Swift action!
1891, painted in large moss green relief above the upper most corner window stating the year of completion. This blunt arrow head building aiming across the junction towards St John's church, at the meeting of Loscoe Road and Church Drive, is presently bandaged in scaffolding, recovering from urgent roof repairs, this characterful building has been quite literally a cornerstone of the community with many generations of family witnessing its many incarnations, from drapery, to couturier, to butchers, then in 1977 it became the pottery that is present today.
Carrington pottery has also encountered many generations of another creature, generations that have called it home for possibly 129 years, the Common Swift. Anyone passing through this small corner of Nottingham on a summer evening could not fail but notice these dark scything shapes tearing the sky, performing spectacular aerial feats of speed which snatch your breath away, manoeuvres that seem so outrageously dangerous to our terrestrial, gravity impaired human existence, we often find ourselves out on our street oohhing, ahhhring and applauding like a circus audience.
Our Swift Street project to date has put up 30 swift boxes on residential properties in the Carrington and Sherwood area, so when we heard that the pottery was having roof repairs, impacting on what is probably the most important swift nesting site in the area, we knew we had to act fast.
In the height of summer, the corner aspect of the walls will both receive at least two hours of low sun, so we had two special boxes with extra insulation made, this was just a precautionary measure against temperatures in the box getting too high, chicks can be very susceptible to dehydration. Climbing the scaffolding to guttering level our first job, after admiring the views, was to locate the exact sight of the old nests, a sure sign being slight streaks of guano on the wall below the entrance, these locations we found conveniently positioned with an architectural symmetry, one to each side of the top corner facing window. Taking our time in order to be sympathetic to the nature of the old brick work of the building, we prepared the boxes, then with a lot of measuring and a little drilling they were up, and looking pretty smart we must say, let's keep our fingers crossed that the swifts think so too.
