Celebrating the blog's eleventh birthday!

Today the blog is celebrating its 11th birthday - that's 11 years, exactly, which was also a Sunday!!

Last year, in celebration of the blog’s 10th birthday, I hosted a series of 10 blog posts by guest writers during August, and one each in October, November, and December 2023. [1] It was an intense time, and I cannot hope to replicate that this year, but I hope to share with you a few different voices on the blog over the next month or so!

A lot of things have happened since that last celebratory birthday month, and my Loughborough research has taken me in very many directions!

I was particularly pleased to be able to present to you a series of blog posts on the inhabitants of Burleigh Hall, but am very conscious I still have one left to share!!! [2] I was also very pleased that in October 2023, I managed to do a few ‘Spotlight on Ashby Road’ posts [3] – as follow-ups to a post from October 2013, which has always been one of the most viewed posts on the blog as a whole.

A few posts about pubs appeared on the blog towards the end of 2023, probably because I had uncovered far more information than I could possibly use in my book, ‘Loughborough Pubs’, which came out in November 2023. Early in 2024 saw the usual spread of posts across lots of different Loughborough-related topics, and April saw the posting of a blog post every day, each one related to a letter of the alphabet, as well as four regular Sunday posts (The A-Z Blogging Challenge)! That was a challenge and a half!!!!

May saw the start of a series of posts which shared Edwin Goadby’s ‘History of Loughborough’, as was serialised in the ‘Loughborough Monitor’ in 1864-6. There’s still a way to go with this, with only 7 instalments published to date, and another 16 to go!!

Outside of the blog, I’ve been leading guided walks around Loughborough, giving talks about Loughborough, had a stall at various events (like the Heritage Hub at Leicester University), and shared my experience of blogging at a 10-day long event, called ‘All About That Place’, which was hosted by the Society for One-Place Studies, the Society of Genealogists, and the British Association for Local History. You can view the video either on my YouTube or on the All About That Place YouTube. 

And I’ve had a couple of articles published on the How To History Substack on using local studies libraries (with examples from our very own excellent one) and remembering to look up, down, and all around when searching for local history.

Much of the last year was taken up with research for a new book, called ‘Loughborough At Work’, the manuscript of which went off to the publisher at the end of May this year. By the time it comes out in September 2025 I will, no doubt, have forgotten everything I wrote about!

Since then I’ve done a few things, which include leading more guided walks, preparing some guided walks for the Heritage Open Days event (more of which in a later post, but just so you know now, several Loughborough venues are taking part this year, and are focussing on the weekend of 14-15 September, under the banner of Loughborough Heritage Open Weekend).

Like last year, when I was involved with showing some American visitors around part of Loughborough, this year I’ve shown other visitors around, most particularly, someone whose father was a student at the university when it was the College of Advanced Technology. Sadly, both buildings with which he had the most association have only very recently been demolished: what used to be the Chemistry/Chem Eng building came down during last summer, and the demolition of Whitworth, the hall of residence originally built for postgraduate students, was completed only two weeks ago, and only a couple of days before the visit). This made recreating 1960s photographs somewhat difficult!!

This year I am again taking part in the All About That Place event, and I’ve nearly completed my recording for this (taking place every hour of every day between 27 September to 6 October).

Planning for the coming year is beginning to take shape, and we have a number of anniversaries to celebrate in 2025! Hoping I can get all this done!!

Meanwhile, the changes that are happening in our town – over the past year, and in the recent weeks – continue to create waves. Great to see buildings refurbished (like Grudgings/Albert Place), sad to see old buildings go, although good to see new ones in their place (like the old labour exchange now the site of flats), sad to see buildings vacated (like the Moon and Bell), and sad to see the announcement of business closures, particularly Revolution and Cineworld. Sometimes it’s difficult to keep track of everything that’s going on!! Oh, and then there's the preparations for the installation of the Hope Bell in Queen's Park, which is likely to be completed by the end of the year!

Anyway, thanks for staying with me these past 11 years, after all, there’d be no point me sharing my love of Loughborough if you weren’t out there reading! And, here’s to another 11 years!!

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Notes

[1] A complete list of blogposts is available here, where you'll find guest posts in green

[2] The Right Honourable Alan Pennington Pt 1; The Right Honourable Alan Pennington Pt 2; The Reverend William Henry Cooper

[3]  Spotlight on Ashby Road - even numbers; Spotlight on Ashby Road - odd numbers; Ashby Road - shops and other buildings

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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