modern day photograph (taken in 2004) of 24 Highfield Road. When we lived there used to be an outside toilet, shed and garage to the right of the main building.
My grandparents used to live on Lace Street and I have an aunty who still lives on Clifton Boulevard and has done so since before it was an actual boulevard [in the days when it was Abbey Lane.] Incidentally my grandfather, Harry Russell, was the only man, as far as I am aware who wore RAF blue, although he served in the army during the Second World War. This was because he was in the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War and then volunteered for REME and was stationed with them out in India.
Among the former occupants of 84 Highfield Road, also known as Vernon House, were the Anderson family - Arthur Stuart Anderson, his wife Louie Anderson (nee Krause) and their children, Mabel Constance, Caroline, Donald, and Vernon. They were already in residence at the time of the 1901 census and were, we are told, still living there after the end of the First World War. Mabel Anderson s great grandson, Nigel Mann, is in possession of a letter written by Louie Anderson to her brother-in-law out in Australia in April 1917 from which we include the following extract:
'We have snow more or less since end of October 1916 & is still here 1 April (Sunday). Both sons [are] on munitions [work] but not able to go full time [owing to] health broken down. ...just got two young people in yesterday another wounded soldier & wife [on a] temporary [basis working] on munitions paying 15s. for rooms & attention & by the 5 April Mabel & boys will come home for a holiday making 10 in the house - some work - but the latter is only for a week. Our Carrie is looking fine so she said ... she wll look out for a house to let - meaning a husband but this war has made such avock (havoc) with the male tribe I don't know where she will look: still I suppose when the boys come back wounded & tired they will be looking for what I have here in my well trained daughters [namely] a beautiful heart not painted up dolls. Everything is very dear potatoes 3s 6d a packet, bread 1s. a quarter loaf, butter 2s 6d ...'
Richard Gadsby and 84 Highfield Road
In the 1940s until the mid 1950s I used to live at 66 Highfield Road. At that time the occupants of 84 Highfield Road were the Davey (maybe Davy) family who consisted of father, mother and their children, Mary and Richard. Mr Davey was a lecturer at the University. They were a very scholarly family. I do recall we used to play cricket against the garage door that you can see in the older photo of the house.
Let us know your past and present memories of Highfield Road
Do you have any historical information or other photographs of this area? If so, email us with the details or write to us.