Celebrating seven years of the blog

It was on 4 August 2013 that I first posted a short article about Loughborough on this blog. I was prompted by a number of things which included my having recently qualified as a Leicestershire Tour Guide, and discovered my love of Loughborough and local history, but the real push came when Loughborough was in danger of being included in a book called ‘Crap towns’. Ok, so I’m pretty sure the book was meant to be a bit satirical, but I must admit I was somewhat offended that Loughborough was in the proposed top 100 such towns, so I set about to single-handedly ensure we didn’t make it to the final cut! Lofty ambitions, I must say, and while it is true that Loughborough did not appear in the final version of the book, I don’t think that was down to me in any way!!

 

So, even while uploading my first post, I knew I was hooked on sharing my love of Loughborough with anyone who might take the trouble to read my posts, so it is not surprising that the blog is coming up to its 7th birthday in a couple of days’ time. During these 7 years, I’ve blogged about all manner of things Loughborough-related, either directly, or through connections with other places I’ve visited, which includes features on streets, on specific people, on specific houses, or on events, or on interesting history or nature.

 

Writing a blog post is an interesting affair. I write about things that have interested me, or things I’ve wanted to know more about, so have welcomed the opportunity to delve into a bit of research. Sometimes I’ve shared all my research, other times just the interesting bits, and sometimes I’ve shared my partially completed research. This has meant that sometimes the posts I’ve spent hours and hours working on are sometimes of little interest to others, and ones that I’ve written quickly or about something I think no-one will be interested in are viewed innumerable times! There’s no second-guessing what people will find enthralling at any one time!!

 

In a revamp of the blog, this year I have invited people to write a guest post for the blog, people who have a little more expertise than I, in areas of interest to Loughborough folk. I admit I got a bit side-tracked with the coronavirus pandemic and so haven’t arranged as many of these as I had planned to, but to date, three people have written guest posts, all of which have been fascinating to read and have had very good viewing figures.

 

In total there have so far been 322 posts published, and 619 comments have been published. At the time of writing, all-time views are running at 302,424. But which posts have caught the most interest?

So, here are the top ten most viewed blogposts published in the past year:

Coming in at 10th position is a recent post about St Peter’s Church and Community Centre, with 399 views.

In 9th place, with 405 page views is the post on VE-Day in Loughborough

In February 2020 we were still able to be out and about in Loughborough, and that post comes in at 8th place, with 416 page views

7th place goes to a post by guest blogger, Ian Castle, on what happened to the Zeppelin that bombed Loughborough on the night of 31st January 1916, with 438 views

A post on isolation hospitals in Loughborough comes in 6th place with 529 page views.

At 5th is a post published in 2019, entitled ‘Loughborough is the best town in the world!’, with 571 page views

A quick quiz about Loughborough was quite popular, coming in at 4th place with 619 page views

3rd place goes to a post on an intriguing visitor to Loughborough, Nita Isobel Bell, with 655 page views

2nd place goes to Spotlight on Field House, with 779 page views

In 1st place is ‘Researching your house through time’, which just got to its position with 784 page views

 

All-time page views present a somewhat different picture:

A post about the Loughborough Union Workhouse from 2016 comes in at 10th place, with 1937 page views

The post in 9th place was one posted in 2018 about weddings, with 1939 page views

Dishley Grange in photographs was posted in 2014 and was in 8th place, with 1979 page views

A post on lost and not-lost houses from October 2013 was viewed 2008 times and came in at 7th position

Swithland slate is one of my favourite topics and readers seemed to like it too, putting this post from 2016 in 6th place with 2181 views

The first-ever post, making an appearance on the blog on 4th August 2013, still remains popular and comes in at 5th place, with 2372 page views

The macabre also seems popular with viewers, with a post about disasters and plague houses published in 2017, coming in at 4th place with 2432 views, and one on the Plague and Dead Lane, also published in 2017 making it to 3rd place, with 2710 page views

Ghost signs in Loughborough from 2014 was also very popular, and with 2727 page views, came runner-up in 2nd place

And the winner of 1st prize goes to Spotlight on Ashby Road, a very early post from October 2013, which has had 3239 page views

Alongside the weekly blog posts, there are also a number of pages which once written and posted remain fairly static. I’ve noticed on the mobile version of the blog it’s not easy to find these pages (I knew they were there, so clicked on the option right at the bottom of the screen that said ‘View web version’) but on a pc they display in the banner across the top of the blog.

So, here’s the viewing figures for the 8 pages that are currently on the blog:

8th place goes to the Loughborough Plaque Trail, which is a virtual walk around commemorative plaques in Loughborough. It started life as a blog post, and has only been available as a page since May, hence the low viewing figure of 41.

In 7th place is another virtual walk, this time the Three Towers Trail, It’s an online version of a walk I actually led last September as part of the Heritage Open Day events, and takes you from the Carillon in Queen’s Park, to the bellfoundry via the parish church. It’s had 386 views.

I wouldn’t be true to my profession, would I, if I didn’t include a list of books!! Books & Bibliography comes in at 6th place with 1608 views.

Zeppelins seem to feature a lot on the blog, and this virtual Loughborough ZeppelinTrail, with 1912 views comes in at 5th position.

During 2017 I knuckled down and over a period of 100 days, I wrote a 100-word post about Loughborough each day. 100 Days About Loughborough is in 4th place, with 2074 views.

Another popular topic on the blog has been the Luddites, and the Loughborough, Ludditesand Lace Trail is another virtual walk. Its 2114 views earn it 3rd place

The second most popular page, with 2068 views, is the one about the author!

Top place goes to another virtual walk, this time the Loughborough Sculpture, Art & Architecture Trail, with 2746 views.

The web version of the blog also has other features like an index of words used, a search box which can be helpful if you’re looking for something specific, and an archive of previous posts.

I've also decided that as there are so many posts, and they're not necessarily easy to find, I'll put a complete list up on the blog at some point. In the meantime, hope you find something of interest to read here - and thank you for reading!

You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:

Dyer, Lynne (2020). Celebrating seven years of the blog. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2020/08/celebrating-seven-years-of-blog.html [Accessed: 2 August 2020]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

If you wish to leave a comment, please do so in the comments box that appears below this blogpost. Alternatively, you can contact me via lynneaboutloughborough[at]gmail[dot]com.

Thank you for reading this blog. 

Lynne