Pym Street ~ its school & chapel

 The western half of Pym Street leading to Blue Bell Hill Road was completed in 1916, and was a main arterial road bisecting the northern half of the Stonebridge Park Estate in a north-south divide.

Harold Smith was born on Girsby Terrace, off Pym Street. He used to be a paperboy at the paper shop on the corner of Pym Street and Gordon Road. When the owner retired, he bought the business. Mr Smith gives an account of his life living in St Ann’s in Ruth John’s book: St Ann’s, Inner City Voices, published in 2002.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bluebell Hill Schools (Indicated by the red dot on the map) opened in 1883 by the Nottingham School Board It was situated at the junction of Bluebell Hill Road and Pym Street. The small building with a gable end was the school hall mainly used by the infants. The attached building contains the junior school upstairs, with the infants on the ground floor; the school closed in 1973, and was demolished in 1974. The school canteen was retained which is now the Blue Bell Hill Community Centre shown above. The caretaker’s house was also retained and this is today the old brick building of the community centre. Today the building is in regular use, and remains at the heart of the local community. The Community Centre is the focus of the Bluebell Hill Playgroup and Out of School Care Scheme. The contact telephone number is 0115 9476722. It is also interesting to note that St Ann’s Welfare Rights Group (SAWRAG) started off here in 1983, and is still going strong today in the Neighbourhood Centre on the Robin Hood Chase. The founder members included Mrs Kath Ross & Mr Ron Bell.

On the opposite side of Pym Street, looking out onto Blue Bell Hill Road stood the Morley Memorial Chapel. The Chapel was designed by R C Sutton (Architect) and built for Primitive Methodists, costing £2,500. It was opened on 20 October 1889 with seating for 600. The following notice appeared in the London Gazette, 18 November 1941:

The church closed in 1942 and the building was sold to the Boot's Company and used as a warehouse, as well as a timber store until it was demolished in 1972. This is a list of Baptisms held at Morley Memorial Chapel, from December 19th 1897 - July 25th 1909.

Winifred Mary Hopkins; Alice Clara Thurlby; Gladys Eva Walkerdine; Eliza Frankton; George Ernest Keyworth; Ernest Rogers; Herrick (Eric) Boot; Ellen Maud Cooper; Ralph Stacey Baxter White; Lily Webster Johnson; Clara Skinner; Leslie John Birch; Frank Harold Smeeton; Winifred May Seward; Abraham Johnson; Madge Rogers; Frank Alfred Brackwell; Frank Miller & Clement Frederick Bacon.

In 1916, Flewitt Street was also completed; it crossed all the way over Pym Street, through the area of the Stonebridge Park Estate, which today (2012) is known as Limmen Gardens, and then into Melville Gardens. In 1916, this area of our estate had three roads linking Beacon Hill Rise Road in the west to Gordon Road in the east; they all passed over Flewitt Street. Above Pym Street, which was the largest road on our estate at the time, was Massey Street, Hunt Street and Young Street.