Transport History: Pictures tell story of change

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Generations of Alvaston residents caught their buses home from this spot on the western side of the Market Place, using services 41 and 43 to Harvey Road and Wyndham Street, and route 40 to Coronation Avenue. In this image from 1950 the Barlow and Taylor’s building (right) can be seen at the entrance to Iron Gate and, next to Cantors (left), can be made out the name of Austin Hodgkinson’s, high class grocer and provisions dealer. Courtesy C Carter

This view of Corporation Street from the Market Place, c1958, shows Morris House, which was demolished in 1986. In view are a number of vehicles making their way into Tenant Street (right), including a Ford Prefect saloon and Daimler motorbus, 23, which would pull up at the Perth Street stop opposite the Big 6 gents’ outfitters

Victoria Street, with Woolworth’s and Ranby’s, was one of Derby’s principal shopping locations. This view can be dated to 1959 by virtue of the signs in Woolworth’s windows proclaiming their “Golden Jubilee” sale. The trolley bus, a pre-war Daimler, 164, is making its way back to depot, followed by a Trent bus from Burton

Author and retired teacher Barry Edwards, who was born in New Normanton but now lives in Nailsea, has long been interested in transport history. Here, he showcases just a few of his huge collection of photographs charting the history of Derby public transport.

BERLIN Mauer 1961-1989 is signed in bronze rectangular plaques that crop up at regular intervals among the cobblestones that mark the line of the wall that divided one of Europe’s greatest cities for the best part of three decades.

As a young backpacker in 1970, I had gazed down from an observation platform in Potsdamer Platz, across the barren and weed-infested expanse of Leipziger Strasse, trying to reconcile the evidence of my eyes with familiar postcard images of a previous age.

This forlorn spot had once been bustling with people, buses and trams – Berlin’s answer to Piccadilly Circus. Now, breathtakingly rebuilt in the modern idiom, it is a sobering thought that anyone less than 20 years of age would struggle to remember these once desolate landscapes and probably not think twice about the significance of the line of cobbles running under their cafe terrace table.

Preoccupied by this notion of how each generation uses and shapes space within an urban landscape, my thoughts turned to Derby.

Despite an apparent lethargy and resistance to change, which is now being addressed by relatively grand schemes of regeneration, there are, nevertheless, a number of locations that a 20 or even 30-year-old would have difficulty in identifying.

Additionally, many central streets have changed their character and appearance because of pedestrianisation, landscaping or redevelopment. The time will come remarkably quickly when a young Derbeian will not realise there was an old bus station on the riverside site in the Morledge, and “Where was Main Centre?”

During the last half-century, I have collected numerous images, supplemented by my own photography, showing streets and districts of Derby, thanks to an interest in public transport.

Transport history has many facets, some undoubtedly esoteric, but in its wider social history context, it can reveal fascinating detail of daily life across the decades as people travelled to and from work, headed for the shops, markets and cinemas, or queued for a bus to take them to the Baseball Ground in the pouring rain.

Though the transport photographer undoubtedly expressed a desire to record a certain type of vehicle plying the streets, he or she, by default or good fortune, captured townscape images of a previous era with much intimate paraphernalia, thus recording for posterity a Derby that no longer exists except in the memory of its citizens, which, by definition, is ephemeral.

The images chosen here, recorded by a number of photographers, suggest that, despite a charge of lagging behind other cities in terms of renewal, Derby has indeed undergone a steady and significant change during the post Second World War period.

Largely unaffected by the kind of Luftwaffe attention that stimulated grand schemes elsewhere, Derby has experienced piecemeal renewal, though sadly some projects have notably lacked architectural merit.

There has also been a gradual movement away from long standing focal points in Victoria Street and the Market Place. A 1950s family taking a bus trip into town would often end its journey near Ranby’s (Debenhams) or the Market Hall, with The Spot a bit of an uphill hike away via St Peter’s Street.

This, of course, is changing quite dramatically with 21st-century Derby clearly focusing on its southern approaches in London Road and nearby Traffic Street.

Victoria Street seems destined to lose its erstwhile status as a principal shopping thoroughfare. Debenhams will soon decamp, the Post Office somehow fits into the former Tramways and Omnibus department office and Woolworth’s old building has long since gone.

How will the street, along with the Cornmarket and St Peter’s Street, come to terms with the effects of regeneration elsewhere?

Of course, Derby has not escaped the controversy that invariably surrounds the wish of one generation to change the use and design of an urban space created by previous planners.

The bus station issue divided opinion for 10 years or more, with the promoters of the Riverlights scheme wanting to destroy the old buildings by emphasising the point that “cities are not museums”.

The issue seemed to be more than just a wish to preserve Aslin’s Art Deco facility, itself tainted by decay and obsolescence, but equally about what Brian Ladd describes in his book Urban Planning and Civic Order as buildings being symbols and repositories of memory.

The bus station was a symbol of the collective memory of a number of generations and, as such, many fought hard to keep it.

Of course, the reuse of old buildings as a means of cementing links between past and present is not unknown. Bristol’s ultra modem Harbourside development includes a concrete railway building and industrial chimney.

In Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz sections of the old Esplanade Hotel and Huth wine house have been incorporated into the new quarter.

Uniquely, Derby had the opportunity to incorporate a rare Deco bus station rotunda into the contemporary architecture of a 21st-century scheme.

As Derby consolidates its most dramatic regeneration to date, with schemes afoot that will forever change the character, collective identity and memory of the city, we can be assured that all is being recorded for posterity, so that future generations will be able to examine with nostalgia what they will probably perceive as “the good old days” of Derby in the early 21st century.

Older generations will remember this c1958 image of Cockpit Hill in the Morledge, opposite Derby’s Central Bus Station. It had a motley collection of commercial establishments, including a saddler (with Trent social club above), Kentkars Taxis and an amusement arcade. To the rear of the bus is Chambers butchers and Siddals Road. The Daimler bus, 6, is en route to Morden Green. Courtesy Robert Mack.

Only two buildings in this 1960 photograph of Tenant Street remain today. Between 1950 and 1972, the street served as a terminal point for bus services to Chaddesden. In the background is the one-time Royal Oak pub, now used as the Register Office. The shops on the left include the Big 6 gents outfitters and Clarke’s Cycles. The Crossley bus, 111, is bound for Trenton Green. Courtesy A J Douglas.

Few areas of Derby have changed quite so much as the northern side of the Market Place, pictured here c1960, looking towards Little Full Street. The buildings to the left include Pountain’s, Ashley Adams and Fleet Electrics. A Sunbeam trolleybus, 179, is en route to Nightingale Road while the Daimler motorbus, 36, is heading to Coronation Avenue. Courtesy D A Jones.

The Market Place was undoubtedly the hub of Derby’s municipal public transport system for decades as well as providing car parking facilities as shown here in this 1959 photograph. Having previously hosted trams on the western and southern sides, the square provided a convenient turning loop for trolleybuses from 1932. Here we see Daimler motorbus 8, new in 1944, looping around the eastern side, operating a service to Alvaston. Courtesy Barry Edwards Collection.

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