City of Leicester & Leicestershire - The Good and Historical Stuff

[Wolfox]

36 minutes ago, Parafox said:

 

That looks more like Humberstone park or Abbey park.

 

This is the Knighton Lido I remember.

 

Bring back the Lido…. Id’ve voted for that!

 

I went to one in Ashby…. And, when I lived in Tooting, I was a regular at Tooting Bec Lido….  
 

Great places

[davieG]

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History of Leicestershire in Images

Mervin Wallace  · 1 h  · 

 

 

ON THE 9th JULY 1553

Lady Jane Grey was queen for just nine days, as part of an unsuccessful bid to prevent the accession of the Catholic Mary Tudor. The great-granddaughter of Henry VII, Jane inherited the crown from her cousin Edward. Jane assumed the throne and her claim was recognised by the Council on the 10th July in London. Despite this, the country rallied to Mary, Catherine of Aragon's daughter and a devout Roman Catholic. Jane was deposed on the 19th July, her own father even abandoning her cause. She had reigned for only nine days and was later executed with her husband in 1554. Today, the only visible evidence of the Grey family estate is a series of brick ruins scattered across Bradgate Park, Leicestershire.

Even today there is conjecture as to the length of time Jane lived at Bradgate House, if at all.

Hinckley Artist Cicely Pickering captured a poingient moment in history with this beautiful drawing of Bradgate House and Lady Jane Grey (Lady Jane Grey (c. 1537 – 12th February 1554), also known as Lady Jane Dudley after her marriage and as the "Nine Days' Queen". She was an English noblewoman who claimed the throne of England and Ireland from the 10th to the 19th July 1553.

[davieG]

 

Leicester Memories

Rob Murray  · 51 m  · 

 

 

Fosse cinema

[westernpark]

A notable moment that the Caribbean Carnival has been cancelled for 2024. 

[davieG]

Born and Raised in Leicester  · 

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3 July at 08:00  · 

 

 

Leicester Central's very own police officer, P.C. Milburn, working at Leicester Central Station, circa 1900.

[davieG]

On 05/07/2024 at 19:16, Wolfox said:

@davieG - if I haven’t caught up with this thread for a few days, your photos disappear…. I like this thread and read through it…. Anyway your pictures can hang around for a little longer?

If you click on the attached text it should take you to the original Facebook page, if it's not there you can use the search option ... with a keyword or name and it will likely find the original story. A bit long winded but I guess it depends on how interested you are

[davieG]

 

History of Leicestershire in Images

Graham Hulme  · 1 h  · 

 

 

Old postcard view of Evington Road in Leicester, around 1910.

[davieG]

Born and Raised in Leicester  · 

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Former Temperance Hall The Essoldo Cinema, on Granby Street, in Leicester, in 1960.

 

[Paninistickers]

On 09/07/2024 at 21:05, westernpark said:

A notable moment that the Caribbean Carnival has been cancelled for 2024. 

Disappointing - it's a marker for the city's 'original' immigration that's fast becoming forgotten 

[danny.]

On 09/07/2024 at 21:05, westernpark said:

A notable moment that the Caribbean Carnival has been cancelled for 2024. 

One less day of rain, at least

[stripeyfox]

posted elsewhere but "On this Day" on front page of Wikipedia:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicester_balloon_riot

 

The Leicester balloon riot took place at Leicester's Victoria Park on 11 July 1864. It occurred at a test flight of a new hydrogen balloon by aeronaut Henry Tracey Coxwell, for which 50,000 spectators attended. The crowd were enraged by rumours that the balloon was not the largest and newest of Coxwell's balloons and because a woman was allegedly struck by a police officer. Coxwell's balloon was damaged, upon which he caused the gas envelope to collapse and fled, under attack from the crowd. The balloon was subsequently torn to pieces and its basket burnt. The event caused considerable expense to Coxwell, who had to build a replacement balloon, and it set back progress in scientific high-altitude flights.

[davieG]

The Leicester suffragettes who turn to arson

Ellen Sherriff and Elizabeth Rowley Frisby were at the heart of an arson attack on Blaby railway station in 1914.

• /content/images/size/w100/2023/10/7ZyLWECg_400x400.jpg

MARGARET BRECKNELL

 

/content/images/size/w100/2024/07/Article-images-15-.jpg Blaby railway station was a railway station on the Birmingham to Peterborough Line, but closed in 1968. Photograph: Ben Brooksbank / Wikimedia Commons

JULY 11 20248:00 AM7 MIN READ0SHARE

In the early hours of Sunday, 12 July 1914, two local men spotted that Blaby railway station was alight. The fire brigade was called, but, despite their best efforts, much of the wooden station was burnt to the ground. No one was ever prosecuted for the crime, and the identities of the arsonists remained unknown for years.

The following day, the Leicester Daily Post reported that “two women in mackintoshes” had been seen making an escape along the towpath of the Grand Union Canal from Blaby towards Leicester soon after the discovery of the fire. The identity of these mysterious culprits remained unknown, but they certainly wanted people to know the cause they represented. They left behind copies of the suffragette newspaper, plus several other pamphlets, including one on the controversial topic of force-feeding.

The newspaper was quick to condemn the women’s actions, commenting: “They may be silly enough to imagine that their £500 damage to the property of a big and wealthy railway company will, somehow or other, help the ‘cause’… The notorious fact is that these pin-pricks merely aggravate the inseparable popular disgust, and thus delay the very boon it is desired to hasten.” The Leicester Chronicle went one step further, declaring that: “Outrages of this kind… will never win votes for women.” Yet, it cannot be denied that this incident drew much local attention to the suffragettes’ cause.

[kushiro]

58 minutes ago, stripeyfox said:

posted elsewhere but "On this Day" on front page of Wikipedia:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicester_balloon_riot

 

The Leicester balloon riot took place at Leicester's Victoria Park on 11 July 1864. It occurred at a test flight of a new hydrogen balloon by aeronaut Henry Tracey Coxwell, for which 50,000 spectators attended. The crowd were enraged by rumours that the balloon was not the largest and newest of Coxwell's balloons and because a woman was allegedly struck by a police officer. Coxwell's balloon was damaged, upon which he caused the gas envelope to collapse and fled, under attack from the crowd. The balloon was subsequently torn to pieces and its basket burnt. The event caused considerable expense to Coxwell, who had to build a replacement balloon, and it set back progress in scientific high-altitude flights.

 

 

The poor balloon owner then wrote a letter to the Leicester Chronicle explaining what happened.  I'd say he got off pretty lightly considering where he was from:

 

 

 

 

[davieG]

[Free Falling Foxes]

9 hours ago, davieG said:

It seems absolutely unbelievable that  sometime back in the 60s, a planning committee saw the plans/ drawings  and for the area around the clock tower and the Haymarket in particular and thought, 'Yeah. That's great. We'll go for that'.

[Golden Fox]

I was trying to work out where this was an Evington Rd...

And as far as I can work out - it is the section below.

So was St Stephen's Steet cut through at a later date - those houses knocked down and that awful bank building put up?

[davieG]

Once the venue for the World Cycling Championships

 

Leicester Panthers American Football home ground

 

Left to rot by the council

 

Demolished and sold for housing

[Paninistickers]

34 minutes ago, davieG said:

Once the venue for the World Cycling Championships

 

Leicester Panthers American Football home ground

 

Left to rot by the council

 

Demolished and sold for housing

Tbf, an absolute white elephant. And a track donkey's years out of date. 

 

However, at the very moment cycling became mainstream (previously the sport had been largely been pursued by middle-class bachelors) , yup, Leicester got rid. 

 

Funnily enough, our loss meant Derby then built a state of the art velodrome which has since  put a whole new.meaning to the word white elephant. 

 

I think the athletics at saffron lane is in similar disarray (if not already demolished) 

[Parafox]

21 hours ago, davieG said:

Vandalism of the highest order. LCC should be eternally ashamed.

 

Surely they could have built the shopping centre behind the frontages?

[davieG]

2 hours ago, Parafox said:

Vandalism of the highest order. LCC should be eternally ashamed.

 

Surely they could have built the shopping centre behind the frontages?

They did with the Shires/Highcross behind the Coop. They also did in the Market when they demolished Marshall & Snelgrove in Gallowtree Gate.  I think maybe the Haymarket was the first big change and caught people unawares                      

[davieG]

Born and Raised in Leicester  · 

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Wharf street 1955

[davieG]

 

Old Anstey Photos  · 

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Suggested for you  · Nancy Frost  · 2 d  · 

 

 

 

[davieG]

Leicester Past & Present ~ A walk down Memory Lane. added a new photo to the album 46 LEICESTER PAST - Album No.46.

4 November 2017  · 

LEICESTER PAST: Stafford Butchers on Victoria Parade, unknown date.

 

 

Zdzisław Wiśniewski

5 November 2017  · 

 

June 2017

[davieG]

 

Leicester Memories

Graham Hulme  · 2 h  · 

 

 

Old postcard view of Granby Street, looking towards London Road and the railway station in the distance. The card was posted from Kibworth Harcourt to an address in Fosse Road North at Leicester in February 1905. On the right of the picture the Barley Mow pub is seen at the corner of Calais Hill and appears to have roadworks in front of it. Wright’s directory of 1906 shows John Crouch as the licensee and he is shown as the proprietor there in the 1911 census when he was aged 57. Mr Crouch was born near Salisbury in 1853. The census shows his second wife, Clara, as resident with him, whom he married in Leicester in 1897 following the death of his first wife in 1893. His youngest daughter, Violet, aged 22, is also shown as resident, and two servants. John Crouch remained at the Barley Mow until his death there in September 1917, aged 64. His funeral took place at Welford Road Cemetery, attended by a large number of people. Local newspapers reported about it and gave a brief account of his life. He left home at a young age and served for some time as a butler to several wealthy and titled families - it was noted that on one occasion he waited upon King Edward VII (though this may have been before the king succeeded to the throne because Mr Crouch had moved to Leicester by 1883). He held the licence of the old Bow Bridge Inn (now demolished) at Leicester from the early 1880s to the 1890s and from the later 1890s he was the licensee of the old Saracen’s Head in Hotel Street until the early 1900s when it was rebuilt (now the Knight & Garter) and he then moved to the Barley Mow. A little further up from the Barley Mow, beyond the smaller building, stands the Victoria Hotel, next to the YMCA building. The hotel was built about 1870 to meet the growing demands of Leicester's expansion at that time, particularly brought about by the ever increasing use of the railways for business travel and tourism, and was designed by the Leicester architect James Bird (1815-84) in an Italianate style. The establishment had many names changes over the last fifty or sixty years of its life, including being called the King’s Head and the Wyvern and was popularly known as the Dirty Duck in the 1970s. It was lastly known as The Road before being closed and converted to a Sainsbury’s Local store a few years ago.

[davieG]

Not Leicester but shows it was a nationwide vandelism

 

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Birmingham Central Library, Then vs. Now