Victoria station’s forgotten brickwork

“The red-brick clock tower on Milton Street is all that you can now see of Nottingham’s old Victoria Station…”

I’ve read, repeated and written the above line a number of times over the years, but have to admit that it’s not strictly true. Whilst the glorious clock tower is the only complete building visible from the days of the station, there are other structures — mainly walls — that stem from that time, and which you can see today.

Visit York Street and Cairn Street at the northern end of Victoria Centre but before the car park and you can see extensive portions of the walls that both denoted the perimeter of the railway site, and supported the cutting. The bricks of the walls are mainly grey with a dark blue tinge, and their appearance has doubtless been influenced by the steam that swirled around them for seven or so decades.

Below is an image I took a couple of years ago, looking west within the lower level of the northern car park. In the upper background is the now-demolished York House. York Street runs roughly left to right, and I’ve indicated with the red line where ground level sits above. Nowadays, the higher portion of the brickwork is supported on York Street by modern brick. Curiously, within one of the arches is a redundant water pipe and a tap. Perhaps in the days of steam travel, these structures provided what passed as a tea room for the staff!

You can see similar walls over on the eastern side of the chasm (once called Victoria Hole), too, and get an idea of Victoria Station’s northern portion, where trains would have departed and arrived via a huge tunnel under Mansfield Road that emerged at a station on the Clarendon College site. You can read a little more in my text-only Kindle book, Nottingham Victoria: The story of a slum, a station and a shopping centre, available on Amazon by clicking here.

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