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davieG

City of Leicester & Leicestershire - The Good and Historical Stuff

By davieG, in General Chat

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Parafox

Parafox

Posted
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3 hours ago, Stadt said:

Shame about Cafe Rialto but Malcom Arcade is incredibly dingy. We have a lot of crappy developments a progressive city would have torn down far faster.

 

I remember Café Rialto from wayyyyy back. 

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davieG

davieG

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362621459_6840587562618635_6403104677091

Air Raid Siren top of Lewis's tower 1938.
Love the plus fours.....
 
Terry Jones
Top contributor
That was testing one of two different sirens. The one in the main pic was the winner but the other one was a monster...
 
May be a black-and-white image of hairdryer and speaker
 
Terry Jones
Top contributor
Before the last war Ray Elgood of Wigston worked at Parmeko Ltd in Aylestone. He was part of the team designing and building a huge air raid siren to cover the bulk of Leicestershire. "The design was for a large motor with a shaft both ends, each carrying a fan of about 3ft in diameter, blowing into two horns, also 3ft, with a bell mouth of 2ft," recalled Ray. "Inserted into the horns were perforated spinning discs to interrupt the air flow and produce the sound. Each horn produced a different note to get the warbling effect required.
It all then rotated on a base so it covered a full 360 degrees.
The whole lot weighed a ton and a half. The huge contraption had to be mounted on a tall building and the most obvious spot was the Art Deco tower of Lewis's department store in Humberstone Gate. I give you three guesses as to who got the job of installing this huge siren on top of the tower.
It was impossible to get it inside and there were no hoist points built into the tower. I was given four ex-sailors who were used to knots and spars to build some staging to pull the siren up the outside of the tower. We had three days to install it and do full tests. Many times it nearly fell but sailors are good catchers and in the end we got it up. Lewis's café was in the tower base and they kept us supplied with food day and night. The siren was completed and tested successfully on September 14, 1938. However after all that, the Ministry said: Jolly good, but we have changed our minds and are having dozens of smaller sirens supplied by Gents, of St Saviour's Road. Only one more of these big sirens was made and that was used in a naval dockyard.".....There is a postcard of Gallowtree Gate with a view of Lewis`s Tower in the background.If you look atop the tower you can see the beast of a siren in situ so that postcard can be dated within 3 days of 14th Sept 1938...
 
362242352_10159996586151775_393649569804
 
Terry Jones
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Top right atop Lewis`s tower is the monster siren... 🙂
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WarehamFox

WarehamFox

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29 minutes ago, davieG said:

362611024_236760575896891_77594976116295

Victoria Road East.

 

29 minutes ago, davieG said:

362611024_236760575896891_77594976116295

Victoria Road East.

That's a great photo, but i'm struggling to place it. Is that now called Overton Road?

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Free Falling Foxes

Free Falling Foxes

Posted
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1 hour ago, davieG said:

May be an image of 3 people, fire escape and the Queensboro Bridge

The Northgate Bridge before being removed.( between Frog Island & Sanvey Gate).

Heck of a lot of construction and engineering went into the Great Central Railway. Many of the lines arrived into the city 30 odd feet above the streets.

Pity more of the structures, such as this one, couldn't have been kept as part of our heritage.

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davieG

davieG

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1 hour ago, Free Falling Foxes said:

Heck of a lot of construction and engineering went into the Great Central Railway. Many of the lines arrived into the city 30 odd feet above the streets.

Pity more of the structures, such as this one, couldn't have been kept as part of our heritage.

The whole line would have been near perfect for the HST as it was the latest most level and straightest track at that time.

 

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London to Manchester/Liverpool via the East Midlands and Sheffield

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