PsychoNottingham: End of the Line II: Gamston

Come back! I've changed my mind!

'Gamston, a hamlet adjacent to West Bridgford, is of no interest.'
Everard L Guilford, (Methuen Little Guides - Nottinghamshire, 1927)

How rude! I'm sure Everard could have found something of interest in Gamston in 1927 if he'd looked hard enough.

What interest lies in the older part of Gamston these days, I sadly cannot say, as I have just realised that during my visit to this 'affluent and thriving suburb' today, I somehow managed to miss the historic bits.

Gamston. Odd sort of a name. In his 1914 publication West Bridgford: Then and Now, Robert Mellors claimed that someone called Gamall 'may have come from Scandinavia, and settled at the time that the Danes governed Notts., and so given his name to the hamlet - Gamelstune - afterwards called Gamston.'

The end of the line for the Nottingham City Transport number 6 Green Line service to Gamston is Morrisons, which acts as something of a centre of gravity for these parts.

Gamston does feel tangibly separate to its hoitier and toitier neighbour, West Bridgford, which lies to the west, but it also has the cachet of being just over the road from said Shangri-La. I'm assuming that Gamston is slightly more affordable - a Baguette and Lurpak Island, if you will.

Both lie, of course, in Rushcliffe, and Rushcliffe residents are currently up in arms at the possibility of being made to live under the same local authority as unsavoury Nottingham City types such as myself, should a potential future reorganisation of local government come to pass.

As I disembark from the bus, I'm concerned about being rumbled. Damn my plebeian garb. I should have worn a disguise. Oh well, too late now.

The supermarket here arrived on the scene in 1992 as Safeway, before being rebranded as a Morrisons in 2005 following a takeover.

On being presented with a large out-of-town store, any psychogeographer worth his or her (usually his) salt will immediately be possessed by an overwhelming urge to circumnavigate the entire site (car park included), which is exactly what I do, making the discovery that the store sits within a few feet of the Grantham Canal, which lies to its rear (or possibly side).

Next trolley 3 minutes

The approach from the supermarket to the canal is not exactly akin to walking out of the doors of Venice Santa Lucia railway station to be dazzled by the Grand Canal, but it is pleasant enough.

A swan, a coot and several ducks bob around hopefully before I retrace my steps and plunge into Morrisons, hopeful of finding a rhubarb lattice tart in the bakery. Sadly, it appears that rhubarb lattice tarts have gone out of fashion, so a cornflake tart (which, to be fair, does actually turn out to be the best cornflake tart I've consumed in many years) has to suffice.

Emerging back out into the bright sunlight with my prize, circumnavigation satisfyingly completed, I start to explore the general vicinity, which includes a small hospital, an ugly Type K pillar box, one of the least-inviting community halls in all of Christendom and a Hickory's Smokehouse (formerly The Goose at Gamston). Hickory's Smokehouse 'can't wait to welcome you for some good old fashioned southern hospitality.' Who writes this nonsense?

After walking through an estate of Stepford houses (the bulk of the residential development in the area seems to have taken place from the 1980s onwards), I happen upon the Gamston Brook, a small stream which arrives here from Edwalton and passes beneath the Grantham Canal before heading off in the direction of Holme Pierrepont.

The mighty Gamston Brook

It's too tempting to ignore, and I follow it as far as Radcliffe Road, before walking the short distance back to the canal towpath and waving goodbye to the largely unremarkable, but thoroughly civilised suburb that is Gamston.

I can almost hear the collective sigh of relief from the locals as I leave their orbit to return to my city hovel.