Bull-in-the-Hollow Part 3

Bull-in-the-Hollow Part 3 

As we saw in last week’s post, the area around the Bull-in-the-Hollow became a notorious accident blackspot. The grandson of one of the people involved in a fatal accident has been in touch, and what follows is the front-page newspaper report from the  ‘Leicester Evening Mail’, of Monday 1st June 1959. It is interesting that the location is given as ‘at Bull-in-the-Hollow’ not ‘at the Bull-in-the-Hollow’ which seems to imply that that part of the road itself was known as Bull-in-the-Hollow – but I might be reading too much into that!!! Anyway, here’s the report in full:

“In collision with 2 motor-bikes CYCLIST DIES IN ROAD TRAGEDY. 

Whist fan, Mr Reggie Hames (52), of 12, Babbington Road, Barrow-on-Soar, suffered fatal injuries when his cycle was in collision with motor-cycles ridden by two Leicester brothers, who both escaped without injury.

The accident occurred about 10pm on Saturday [30th May] at Bull-in-the-Hollow, the notorious black spot on the A6, near Loughborough.

It is believed that Mr Hames was cycling home after playing whist in Loughborough. “He would go anywhere for a game,” said Mrs Hames.

Mr Hames, a labourer at the Brush E.E. Co. Ltd., Loughborough, was first in collision with the machine ridden by 18-year-old Alan Jones, a soldier in the Royal Engineers, stationed at Devizes, whose home is at Swannington Road, Leicester.

Knocked from his machine, Mr Hames was then struck by a second motor-cycle, ridden by Graham Jones, also 18, of the same address. He is in the Royal Signals.

Pillion Injured.

Mr Hames was taken by ambulance to Leicester Infirmary, where he died.

Riding pillion passenger on the second motor-cycle was Miss Jacqueline Freestone of the Working Girls’ Home [i], Westcotes Drive, Leicester. She was admitted to the Infirmary with a broken collar bone, lacerations and concussion.

Passenger on the other machine was Miss Judith Owen, also resident at the hostel. She was uninjured.

Well-known in Barrow, Mr Hames leaves a widow, two married sons and a son of school age.”

The second motor-cyclist, Graham Jones, and his pillion passenger, Jacqueline [F.] Freestone went on to marry in January of 1960.

Let’s leave accidents now and move on to some different incidents. 

If you’re a fan of the television series ‘Only Fools and Horses’ then you might think that this headline – “No room at the inn for Trigger” – which appeared at the top of an article in the ‘Leicester Evening Mail’ of 17th October 1960, on page 8 - might refer to Colin Ball, aka Trigger, the character played by Roger Lloyd-Pack. But no! This story is about something much closer to home. The subtitle: 

“…SO HORSE AND RIDER BED DOWN IN A GARAGE.

is followed by an article:

… When a modern horseback traveller … arrived in Oadby on Saturday night he found the ‘stables’ at the inn – but they were not for horses. They had been converted into accommodation for ‘horseless carriages.’

That was the situation facing author William Holt, who is riding from London to York, selling on the way the book he has written. [ii]

He was misinformed on the way to Oadby that there were stables at the White Horse.

Rural breath

Yet the problem provoked by the advent of the motor-car turned in the end to his advantage.

A helpful Oadby resident moved his car out into the open for the night and Mr Holt and his grey gelding, Trigger, bedded down in the garage.

Yesterday morning, Mr Holt rode to Leicester to pick up a parcel of books from London Road station to replenish his stock.

And Trigger brought rural breath to the urban scene, lunching from his noseban on the pavement edge, under the watchful eye of a policeman.

Later Mr Holt moved on and after a night in an orchard at the Bull-in-the-Hollow, horse and rider arrived this morning at Loughborough, where there was a slight delay for ‘running repairs’.

Trigger had thrown half a shoe, and there was a visit to the blacksmith[iii] before Mr Holt could move on towards Nottingham. He expects to be in Nottingham tomorrow.”

The Cross Keys today

And finally, several people have confirmed that the road was definitely levelled off in the late 1960s-early 1970s, to make it a safer road to use.

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[i] The Working Girls’ Home appears to be a hostel for working girls (!) with information found on a page entitled ‘Children’s Homes’, created and curated by Peter Higginbotham, where this particular home, at 136 Westcotes Drive, is the only one of its kind listed in Leicestershire: http://www.childrenshomes.org.uk/list/WG.shtml Latterly, it was called Bradgate House Residential Home, but has been vacated and vandalised. In November 2018, the artist referred to as Wormsy (well, a nod to the artwork, perhaps not the name of the artist), painted a pink worm on the back to the building which had been sold on and was destined to be converted to flats, although this still hasn’t happened yet.

136 Westcotes Drive, Leicester, 2021

[ii] I think the book in question is the novel, ‘The Wizard of Whirlaw’, because it was written in 1959 (the previous book, also a novel, was published in 1956, so less likely to be part of this promotional tour). Billy Holt, as he was known, seems to have been a polymath, being not only a writer and artist, but also a pioneer of the mobile library service, and the developer of a 'model' farm: Loughborough’s model farm is a topic covered in ‘A-Z of Loughborough’. Trigger, Holt’s horse, was a former rag and bone horse, who was rescued by Holt, and with whom he later travelled across Europe, documenting his travels in a book called ‘Trigger in Europe’ published in 1966, the last book that Holt authored before his death in 1977.

[iii] If Mr Holt was heading towards Nottingham from Loughborough, it’s possible that the blacksmith he visited was Bert Porter, and his son, Brian, who at the time were working out of premises very close to what is now the Phantom, pub, but what was at the time known as the Cross Keys. As well as working from here, the Porters would travel to visit their clients, to shoe their horses. Later, Brian Porter moved his business to Quorn, while his father retired to Wiltshire.        

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough 19 September 2021

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Dyer, Lynne (2021). Bull-in-the-Hollow Part 3. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2021/09/bull-in-hollow-part-3.html [Accessed 19 September 2021]

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