Exhibition about Nanpantan

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that several of the projects I had been involved with recently were coming to their conclusion. In that post, I talked about the Focus on the Foundry photography programme, and since then the Bellfoundry Trust has included a brief review of the project on their website. 

Another local project, although my part in it is completed, isn’t yet live on the internet, so I’ll share that when it’s publicly available. Another project was a small exhibition, which ended up being hosted somewhere other than originally planned, and even smaller than intended: when I’ve seen it, I’ll share it with you!! Yet another project did result in an exhibition, so here’s a very short piece about it!!

On Monday evening, 24th March, an exhibition was held at Nanpantan Hall, which showcased the research about Nanpantan done by a group of volunteers working under the guidance of an experienced Victoria County History researcher, Dr Pamela Fisher, who has previously written a couple of guest posts for this blog [1]. Finded by the Charnwood Forest Geopark, meetings were held towards the end of 2024, and into early 2025, at Home Farm, where the volunteers learned skills and techniques for researching local history.

The volunteers put these skills to good use either at home or in the public library, and researched things like the pubs in Nanpantan, the school, the reservoir, the local farms, the local scout and guide groups, and so on, together gradually building up a picture of the area over time.

Although I had previously done some research on Nanpantan, some of which I wrote up in my ‘A-Z of Loughborough’, some in ‘Loughborough Pubs’, and some on this blog [2], for this project I researched some areas I wasn’t previously familiar with, and I have to admit it was rather good to be part of a team and to work with other people who were also researching.

As I said, the results of the research – well, a small amount of it! (there’s always far more information found than can be accommodated in a book, a journal article, a blog post, or even an A3 poster!) – was exhibited at Nanpantan Hall.

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Notes

[1]

Mary Tate of Burleigh Hall 

Loughborough’s Second Workhouse  

[2]

Visit to Nanpantan Hall 

N is for Nanpantan 

Nanpantan and Temperance 

Nanpantan church stone 

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

Dyer, Lynne (2025). Exhibition about Nanpantan. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/03/exhibition-about-nanpantan.html [Accessed 30 March 2025]

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.

External Links:

By including links to external sources I am not endorsing the websites, the authors, nor the information contained therein, and will not check back to update out-of-date links. Using these links to access external information is entirely the responsibility of the reader of the blog.

Blog archive and tags:

If you are viewing this blog in mobile format, you will not be able to easily access the blog archive, or the clickable links to various topics. These can be accessed if you scroll to the bottom of the page, and click 'View Web Version'. Alternatively, there is also a complete list of posts, which when clicked will take you to the page you are interested in.

Searching the blog:

You can search the blog using the dedicated search box that appears near the top of the blog when viewed in the web version. Alternatively, you can search using your usual search engine (e.g. Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo etc.) by following this example:

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

Photographing the Bellfoundry

Focus on the Foundry

Over the next couple of weeks, four of the projects that I’ve been involved with are coming to their conclusion, so I thought you might be interested to hear a little about these projects.

The first of these was the Focus on the Foundry photography sessions, which started three years ago, the aim of which was to capture the changes that were happening down at the Bellfoundry, and at the same time help the twelve people who took part to take better photographs. The professional photographers leading the project were from a collective called Mass. Here’s their main website presence  https://www.mass-collective.com/info   , but they have also documented the works happening at the Bellfoundry, which includes not only photographs, but also audio clips – of some of the bellfoundry workers, and the on-site carillon. https://www.mass-collective.com/chime-ding-cast-tin

Over the three-year period, the group of enthusiastic amateur photographers met 12 times, and at each day-long session were tutored in a specific aspect of architectural photography, before being let loose around the factory, the grounds, and the museum, to practice the skills learned. After each session, each participant selected 20 photographs from the ones they had taken, to share with the photographers from Mass. You can imagine, I’m sure, that after 12 sessions, each participant ended up with literally thousands of shots of various aspects of the Bellfoundry, and choosing only 20 from each session was sometimes quite challenging.

We were encouraged to take shots that showed the changes and developments to the works, but also to concentrate on things that appealed to us. Hence, the eventual collective output was hugely varied! Some people preferred to take photographs of the workers; others preferred photographing the work tools. Some of the photographers focussed on the fabric of the building, others on the stream of visiting bells, different at every visit we made. Detailed, close-up shots, were contrasted with long distance shots which brought the workspaces to life!

As the culmination of three years’ work, we made a selection of 6 or 7 of what we and the photographers from Mass considered to be our best photographs. These were to appear in an exhibition at the Bellfoundry, which showcased the changes at the Bellfoundry over time, and showcased our new photography skills.

A launch event was held, and it was lovely to see so many people there, and to re-connect with others who had been part of the project. As well as becoming better photographers, I’m sure we all found some friends for life! Not quite as intense as Pottery Throw-Down, or Bake-Off, but some strong bonds were formed.

The exhibition is staged in the newly re-imagined Bellfoundry Museum, a space which brilliantly tells the story of the Taylors Bellfoundry. I’m not sure how long the exhibition is being hosted for, but there are displays on the ground floor, on the stairs, and in the Interpretation Room. I believe there are plans to site some of the photographs permanently in the main reception area.

The Museum is open 10am – 4pm (last entry at 3.30pm) November to March, on Wednesday to Friday and the 1st Saturday of the month, which increases to Tuesday to Friday and the 1st Saturday of the month during April to October. You can find more detail on the website https://belltrust.co.uk/           

Thank you to everyone involved for the wonderful experience!

Here's a few of my photos that didn't make the exhibition!

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

Dyer, Lynne (2025). Photographing the Bellfoundry. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/03/photographing-bellfoundry.html  [Accessed 16 March 2025]

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.

External Links:

By including links to external sources I am not endorsing the websites, the authors, nor the information contained therein, and will not check back to update out-of-date links. Using these links to access external information is entirely the responsibility of the reader of the blog.

Blog archive and tags:

If you are viewing this blog in mobile format, you will not be able to easily access the blog archive, or the clickable links to various topics. These can be accessed if you scroll to the bottom of the page, and click 'View Web Version'. Alternatively, there is also a complete list of posts, which when clicked will take you to the page you are interested in.

Searching the blog:

You can search the blog using the dedicated search box that appears near the top of the blog when viewed in the web version. Alternatively, you can search using your usual search engine (e.g. Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo etc.) by following this example:

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

Christie Connections - Snowcrete

Introduction

I know, I know! I have yet to give you the final two parts of Shelthorpe House, and we still have loads of chapters of Goadby’s History of Loughborough to get through, but these posts aren’t quite ready yet, so instead I am going to share with you some, what I am calling “Christie Connections”.

To explain … Last year, I set myself the challenge of reading all the Agatha Christie novels, 80 of which had been sitting on my bookcases since 1977, many remaining unread! I’m pleased to say, I finally managed to finish that challenge mid-February this year (2025), and was wondering what to do with all those bookmarks I’d put in amongst the pages where I was reminded of Loughborough!

Christie Connections with Loughborough

Some of those connections are absolutely direct mentions of something specific to Loughborough (I won’t share any examples – let them surprise you later!); some are mentions of, for example, people who happen to have the same name as some of the people of Loughborough whom I have either researched or meant to research; and some take us on a circular journey to cement the connections.

"Sleeping Murder"

Today’s post is prompted by something I read in Sleeping Murder, on p384. The book was published in 1976, although is set during the Second World War, and features Miss Marple.

A detailed synopsis is available elsewhere, but in short, Gwenda Halliday had recently married Giles Reed, and the two were setting up home together in England. Gwenda’s stepmother, Helen Kennedy-Halliday had gone missing and in trying to trace her, Gwenda and Giles have occasion to visit Mr Jackie Afflick, the proprietor of Daffodil Coaches. His office – and presumably the place where he lived – was described as follows:

“The house was newly built. It was of Snowcrete, heavily curved, with a big expanse of window. They [Gwenda and Giles] had been shown in through an opulent hall to a study, half of which was taken up by a big chromium-plated desk.”

Snowcrete is a white Portland cement which is used for rendering and for mortar, which is apparently durable and attractive.

The Strand Cinema, Belfast

In December 1935, the Belfast News-letter reported on the opening of a new cinema for Belfast. The Strand Cinema, under the Union Cinema Co., was apparently one of the most notable new suburban theatres to be put up in Belfast, and its architect, Mr J. McBride, had also designed several other cinemas. The building was on a triangular corner site, a flatiron shape, with windows running around the corner on the first and second floors. While the external walls made use of rustic brick, the side walls had large panels finished in snowcrete.

Typical of a 1930s cinema, the floor of the foyer was tiled in bold-coloured terrazzo – grey, red, black, and aluminium – and the walls were covered with waterproof plastic paint and sprayed with metallic paint, making speckles. Everything within was streamlined and horizontal, and every corner was rounded. The walls of the auditorium had three rows of portholes, which housed lights, being very suggestive of the popular ocean liner. The cinema had the latest type of seating – apparently the last word in comfort – amounting to 900 seats in the stalls, and 270 in the balcony.

The Loughborough Connection

But what has this to do with Loughborough?

Well …

- the builders were Sloan Bros. - of Belfast

- the doors were made - in Belfast

- the agents for the thermal insulating board that was used were based - in Belfast

- the heating was by Messrs Johnson & Co. - of Belfast

- the bricks came from the Pilot Supply Co. - of Belfast

- the glazing contractors were Messrs W.F. Clokey - of Belfast

- decorative work was carried out by Messrs Molto & Egan – of London!

And the cladding tiles??

Well, the agent was Mr Harry Peyton of Belfast, who arranged for the glazed faience tiles which were used in the front elevation to come from Hathernware! Apparently, “Faience is a very suitable material for cinemas and theatres, since a good quality material preserves its clean and bright appearance almost indefinitely. Hathernware faience is of the highest grade, and it has been extensively used in Northern Ireland.”

This cinema was opened almost a year before Loughborough’s own Odeon, on Baxter Gate, which was also clad in Hathernware, and is now a Grade II listed building. 

I also found references to a ship called Snowcrete: one source suggests it was built in 1921 as the Warren Grove, and owned in 1936-7 by Everards (an obtuse Loughborough/Leicestershire connection, as the name of a building company was Ellis & Everard, and of course, the Everards Brewery is local to Leicestershire, with one of the family renting Nanpantan Hall for a short time). I certainly came across a newspaper article from 1930 which mentioned a ship called Snowcrete, but another source suggests that Snowcrete was built in 1949, and owned by Blue Circle Shipping.

Although I found references to the use of Snowcrete in houses in Stoneygate (Leicester), in Birstall, and in Oadby, I couldn’t find anything in Loughborough. If you know of any, I'd love to hear from you!

I’m looking forward to sharing some more Christie Connections with you in the coming months!

____________________________________

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

Dyer, Lynne (2025). Christie Connections – Snowcrete. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/03/christie-connections-snowcrete.html [Accessed 9 March 2025]

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.

External Links:

By including links to external sources I am not endorsing the websites, the authors, nor the information contained therein, and will not check back to update out-of-date links. Using these links to access external information is entirely the responsibility of the reader of the blog.

Blog archive and tags:

If you are viewing this blog in mobile format, you will not be able to easily access the blog archive, or the clickable links to various topics. These can be accessed if you scroll to the bottom of the page, and click 'View Web Version'. Alternatively, there is also a complete list of posts, which when clicked will take you to the page you are interested in.

Searching the blog:

You can search the blog using the dedicated search box that appears near the top of the blog when viewed in the web version. Alternatively, you can search using your usual search engine (e.g. Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo etc.) by following this example:

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