This site updates the photo story of the 1970's Sandpiper Punk music venue in Nottingham. The views expressed on this site are my personal views.

After Nottinghams brutal, unsympathetic and unloved concrete based developments of the 1960's ( see Balloon Woods ). The City was looking to renovation not modernisation ( i.e. redevelop not flatten areas and build tower blocks ) in the 1980's and beyond. In Nottingham the main beneficiary of this policy was the lace market area ( where the Sandpiper had been located ).

The Nottingham Lace Market area consisted of mostly Victorian Lace Mills, Warehouses and support buildings. With the Lace industry gone there where a lot of empty / underused buildings. The redevelopment took the now standard form of Apartments, Offices and Bars/ Restaurants. In the late 1980's and 1990's the area was popular for living and entertainment, helped by the entertainment venues being targeted at the more select ( people with lots of money ) clientele. However by the 2000's the entertainment venues started to target a mass audience ( people with less money ). This resulted in the more select clientele moving on, issues with noise and behaviour, venues opening and closing down on a regular basis and a spiral down in the quality of the venues.

Today ( November 2010 ) many entertainment venues in the centre of the lace market are shut, either as a deliberate choice or because of issues ( fights etc ). Only the edge of the lace market is still thriving, mainly because of chain or franchise bars / restaurant. There are very few independent bars / restaurants in the area.

While once a loud and raucous Punk venue could be sited in the rundown lace market area. The redevelopment into apartments means that while run down as a Entertainment area, there is next to no chance of a 'livley' venue being allowed back into the area. What's needed is a long term view of any entertainment development in the lace market, not another succession of quick, big, mass market venues that have failed recently.

Using the links on the left you can see how the area looks today with a few comparisons with the area in the Sandpiper days.

I can be contacted at smf@smfpics.com