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Showing posts from October, 2022

Grange Park: Allendale Road

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 Allendale Road is the main road leading into the Grange Park estate from the east. It begins at the Woodthorpe roundabout at the intersection of the A6004, Ling Road leading around Loughborough's suburbs and Terry Yardley Way heading towards the A6 to Leicester; Carnation Road, leading into the Trinity Gardens estate; and Main Street, heading into the sleepy nearby hamlet of Woodthorpe. Heading south and then west, it eventually enters the Grange Park estate, crossing Highland Drive and then ending at Knox Road. To my mild annoyance, Blogger put the photographs in reverse order (again), and I really can't be bothered to go and correct this. Consequently the photographs begin at the western end of Allendale Road and go northeast instead, Looking east from the junction of Knox Road. Looking east from the junction of Watkin Drive. Looking towards Knox Road from the corner of Watkin Drive. Looking toward Knox Road from the junction of Travis Way. Allendale Road near the entrance o

Grange Park: relics of the future - revisited

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 You remember about those raised kerbs on Highland Drive that I said were for buses to stop at? Well, when I visited Grange Park last month, I also took a better look at these (since the first time round, I was only cycling through.) Now I've photographed both of them. The southern raised kerb is located between Knox Road and Peter Twinn Drive. The northern raised kerb is between Knox Road and John Tiltman Drive. Still no bus in sight, though...

Grange Park: Caincross Close - the Loughborough road with a misspelt name

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Caincross Close is one of the last streets on William Davis' Grange Park estate to be completed, in around 2020. The line of houses shown in the below photographs overlook a large, if basic, park with a footpath right through it and a playground plonked in the centre. Now how do I say this... The name of the road is misspelt. Why? The roads on Grange Park (with the exception of roads developed on or running from the initial phase) are named after personnel at Bletchley Park near Milton Keynes. Beaumanor Hall, near Woodhouse, was associated with Bletchley Park in carrying out military intelligence during the Second World War. However, checking a list on Wikipedia,  I couldn't find anyone by the name of Caincross on the list (and that list is pretty comprehensive); instead, I came upon a guy by the name of John Cairncross, who worked at Bletchley Park and was also a Soviet double-agent!  So it is quite likely that the name of this road is indeed misspelt. Oops.

Derwent Drive

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 Derwent Drive is a street located in the Loughborough suburbs north of Forest Road, running between Coniston Crescent and Kirkstone Drive. A peculiar feature of this street is that the Derwent Main, a predominantly underground aqueduct channelling water from northern Derbyshire to Charnwood, runs under this street, and therefore it is part of a peculiarly straight strip of unbuilt area running all the way through the western side of Loughborough, running from Pear Tree Park in the north, through Gorse Covert Park (erroneously referred to as Bunny Hill), Jubilee Park, Charnwood College, Schofield Road, Robert Bakewell Hall on the university and Derwent Drive itself before running alongside Mardale Way, through private gardens on the Brook Lane estate and back out into the countryside. You may have figured out by now what Derwent Drive is named after. Yes, a giant water pipe. (You may be interested to know that the aqueduct is actually visible where it crosses the Blackbrook north of Ju