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Nottingham Victoria Station Plans
Since starting this project we’ve been obsessed with finding original plans and drawings of Nottingham Victoria Station to help the project, searching and contacting countless archives over the past 2 years – only to get the same answers time and time again, ranging from ‘they don’t exist’ to ‘they were probably destroyed’. Getting this answer so much we started to tell people the same, when asked about plans of Victoria Station.
Fast forward to May this year, myself and Ash arranged to meet in person for the first time since agreeing to work on this project together, Ash had managed to get us a behind the scenes tour of what remains of Victoria Station at Intu Victoria Centre.
Whilst on the tour we came across some old plans of Victoria Centre, which lead one of us to bring up the subject of the lack of plans for Victoria Station, to which Mark (our amazing Intu tour guide) chirped ‘Oh I know where there are some’. Our eye’s lit up, but we darn’t get too excited, as we’d been promised plans before, only to find they were ones we’d already seen.
As the tour concluded, we asked again about the plans, which prompted Mark to call his friend who apparently had them…no answer, the suspense was killing us. We said bye to Mark, and in a daze, walked out of Victoria Centre, (bare in mind Ash and I had only just met for the first time face to face, and now someone was promising us unseen plans of Nottingham Victoria Station! Plans that’d greatly help our project, lots of plans!).
Late Saturday afternoon I was at my girlfriends parents when Mark started sending over photos of the plans he’d picked up from his friend, when I started to look at them I nearly choked on my food, when I’m at the ‘in laws’ I tend to keep phone check-age down to a minimum, you know, to be polite but I couldn’t stop looking at them, I went all weird…but my girlfriend understood as soon as I told her what was going on, she knows how obsessed I’d become with any sniff of a plan of the station.
We arranged to meet Mark early the following Monday (bank holiday Monday in fact), I met Ash and we walked nervously towards the entrance to Victoria Centre, we soon found Mark, and as cool and cucumber he escorted us to the information desk to present us a check list to sign which included numbers and descriptions of over 50 plans.
After signing the check list, we continued to the car park, at which point things started to feel like some kind of seedy drug deal. Once at Mark’s car he handed Ash a massive granny bag full to the brim of rolled up plans.
Mark escorted us back to the lift, letting the lift doors dramatically close as he said bye. We stood there in shock and aware at the amount of plans we’d just been handed, so much so that we actually forgot to press the button to make the lift do something, standing there for a good minute or two like geeky lemons.
After a trip to Ruddington Fields to meet some new contacts there, we drove Ash back to his home with the plans (we couldn’t let him get the train with such rare items!). Since then we’ve started to use them to the benefit of our project, Ash has corrected his platform building and started to create the cutting and retaining walls.
We’ve also started to digitise the plans by getting them professionally scanned, once complete we will start to make them available to view and download. These plans need to be shared, preserved and made easy to find.
Thanks again to Mark, his friend with the plans and Intu for letting us have a look around what remains.
Boot’s Wembley Specials at Nottingham Victoria Station
A group of ladies taking advantage of Boot’s Wembley Specials at Nottingham Victoria Station, which I assume was some kind of day trip put on by Boot’s for it’s employees. Not sure of the date, was found by my girlfriend who works at Boot’s head office, so I assume it’s from their archive, not seen it before
Nottingham Victoria Station – Booking Hall Lifts
Here is a render of what the lifts in Nottingham Victoria Station *might* of looked like. Worked out from little clues we found on photos and the floor plans.
“It was only used by rail staff and not for passengers. The panel inside the lift only showed the level of each floor I.e Floor 1, Floor 2, Floor3. When in use you would press the button of the floor you wanted and the lift would take you directly there. There was an alarm bell on each floor and this would be sounded when the lift was in use and also to warn other users who may have left the lift door open , to close them .”
– Gordon Cripps
Early Progress – Blocking in
Taking me a while to work out how to approach this project. I suppose the first task is try to get the size and proportions correct for the main station building.
Bringing Nottingham Victoria Station Back to Life
I’ve long been fascinated with Nottingham Victoria Station, whenever I visited Intu Victoria Center as a child I used to wonder why there was an old, brick clock tower in the middle of a dull modern concrete shopping centre.
It wasn’t until my granddad showed me a picture from the 1950’s that I realised what used to surround the lonely clock tower…a vast Victorian Train Station…and with that the obsession began!
Again thanks to my granddad I’ve always had an interest in Nottingham history, during Sunday family visits I’d always leave with a copy of the Evening Post’s Boygones which would reveal information on how Nottingham used to look.
Nottingham, like most modern English cities, has changed dramatically over the last 50 years, finding out what different areas used to look like really facinates me. The more I look into Nottinghams past the sadder I become at how much history and Victorian architecture we’ve lost. Nottingham Castle is just an old mansion where a castle used to be, there is very little left of the lace industry and one statue of Robin Hood (and no Robin Hood theme park!).
I think my plan is to try and create the main station building of Nottingham Victoria Station in 3D, not sure I’d ever have time to recreate the whole thing. This might be tricky as I can’t seem to find any drawings or plans of it. All photos seem to be from offset angles, so will be tricky to work out exact sizing and proportions but I will give it a go 🙂 I’d love to walk around the booking hall.
Nottingham Victoria Station fasintates me / stands out in particular, as it’s the start and end of journeys, train stations (even modern ones) are the start of adventures, from going on holiday, to work, returning home or being reunited with a loved one. In its short 60 year life so many people began and ended journeys there, so many memories, which sadly have been replaced with a shopping centre. Don’t get me wrong, as someone who is Nottingham born and bread I’ve grown up and enjoyed Victoria Center my whole life but I do wonder what it could of looked like, surely they could of saved more of the main building at least?
Nottingham Victoria Station is in our history, our grandparents (and great grand parents) would of traveled through it, on their journeys toward creating you.
During both wars soldiers from the Sherwood Foresters would of started their journeys to the front line from Victoria, and then those that made it back would of returned home here.
My granddad on both sides of my family were not born in this country so would of no doubt traveled through Victoria Station at some point.
Will see how far I get ready for the next update.
Thats all for now.