Victoria Embankment runs alongside the River Trent to the south of the Meadows and is home to the Nottingham War Memorial Gardens.

[citation needed] In 1901, Victoria Embankment, a 1¼ mile long Victorian flood defence engineering works with a promenade and carriage-way opened, along with the New Meadows recreation ground.

In 1906 the Arts & Crafts style Cricket Pavilion was officially opened along with several new football pitches with the Police Band in attendance.

In 1920, Jesse Boot purchased the remainder of the land within the Embankment adjacent to the Trent and then bequeathed it to the citizens of Nottingham in perpetuity for recreational use and memorial.

The new development was based on the Radburn model of planning which consisted of segregating traffic and pedestrians by constructing cul-de-sacs, feeder roads and underpasses.

In 1975, the viaduct carrying the Great Central railway and Arkwright Street station was demolished as the new development started to take shape.

However, the 'Old Meadows', a substantial area to the south of Wilford Crescent (East and West), running to the Trent Embankment, survives as a reminder of what was lost.

In 2009, Nottingham City Council commissioned the consultants Taylor Young to examine the problems facing the Meadows, as a precursor to putting in a bid for Round 6 Housing PFI funding.

The council anticipated that this would have had a positive impact by reducing crime and anti-social behaviour and providing easy access in and out of the area for the police.

During November 2010, the government announced that, as part of its austerity package, the £200 million PFI grant to redevelop the neighbourhood was cancelled.

[10] However, the city council continued with a more limited scheme and funding for the construction of the tram extensions and the redevelopment of Nottingham railway station came from another source.

In September 2011, Nottingham City Homes (NCH) announced that fifteen of the 'Q' blocks, principally around the Arkwright Walk area, were to be decommissioned along with a small number of other properties.

Boot lived opposite this land on the south bank of the river; New Park was given with the restrictions that it should remain open space in perpetuity.

The rock gardens and the foundation stone of the Memorial Arch and Terrace were dedicated on 11 November 1926, and the full works were completed 12 May 1937.

Nottingham War Memorial[17] 52°56′05″N 1°08′25″W / 52.934590°N 1.140192°W / 52.934590; -1.140192, a raised terrace,[18] formal gardens with an elaborate cross-shaped ornamental pond,[19] pump room and toilets, and a statue of Queen Victoria.

According to the 2004 ODPM report, the Bridge electoral ward of which the Meadows was a part, has one of the highest rates of children affected by income related poverty in the country.

A high proportion of adults do not have any formal qualifications according to the ODPM (2004), and as a result the area has a higher than average rate of unemployment.

The line passed from Arkwrght Street, through the Bridgeway centre and on a route roughly parallel to Queens Walk, 120m to the east.