Victory Road

My personal challenge for this round of Miss Jenny Matlock's alphabe-Thursday is to post about a location within the borders of my own county of Derbyshire, UK, for each letter of the alphabet.

Look for the letter, to see where I am.

V is for Victory Road.

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During this round of Alphabe-Thursday, I've posted about the city of Derby twice; once to show you the pleasant and (in parts) historic area of Littleover and once to show the multi-ethnic face of the city in Normanton. What I haven't done is show you anything of how Derby survives economically, so I'm going to rectify that now by taking you to Victory Road and the biggest employer in Derby: Rolls Royce.

Where better to begin than with Sir Frederick Henry Royce himself?

Born in 1863, Henry Royce was the engineer who designed and produced the world famous Rolls-Royce motor car. In Derby, however, he is best remembered for his own design of the aero-engine because that is what Rolls-Royce Derby is famous for producing, with engines and maintenance contracts being sold worldwide for both commercial and military aircraft.

Derby is the home of Rolls-Royce aero engines.

Sir Henry stands close to the end of Victory Road, near the junction with Moor Lane, outside the Derby Headquarters of the firm.

Interestingly, a friend who works for Rolls-Royce once commented that you can always tell a Derby Rolls Royce engineer apart from those who work in branches of the company elsewhere in the world. Derby is unique in referring to the firm as 'Royces'. Elsewhere, it is known as 'Rolls'.

Stretching down as far as Merrill Way at this end of Victory Road.

Sir Henry lived by the motto, "Whatever is rightly done, however humble, is noble".

Victory Road is less than a mile long and heading away from town, beginning at the Outer Ring Road and curving towards the neighbourhood of Sinfin. The industry is mostly packed into the three quarters of the road furthest from the city centre. This photo is looking in towards central Derby...

...and up here, there is another small industrial estate known as Victory Park. There are still units under construction, suitable mainly for light industry or commerce.

 
Continuing on, we reach the city end of the road, which now climbs quite steeply towards the Outer Ring Road. Here the industry gives way to houses. Mostly, these were once Council owned, but now many have been bought out by their tenants. It's a busy place to live though, sandwiched between the constant activity of Rolls Royce and the equally constant traffic of the main road.

At the moment, it's also full of holes. Pipes for water, pipes for drains, cables for communications, and electricity, but the new ones here are being laid by the gas board.

They're always digging something up!!

Before we finish completely, I'll have one more Derby post to give you a little more flavour of the city.

But right now, I need to find somewhere beginning with W.