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50 years ago

1957 - July

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July 31, 1957

Twenty boys and girls from Southwell left Newark Northgate station on Saturday to travel to Denmark.
They are spending two weeks on the island of Funen, the central part of the country.
They will be staying with some of the Danish boys and girls who visited Southwell last year. The visit includes a trip to Copenhagen.

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To provide accommodation for employees of the Central Electricity Authority at the second Staythorpe Power Station which is now being constructed, Newark Town Council is to build 60 tied houses. The first 30 will be built in 1958.

The houses, which will be additional to the council’s normal building programme, will be tied to the CEA for ten years.

They will be subsidised by the government, but the CEA has rejected a proposal that they should pay either £60 per house or £8 per house for ten years. Consequently, the houses will be let at an economic rent.

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Alternative routing to Skegness through Newark was not in operation at the weekend when traffic converging on the town caused queues miles long to form on roads leading into the borough.
At times up to 500 vehicles were waiting their turn to pass through Newark’s traffic bottlenecks.

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July 17, 1907

Six young ladies were chosen as finalists in a beauty competition organised during Newark RAF Assocation’s dance in the Town Hall.
They were Marlene Lambert, Pamela Parkes, Alma Quant, Maureen Cross, Lynn Goode and Ann Ranford.
With Sandra Fligg, who won a contest at the recent British Legion gala, they are all eligible to compete in the finals at Newark RAFA Battle of Britain dance on September 13.

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Spectators and competitors got wet at Newark Swimming Club’s champions and annual sports at the Sherwood Avenue pool, Newark. Just as events began, so did the rain.
Despite the weather there were some good times returned. Three records were broken. V. Gash completed the girls’ championship race in 42 seconds to set up a new record and win the M. Ford Cup, and F. Bramhall returned a time of 41.2 seconds in the men’s back stroke. J Cove won the women’s championship in the record time of 39 seconds.

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Just 121 years ago, workmen excavating in Millgate, Newark, accidently found dozens of Anglo-Saxon burial urns, of which 15 were taken out intact. Although the find established that there must have been a burial ground on the site, no more finds were unearthed until last week.
Like that of 1836, the lastest discovery was accidental. Mr Thomas Cree of 121 Millgate, was digging a pool in his garden when, less than 2ft below the surface, he found pieces of centuries-old pottery.
There was one urn that was almost intact, and Mr Cree placed it outside his back door. Then he sent his schoolboy son to the Newark Museum with some pieces of the pottery.

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July 10, 1957

One of the severest storms in living memory, though not long in duration, plunged Newark into darkness on Saturday night. Many men had to work through the night to avert a chaotic stoppage in public services.
The storm was at its worst between 9pm and 9.30pm, with forked lightning striking houses, trees, power cables and cattle.
The big black-out came at 9.14pm, after several overhead electricity lines had been struck. Work on restoring the supply of power began immediately. Some lights came on again 12 minutes later, but in certain areas the power was not restored until the following afternoon.
At the post-office, telephone operators working by gas-light were inundated with calls. Dozens of subscribers reported that their telephone bells were ringing incessantly.

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During 1956 there were 412 road accidents in the 40 parishes administered by the Southwell Local Road Safety Committee. Two hundred and sixty one of them involved accidents to persons.
Lowdham had the highest figure with 41 accidents. Two were killed, five seriously injured and 13 slightly injured. Next comes Southwell with 30 accidents including five serious and four slight. Farnsfield had 29 accidents with 16 serious and 12 slight.

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July 03, 1957

From this evening Mr W. G. Haggett’s home, Springfield Cottage, Newark, will be an island. At a civic ceremony at 7.30pm, all the land surrounding it will become Newark’s newest public park.
The opening of Devon Park will represent the first big step towards making 40 acres of Newark’s most attractive land, between Hawton Road and the River Devon, available as a public riverside pleasure-ground.

The 103/4-acres that come into use tomorrow include the whole of the east bank of the river from the Devon Bridge on Fosse Way to the edge of a spinney more than 3/4-mile away.
The area adjoins the present 13-acre open space of Sconce Hills, including the three acres of the Queen’s Sconce itself.

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Newark Town Council plans to spend £12,000 on a new pig market. Accommodation for pigs will then be of the same standard as the attested cattle market.

The council on Monday agreed that the scheme be submitted for Ministry approval with a view to obtaining a loan of £15,000 to cover the scheme and other improvement work at the market.

Councillor D. P. Blatherwick, who is chairman of the Cattle Market Committee, said: “The intention is that it should be a covered market, somewhere at the back of where the trade stands now are. It should mean that if we can move the pig market there will be more accommodation for our trade stands.�