A Few Days in Nottingham - Part 2

We were staying a short distance from the city centre in Ruddington, which houses the Nottingham Transport Heritage Centre and the Great Central Railway Nottingham.  David had visited the Loughborough to Leicester branch of the Great Central Railway the day before when I was at the Quilters' Guild conference.   It was a lovely day so good to wander around before boarding the first train of the day.  We saw a couple of 1950's cars (Ford Popular and Hillman Minx) that had been prepared for a wedding

There were several heritage coaches too

As well as the GCRN, we also saw 3 different railways!

 The 'normal' heritage steam railway

 A garden railway with the larger 'O' gauge train layout

 A model engineers group giving people rides on their miniature railway

And a smaller 'OO' gauge railway with a reconstruction of how Ruddington station and depot looked in the 1950's.

The heritage centre is built on what was an Army Ordnance Depot during World War II and it took us a while to figure that where the journey starts is not where the station was.  The train travels about a mile around a curve to where the station once was (only the footbridge remains) and changes direction to continue its journey towards Loughborough.  There isn't a station to get off there so the return journey commences.  It is hoped that the two parts of the Great Central Railway will eventually join up.

While in Ruddington, we went into the village to the Framework Knitters Museum.  This was a trip available to those who attended the Friday day at the conference.  The museum was open on the Sunday afternoon and is manned by volunteers.  This tells the history of the local industry making stockings and other fine knitted goods which was initially a cottage industry where spinning and knitting took place of machines - families were poor having to pay rent for their meagre cottage and renting the knitting frames too for very little return on their piecework.  The small factory was then established with knitting machines crammed together in a small space and another building with circular stocking machines.  There was also a washing area at the end of one block as washing was allowed once a week and although lovely gardens at the museum, back in the day would have been taken up with grown vegetables.  The end cottage was the owner's and family members still remember how this cottage looked and were able to advise the Museum.

Looking towards the cottages, with the workshops either side.

 A yarn bombed bicycle in the wash house with the tin wash tub and mangle.

And found a knitted flower basket outside.

The next day was a return visit to Crich in Derbyshire to visit old trams,  the day was sunny and warm and being a weekday was quiet and a lovely day for tram rides and a wander in the Woodland Walk.

We've had a few visits here and its always a lovely place to go.

On Tuesday we ventured into Nottingham city centre, so swapped old trams for new

And on our trip we found a familiar name

Compton Acres! This is a visitor attraction in Poole, but never thought we would find it in Nottingham.  The stop is named after a local housing estate which has roads named after famous gardens.

On the way home we stopped near Newbury and the Sandham Memorial Chapel, with it's painting in the chapel by Sir Stanley Spencer who served in the First World War at Selonika along with Henry Sandham to whom the chapel is dedicated.  A really amazing place and so calming too.

The gardens around the back of the chapel had some artwork with these birds.

So that concludes our Nottingham trip.  There will be a post soon about my everyday stitching.