A week of local history

I have been very fortunate this week to have spent my spare time engaging in history and heritage-related activities, with quite a number of like-minded people, some of whom I already knew, and some of whom were new to me.

The week started with a meeting with a large group of folk, all engaged with activities and projects related to Loughborough. There seems to be a lot of big anniversaries coming up in the next couple of years and there are some exciting plans afoot. The next upcoming event to look out for is Picnic in the Park on June 8th, arranged by the folk at Charnwood Arts. Staff from the Local and Family History Centre, aka the Loughborough Library Local Studies Volunteers, will be hosting a stall celebrating the 200th birthday of both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Victoria and Albert will be in attendance - well, actors will be portraying them!

Picnic in the Park 2018

Talking of the Local and Family History Centre, the current display is a great one - the Midland Main Line then and now - and well worth a visit if you can.

I spent an evening talking with loads of people about what about Loughborough we'd like to see in the Victoria County History volume on the town. This is a national project that's been going since 1899, with the aim of writing a history of every single parish in the country. Progress was initially quite swift, but has since slowed down, and there are still many areas of the country to be written about. We had so many ideas Loughborough's history, it just reinforced to me how fantastic our little town is, and oh so interesting! We thought there was so much to include that we could fill lots of volumes!

I missed a trip to Nottingham with a dear friend due to illness. I was so looking forward to being shown around some of the more interesting parts, especially as I rarely venture off the beaten track that is the Broadmarsh Centre route through to the Victoria Centre, although I did once have a guided tour of the areas associated with D H Lawrence, which was fascinating, I have been to Green's windmill, and I recently had a look at the Alfreton Road area.

Green's windmill

Back in Loughborough, and at the Local and Family History Centre I did a bit of research and met some very interesting people, with whom I seemed to have much in common, not least an interest in milestones!!

After many years of not being available for training, I finally made it to the Old Rectory Museum for some training to be a guide during the open season! Wow! What an exciting opportunity to be able to show people around the building and explain its history, as well as learning something about the artefacts upstairs. There were three of us being trained, which should help towards keeping the ORM open, but there's always a warm welcome for anyone else to be trained up as a guide - just get in touch with the ORM if you're interested!

At the weekend I had a front row seat at a concert in the Trinity Methodist church on Royland Road, given by the Loughborough Male Voice Choir and Hathern Band. Sadly, the youngest wasn't playing due to revision for exams, but it was a great concert, with some lovely singing and some superb playing.

Well, better go now, books don't write themselves!

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Dyer, Lynne (2019). Garendon Estate water mill. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2019/05/a-week-of-local-history.html [Accessed 19 May 2019]

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Lynne