Original footage was without sound, all sound has been added to this video using multiple sound files with the aim to try to create a realistic atmosphere. Thank you for your comments please let me know what you think of this production.
In 1971 the wholesale clearance of St Ann’s began, altering forever the lives of more than 30,000 people who were compulsorily displaced before the houses, pubs and streets they knew so well were demolished. It was the largest housing programme ever undertaken outside London, but for many of those St Ann’s folk, it was nothing to celebrate.
Places like Northumberland Street, Raglan Street, Princess Terrace and old St Ann’s Well Road had been home to generations of families but it all came to a sudden and dramatic end as they were uprooted and rehoused on estates at Clifton, Aspley and Bestwood.
There can be little doubt that change was overdue. Around 65% of the 10,000 homes in the area had no piped hot water supply, 75% had no bath and 25% had no toilet within or attached tor their house.
The 1970 scene in Moffat Street, where damp-ridden homes with flaking plaster and crumbling floors left residents begging Nottingham Corporation to rehouse them.
Cockroaches and woodworm were unwanted residents in many houses, poor drainage led to sewage floods on many occasions.One resident, James Staley, demanded a move at the time, saying: "There are houses going at Clifton. I cannot see why they won’t move us out. I don’t want my children brought up in these unhealthy surroundings.”
Resentment came when the council decided to take a wholesale approach and knock down houses that would have lasted for generations to come. The unique sense of community that had held St Ann’s together through the decades would be lost. Treasured landmarks were also swept away in the mass clearance. St Ann’s Church, a local landmark for more than 100 years, was demolished in 1971, and the following year, Emmanuel Church in Woodborough Road, known as “the Church on the Hill” was pulled down.