I swam in a train shed

My daughter took us to her gym. It is quite a posh affair, compared to the local authority run centre that we usually use, and it appears to attract a lot of young professionals, encouraging those on their way to and from office jobs in the centre of Nottingham to include a daily work-out into their busy routines. It occupies the former train shed of the original Great Northern Railway station.

The grade two listed building dates from 1857, when it opened as London Road station. It was designed by a local architect, Thomas Chambers Hine. It became the terminus of the line built from Grantham in 1850, by the Ambergate, Nottingham, Boston and Eastern Junction Railway, soon after it was extended into Nottingham itself from Netherfield, which is north east of the city. It had seven platforms, which, according to Vic Forster and Bill Taylor in their book, “Railways in and around Nottingham,” turned out to be somewhat optimistic. They went on to point out that although it was the least well used of the city’s three mainline stations, it is the one that has lasted the longest, though that now incorporates a change of function.   

The later provision of an island platform at London Road High Level, situated on a spur from the Grantham line which threaded its way across an already heavily built-up area of the city to join the Great Central Railway at Weekday Cross, meant the original building then became London Road Low Level. The two stations shared a forecourt. The platform for High Level was positioned on two viaducts that were separated by a lattice girder bridge over London Road and an adjacent bridge over the Nottingham Canal. 

P. Howard Anderson, writing in his book, “Forgotten Railways Volume 2: The East Midlands,” described the detailed architecture of the original red brick building with its complex and elaborate frontage and drew attention to the unusual, projecting porte-cochere which was provided to accommodate horse-drawn road carriages, so that passengers could avoid the rain when making their transfer.

High Level survived until the 1960’s but the main Low Level station had previously closed to passengers in 1944. It then operated as a goods depot up to 1972 and for parcels until total closure in around 1989.  Damaged by fire in 1996, it was finally converted to what is now a Virgin Active Health Club, where my daughter and her husband are currently members.

I completed my normal forty lengths and on our way out my daughter informed me that because of the need to work within the limitations set by the framework of the protected building, the swimming pool was actually one metre short of the norm. Consequently, this meant that I had not actually managed my regular, nice round number swim of exactly one kilometre, and that I was, in fact, exactly forty metres short of it.

Only by returning for another couple of minutes, would I have given my body what I consider to be its just desserts for the day. There was no chance of that happening. I had just thought I had been in particularly good form, making excellent time as I sliced impressively through the waves. Actually, this same daughter has pointed out to me on more than one occasion that my swimming style is nothing if not amusing. She then mimicked how I stretch my neck and strain my head upwards as if it were on a stalk, so that I don’t get any water in my mouth, nose or ears, in what just about passes for a weak breast stroke. 

The four broad swimming lanes in the main pool must roughly coincide with platform roads in the old station and as I powered down the straight I could easily have been following the line of a former platform edge. With my head raised, as described, I could clearly see the dagger boards, reconditioned for sure, but still attached to the canopies running the full length of the train shed and also to the arched former entrance for the tracks themselves, ahead of me. Looking from below, the roof itself is an uncovered timber structure, which again appears to be in first class condition, and is clearly, at the very least, in keeping with the overall design as it must have appeared over one hundred and fifty years ago.

Alongside the pool at the station building end is a very chunky and obviously structural cast iron pillar that reminds me of similar, substantial, weight-bearing columns located at the wharf side in the restored Albert Dock complex in Liverpool. Smaller pillars opposite hold up patterned wrought iron work, separating large sheets of glass. A hefty and carefully restored red brick wall runs parallel to the adjacent smaller family pool, in the direction of the main station building.

Well, don’t you think that is just a great way to preserve an old building? It is still there, tastefully developed and carefully looked after. There are clues everywhere you look as to its former use and plaques to help the mystified to make sense of what has been going on there all this time. It is protected for future generations, fulfils a useful role in the modern city and provides work for local people. I hope it all lives happily ever after.

The next time I go for a dip, I promise my body that I will complete 1040 metres, to make up for the restriction forced on me last time by Mr Hine.

[This article first appeared in the Railway Antiques Gazette. Thanks are due to the editor, Tim Petchey]