Lynne About Loughborough: December 2023

Sunday, 31 December 2023

Happy New Year!

So, as 2023 comes to a close, I shall do my usual review of the year on the blog!

Hoarding going up around the HSBC in Market Place, December 2023

The 10th most popular post this year was one I wrote about my June visit to Garendon Park, when we were shown around the area near the obelisk.

To coincide with the launch of my book about Loughborough pubs, in November I posted about pubs as meeting places, which proved to be the 9th most viewed post of the year.

At the beginning of the year, it was announced that the Canal and Rivers Trust would be improving the canal towpath, between the old Herbert Morris factory and the basin, so my post about a walk along the canal towpath was the 8th most popular of the year.

For International Women's Day, I presented you with the story of two sisters, Avery and Ida Woodward, who were daughters of a teacher at the Loughborough Grammar School. One sister was a lecturer at Royal Holloway College, the other was influential in the field of X-ray crystallography. This post was the 7th most read of the year.

In February 2023 I was lucky enough to have a guided tour around Chesterton House, a building which had once been home to the first girls' grammar school in the country. It was also once home to the Warner family who owned the shop on the corner of Fennel Street. This was a popular post whose position in the chart was 6th, and I was grateful to be able to provide the post which gave an update on the entry that I had included in 'Loughborough in 50 Buildings'.

Then, in March 2023 I happened to be walking along Packe Street, and noticed that there was an open event happening at the Generator building. Not being able to resist, I walked through the open door - and I'm glad I did because I had a wonderful time looking around the building, and because you clearly enjoyed reading my post about it, putting this article into 5th position!

Again, at the beginning of 2023, I looked back over some of the changes that happened in Loughborough during 2022 - and goodness me, there were a lot of changes, to industrial, retail, and residential buildings, from demolitions to rebuilds, and renovations! Mostly photos, this post came in 4th.

I was very lucky to have quite a number of guest bloggers during 2023, and I am so pleased that one of these made it to 3rd position! 'Warner's Corner' described the shop that so many people from Loughborough remember - particularly its orange sunscreens - and the family that made the business.

It's hardly surprising that a pictorial post about the fire at Loughborough's HSBC, in Market Place, came in 2nd place. The repairs to the building are going to take 18 months to 2 years, but it's nice to see the temporary, decorative hoarding that has recently gone up.

So, the most viewed post of 2023 is about my first visit of the year to Garendon Park. This included photos of some of the well-known, and less well-known structures on the estate.

Incidentally, I actually wrote three posts about my visits to the Garendon Park Estate, and the second of these came in at position 13.

Looking at the popularity in 2023 of all the blog posts I've ever written, a few older posts have made the top 10, including a piece about the Derby Road Co-op building, and the Loughborough Union Workhouse.

Highlights of the year for me include hosting a variety of guest blogs during August 2023, when the blog celebrated its 10th birthday; attending the local history fair at Beaumanor Hall; having a stall at the Carillon100 event, and the publication of 'Loughborough Pubs'.

What I am most grateful for though, is you! Thank you so much for reading the blog during 2023, and thank you for your comments and questions! You can find a complete list of blog posts here! I hope to be able to continue the blog into 2024, but for now, I must sign off and ring in the New Year!

Thanks again,

Lynne

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

_______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this blog.

Copyright:

Dyer, Lynne (2023). Christmas Tree Festival 2023. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2023/12/happy-new-year.html [Accessed 31 December 2023]

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Lynne

Sunday, 17 December 2023

Christmas Tree Festival 2023

Every year I like to go and see all the beautiful Christmas trees that people set up for the Christmas Tree Festival. I guess I’ve been to the Melton festival the most, to support the Hathern Band, (here's the 2014 Festival, and the 2016 Festival,) but I’ve also been to Lichfield and a couple of other places.

Closer to home, I’ve made it to the All Saints tree festival for a couple of years (here's the 2018 Festival the 2019 Festival and the 2022 Festival, and this year was no exception. There were some lovely trees to view, and if you’re quick, you can still catch them, if you haven’t already been down. Every year I think I might contribute a tree myself, but so far I’ve not managed to do it. However, I was surprised to see my contribution to the Old Rectory Museum tree still hanging on in there!!!

Here are some photos from this year’s festival at All Saints. Enjoy!

____________________________________

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

_______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this blog.

Copyright:

Dyer, Lynne (2023). Christmas Tree Festival 2023. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2023/12/christmas-tree-festival-2023.html [Accessed 17 December 2023]

Take down policy:

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Blog archive and tags:

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site: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/ “Radmoor House”

NOTE – the words you’re actually looking for must be in “” and the first of these must be preceded by a space

Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne

Sunday, 10 December 2023

Ladybird Books from jobbing printers to global brand

Introduction

I’m pretty sure I first met Wim in passing at the inaugural Loogabaroogoo Festival of Illustrated Children’s Literature, which was held around the town during the October half term of 2015 – but it could have been at a later one, as several took place! Or it might even have been at the Charnwood Museum Being Human event a few years later! Anyway, for the past couple of years we’ve both been part of a project taking place at the bellfoundry, so we’ve had plenty of time to share Loughborough stories!

A Ladybird reading corner

Although there has been much written about the topic of Wim’s guest blog post – even huge books, and even a guest blog post earlier this year! - Wim looks at the history of that iconic Loughborough firm, Ladybird Books, and explains how and when the children’s books came about, and what it was that actually made the firm so special! Read on for a most interesting story!

Ladybird Books -- from Jobbing Printers to Global Brand

Wim Van Mierlo (Loughborough University)

As a book historian working at the University, I naturally became interested in the ‘phenomenon’ that is Ladybird Books. Because Ladybird is so deeply embedded in the history of our town, the story of the company’s founding is already quite very well known – not least for readers of Lynne’s blog. Yet what few people know is actually how special – that is to say: unusual -- that history is as a publishing venture. No disrespect to Loughborough or the great people who worked for Ladybird in their time. But as someone who knows a thing or two about the history of publishing in the UK, I am struck time and again how extraordinary the Ladybird story in fact was. No other city, let alone a market town, outside of London can boast a publishing success equal to that of Ladybird. At the height of their fame, they churned out some 500,000 books per week.

Ladybird Books on display at Leicester Museum and Art Gallery 2019

In every respect, Ladybird was not supposed to happen. And yet it did. The brand’s success is due to the company’s business-savvy directors who knew their trade and were able to adapt themselves to changing fortunes. Until such time, unfortunately, the market sadly outwitted them in the 1990s.

Let me begin, however, with a factual correction. The date on the green plaque outside the Carillon shopping centre on Market Street is unfortunately wrong. The first Ladybird book did not roll off the presses in 1915, but shortly before 27 August 1914. We know this from the date stamp in the copy that was sent to British Museum Library for legal deposit.

Leicestershire County Council green plaque on the entrance to the Carillon shopping centre

This date is important, for it also puts into question the company’s own account of why it ventured into publishing children’s picture books. According to company lore, Wills and Hepworth wanted to keep the presses running following the outbreak of War. But hostilities were only declared on 4 August. The time in between is very short, so it is quite likely that the decision to make picture books was taken earlier.

Wills and Hepworth were what in the industry are known as jobbing printers. They were not ‘publishers’ in the strict sense of the word; they printed anything that needed printing – both letterpress and lithography. Jobbing would remain the mainstay – and very profitable side – of the business for decades yet. One of their most important clients was the midlands automotive industry, whose catalogues they printed.

Title page from the 1901 Wills Almanac, published by Henry Wills

Two factors, however, were important for the future success of Ladybird books.

First, Wills and Hepworth were not afraid of diversifying. They did not just run a printshop. They offered a variety of services, from selling stationery to picture framing. They also ran a bookshop, which included a branch of Mudie’s famous circulating library. In the 1920s, as the business accounts now at the Leicestershire Record Office show, they even produced advertising stills for cinemas throughout the Midlands, Lancashire and Yorkshire. Picture books were another – in many respects quite bold – way to diversify their business activity.

A Ladybird book bench in Loughborough's Queen's Park

The publishing of books is not something that jobbing printers normally get into. (The publishing industry is to this day very London-centric.) The publishing of picture books is even less of an obvious choice. The market for children’s books was a busy one. However – and this is the second factor in the success of Ladybird books – Wills and Hepworth recognized an opportunity that tallied with their expertise. Because so much of their printing work involved what today we call ‘graphic design’, they had the equipment and the know-how to combine letterpress and simple engravings suitable for the production of picture books. Compared to other children’s books of the time, Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales (1914) and Tiny Tots Travels (1914), and all other early Ladybird titles were simple if not rather crude affairs. Nonetheless, these early books sturdy, but cheap to produce. Wills and Hepworth in fact made use of an age-old trick in the book trade. By recycling images and stories from one book to the next, the firm could regularly put out new titles without having to worry too much about creating new content.

Some Ladybird books

It is clear they thought their picture books should not distract them from the main business. The production of picture books remained a sideline, was picked up again during the Second World War, only to be set aside once more in peacetime. Paper shortages during the war at least prompted Wills and Hepworth to ‘invent’ the new iconic format: a single sheet of paper printed on both sides and then folded in a book of 52 pages. This ‘chapbook’ format had been the staple of cheap, popular reading since at least the seventeenth century. Wills and Hepworth knew their trade. Even so, it took the firm until 1953 to develop their magic formula of cheap, but good-quality picture books with interesting and informative content were absent from the market.

Advert for Ladybird Books in Wills' Loughborough Almanac for 1941

Wills and Hepworth remained jobbing printers until 1971, when they finally dedicated themselves full-time to Ladybird Books. The company legally changed its name to Ladybird Books Ltd. [1] and moved its operation from Angel Yard, where Henry Wills had started his printing business in 1873, to Windmill Road [2].

The Beeches Road Ladybird Books factory, now Anstey Wallpapers

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NOTES

[1] The resolution ‘that the name of the Company be changed to Ladybird Books Limited, was passed at an Extraordinary General Meeting, held on 22nd September 1972 somewhere on Derby Square, Loughborough.

[2] Today we know Ladybird Books was situated on Beeches Road, at the far end, towards the canal, and close to what is now Windmill Road. At one time, the whole length of Beeches Road, from the White House on the corner with Leicester Road, to the exit onto Great Central Road was once all called Windmill Road. The address for the new factory can be found quoted in different places as either Beeches Road or Windmill Road, which could be because at the early planning stages, it might not have been decided on the orientation of the actual factory building, nor whether the factory would be closest to Beeches Road or at the end of Windmill Road, close to Great Central Road. If you think about the site today, which is occupied by the Anstey Wallpaper Company, the factory faces onto Beeches Road, while the vehicle entrance (transport lorries, and cars heading towards the car park) is side on to Windmill Road, but it could so easily have been the other way round!

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Sources

Be sure to catch the guest blog post about Henry Wills, written by the Chair of the Loughborough Library Local Studies Volunteers, in August 2023.

You can read more about Ladybird Books over on the Ladybird Fly Away Home website

In 2019 I wrote a short piece about Ladybird Books as part of a bigger article on Loughborough firms.

Other books about Ladybird Books include:

Johnson, Lorraine (2014). The Ladybird story: children's books for everyone. London: British Library

Zeegan, Lawrence (2015). Ladybird by design: 100 years of words and pictures. London: Ladybird Books.

Ladybird: a cover story - 500 iconic covers (n.d.). London: Ladybird Books

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About Wim

Wim joined Loughborough University in 2015, and since then has contributed to the teaching on the Publishing and English programmes at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He is also Programme Director for Publishing, Digital Lead for the School of the Arts, English and Drama; and co-leader of DH@Lboro, our digital humanities research group.

Much of his work concentrated on 'Modernism' and the early twentieth century, but his interests range across the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Wim has published about William Wordsworth, W. B. Yeats, T. Sturge Moore, James Joyce, Flann O'Brien, Thomas Pynchon, and Fred D'aguiar. Wim's primary area of expertise is in the study of literary manuscripts and archives, but he also works on textual scholarship and scholarly editing, reception history, literary history and literary heritage, marginalia, writers' libraries, digital humanities, poetry, Irish studies, and photography.

Wim is President of the European Society for Textual Scholarship and Editor of the Society’s journal Variants.

See more on the Loughborough University website.

_______________________________________________

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

_______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this blog.

Copyright:

The copyright © of all content on this blog rests with me, or in the case of guest blogposts, with the named Guest Blogger. However, you are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follows:

van Mierlo, Wim (2023). Ladybird Books: from jobbing printers to global brand. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2023/11/ladybird-books-from-jobbing-printers-to.html [Accessed 10 December 2023]

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Lynne

Sunday, 3 December 2023

Pubs and recent legislation

Last week we looked at pubs, focussing on their use as meeting places for various events, like auctions and inquests, and for societies like gardening clubs and friendly societies. This week, let’s have a look at the different ways pubs today are managed.

In 1989, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission produced a report on the supply of beer, which resulted in two Statutory Instruments documents, which became known collectively as the ‘Beer Orders’ 1989, Individually these SIs were ‘The Supply of Beer (Tied Estate) Order, 1989’ and ‘The Supply of Beer (Loan Ties, Licensed Premises and Wholesale Prices) Order, 1989’.

The reason for the ‘Beer Orders’ was because the Monopolies and Mergers Commission were concerned by the lack of competition in the market, which was at the time served by around six national brewers in the UK, and these breweries dominated the market. I’m sure we’ve all heard of them -

Allied Brewers, Bass, Courage, Grand Metropolitan, Scottish & Newcastle, and Whitbread.

The ‘Beer Orders’ were aimed at loosening the tie between pubs and brewers, and the way it worked was to restrict the number of tied pubs [1] that a large brewery could own (they became limited to only 2,000 across the UK). In addition, the brewery was obliged to introduce at least one guest beer in its premises. The whole premise was to make the whole industry easier to get into, and to increase competition between all those with vested interests – so, the brewers, the wholesalers, and the pub retailers themselves.

And so it was that pub-owning companies came into existence, usually referred to as ‘PubCos’, some of which were large organisations who weren’t previously in the pub business. Some of the ones we’re probably familiar with are Punch Taverns, which were a spin-off from Allied Lyons Brewery; Enterprise Inn, which were spun off from Bass, and Admiral Taverns, which were created by Scottish & Newcastle.

As well as the ‘PubCos’, there were other companies created specifically to buy some of the pubs that the big breweries were obliged by the ‘Beer Orders’ to sell, an example being the Pub Estates Group. So, as well as the PubCos etc., some breweries who didn’t own more than 2,000 venues already, also bought more pubs to add to their holdings, and some of these now have a variety of different brands. An example of this is Greene King who run the brands we know as Hungry Horse, Chef & Brewer etc.. Pubs were also sold to individuals, some continuing to operate as pubs, other converted to housing.

I believe the ‘Beer Orders’ were all done in good faith that the market would diversify, and the wealth spread more evenly, but, of course, we now know that the ‘Beer Orders’ seemed to have had the opposite effect, which was in many ways far less a desirable outcome.

The ’Beer Orders’ of 1989 were revoked 2003, and in 2004, the House of Commons produced a report on Pubcos. (There’s also a 2008-9 report from the House of Commons, which explains the 2004 report in more detail).

I believe it was the 2003-4 event that led to the 2003 Licensing Act, and it was this which in turn led to the creation of the microbreweries. The Charnwood Brewery was one of the first to open in Loughborough, and has a small seating area at its Jubilee Drive premises, and dedicated micropubs at Mountsorrel and Shepshed (soon to be joined by one at Barrow). The Needle and Pin in The Rushes opened shortly after the Charnwood Brewery, and has been followed by Moonface Brewery and Tap on Moira Street.

Charnwood Brewery

Needle & Pin

Moonface

In 2016, the ‘Pub Code Regulations’ were introduced, the aim of which was to regulate in some way the relationship between the PubCo and the pub tenant. So, the PubCo would rent the pub to the tenant and would sell supplies to them, effectively making them into a tied pub. The regulations gave the tenant an opportunity to change the renting model to one where they paid a Market Rent Only (MRO), meaning no more obligation to buy supplies from the PubCo. The catch is that this can only be involved at certain points, and the option is only open to tenants of PubCos that own over 500 pubs.

I must admit, my poor brain finds it difficult to cope with, and understand all the changes that have happened to our pubs over the years. So, who actually owns what? When I visit the pub will I find a landlord, a lessee, a tenant, a building owner? I suppose it doesn’t really matter as long as the experience of visiting the pub lives up to expectations, and people are treated to excellence in customer service, and an excellent product!!

So, the Stonegate Pub Company, which was created in 2010 when it bought 333 pubs from Mitchells and Butler, has since that time taken over many, many other business, the latest being Enterprise Inns (known as EI) in 2020. That latter acquisition has led to Stonegate having about 5,000 sites, about one-third of which are held in the managed division of the company, and about two-thirds are leased and tenanted. The Slug and Lettuce is one of their venues, as is the Walkabout brand – neither of which we have in Loughborough. Those Stonegate premises we do have in Loughborough are The Phantom, and the Bell Foundry.

Phantom

Bell Foundry

Admiral Taverns, which was founded in 2003, now have around 1,600 what they call community pubs, which are run by what the group calls ‘entrepreneurial licensees’. There are currently quite a few Admiral Taverns up for sale or lease, and our lovely Windmill on Sparrow Hill was one of these until relatively recently.

Wetherspoons was also one of those PubCos that were created following the 1989 SI. Until very recently, we had two of their pubs in Loughborough, The Moon and Bell, and The Amber Rooms. Sadly, the former has now closed its doors as a pub.

Moon and Bell

I think that's enough about pubs for one evening, don't you?? You can read more about some of the pubs mentioned in the above article in 'Loughborough Pubs'.

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NOTES

[1] A tied pub is one which sells and promotes only the beer made by the company that owns the pub. Compare with a free house which sells a wide variety of beers.

If you’re interested in statistics of pubs from about 1990 to the year 2020, you can find these in a House of Commons briefing paper.

____________________________________

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

_______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this blog.

Copyright:

Dyer, Lynne (2023). Pubs and recent legislation. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2023/12/pubs-and-recent-legislation.html [Accessed 3 December 2023]

Take down policy:

External Links:

Blog archive and tags:

Searching the blog:

site: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/ “Radmoor House”

NOTE – the words you’re actually looking for must be in “” and the first of these must be preceded by a space

Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne

Lynne About Loughborough

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Sunday, 31 December 2023

Happy New Year!

Sunday, 17 December 2023

Christmas Tree Festival 2023

Sunday, 10 December 2023

Ladybird Books from jobbing printers to global brand

Sunday, 3 December 2023

Pubs and recent legislation

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