K is for Keystone

I'm sure you know me well enough to realise that I'm not a huge fan of using words that often need to be explained, especially since that usually means I need to look them up for myself, too! However, since in this A-Z blogging challenge we're looking at some of Loughborough's buildings which were built during a specific period, when a particular style of construction was popular, I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and talk about keystones! If you think that's bad, wait till we get to the letter Z!!

So, what is a keystone? In the context of Art Deco architecture, a picture can paint a thousand words, so we need only to look at some photographs of our fabulous buildings to get the measure of them, so here are a few pics:

 

 

 

You'll have spotted that the keystone is the central stone, which is at the highest part of the building, and in the case of Art Deco buildings is usually surrounded on both sides by what I call ‘stepped sides’ – so the roofline comes down in a pattern rather like a set of steps (more on that later in the alphabet!). In the specific examples, above, the keystone also includes an informative plaque, but others across the town simply have a decorated keystone, as for example, in the chevrons on the former Constitutional Club (most recently Revolution), and Peter's Pizza which we saw in an earlier post. 

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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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). K is for Keystone. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/04/k-is-for-keystone.html  [Accessed 12 April 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:

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Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne

J is for Jazz

Today, we generally use the term Art Deco to apply to buildings of a particular style that were constructed during the heyday of the Art Deco style, so around 1919 to 1940.  

As we saw in A is for Art Deco the term was retrospectively applied to the style around the mid-1960s, its name coming from the title of the Exposition held in Paris in April 1925. Until this time, as the style was heavily influenced by amongst other things the jazz movement in music and dance, the terminology Jazz Moderne was used and often interchangeably with “le style Moderne”.

In 1926, Sir Hamilton Harty, the conductor of the Halle Orchestra which had been formed in, and had its home in Manchester, [1] defined jazz music thus:

“Just a noise for dancing.”

And, that “[h]e had never found it anything but sensual, noisy, and incredibly stupid.”

In an ironic newspaper piece printed in 1928, the writer of the article suggested that

“Because they were dancing, singing, shouting, and rolling milk churns about, a number of youths were fined at Loughborough. Evidently, Loughborough doesn’t know a jazz band when it comes across one.” [2]

Back to architecture, and personally, I think of Art Deco as being angular and brightly coloured, as in, for example, our current Odeon building, the colourful facade of which was created in 1936, pictured below in 2018. 

The more specific Streamline Moderne style is probably quite familiar to people as this was the style adopted for many of the original Odeon buildings across the country, not least our very own, which has more recently been known as Beacon Bingo. Note the smooth, and rounded corners of the building, pictured here in 2023

So, whether you call it Art Deco, Jazz Moderne, “le style Moderne”, or Streamline Moderne, we have examples in our lovely town. 

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Notes

[1] Nottingham Journal, 1 September 1926, pg. 3

[2] Nottingham Journal, 4 May 1928, pg. 6

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I'm taking part in the A-Z April Blogging Challenge!!

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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). J is for Jazz. Available from:  https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/04/j-is-for-jazz.html  [Accessed 11 April 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

I is for Industrial Art Deco Buildings

During the nineteenth century, the little market town of Loughborough expanded greatly, in part due to the coming of the canal in the last quarter of the previous century, and also due to the coming of the railways around 1840. This all meant that Loughborough developed into an industrial town, and it’s population grew enormously.

The variety of industry that had its home in Loughborough at the time the Art Deco movement was taking hold, was amazing! Not for us the concentration on one or two big trades, but rather a whole range of trades and crafts, largely complementary, grew up in the town. This meant that Loughborough weathered the storm of the Great Depression rather better than some other places. You can read more about this in a blogpost from 2021. 

Whilst many of the town’s factories were built in the nineteenth century, we do have some buildings which were constructed during the period when Art Deco architecture was popular. The two buildings that immediately come to my mind were additions to what were older factory buildings, one being built actually on the site of those buildings, the other close to its older companion.

Brush

Most of the buildings on the Brush site, off Meadow Lane at one end, and Nottingham Road on the other, and opposite the Midland Main Line at the front, and the Great Central Railway at the back, are older than the Art Deco period, the site having been established around 1888.

The exception is the Turbine Hall, sometimes known as the Falcon Building, which sits across from the railway platforms, and looks out towards Burder Street. The building is a locally listed one, and its yellow Brush sign viewed as iconic [1]. Interestingly, the building has geometric shapes and patterns that are commonly found on Art Deco buildings, but the thing for me which makes it utterly stunning is the view of the alight neon lights in the nighttime!

 

Towles

The factory buildings of the hosiery company, Cartwright and Warner, were situated on the Loughborough side of the canal, along Queen’s Road. Most of the buildings are still there, and the main block fronting onto Queen Street is now converted to flats. When Cartwright and Warner ceased trading, the company was taken over by Towles, and continued to use the older building. However, a new building was constructed in the Inter-War period. Not only is the newer premises typical of the practical sort needed to undertake hosiery work, it also has a few other notable features.

The building occupies a corner plot where Nottingham Road and Clarence Street meet. To my mind this makes it a gridiron building, because the angle of the two roads is less than 90 degrees. There is a beautiful central doorway on the corner, surrounded by a lovely stone arch, with a fan light above the door. The windows are most certainly of the Crittall variety, with twenty tiny panes of glass in each of the windows on the first and second floors.

For added interest, there is a George VI post box outside the doorway, and the side of the building that runs along Nottingham Road wears its ghost sign with pride!

      

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Notes

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c724rpke2vmo

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I'm taking part in the A-Z April Blogging Challenge!!

 

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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). I is for Industrial Art Deco Buildings. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/04/i-is-for-industrial-art-deco-buildings.html [Accessed 10 April 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

H is for Hathern Station Brick and Terra Cotta Company, Hathernware, and the Hodson Family

Yesterday we had a look at glazed tiles, which included those on some of Loughborough’s pubs and cinemas. The makers of these tiles were a local company …

Originally called Hathern Station Brick and terra Cotta Company, the firm was started in 1874 by George Hodson (1844-1907), along with his brother, James, at a site between Sutton Bonington and Hathern, close to Hathern Station – which, I guess, is where part of the firm’s name came from. The company also had a brick works near Tamworth, called the Cliff Works, which produced blue engineering bricks.

The speciality of the company was initially in terra cotta, and many local buildings are beautifully decorated with terra cotta embellishments. Examples are the Carnegie Library on Granby Street, and Lloyds Bank on High Street, but not BetFred (previously Gartons estate agents, but originally opened as a Temperance Hall), which has terra cotta from J.C. Edwards of North Wales.

The story of the company and the family behind it is a very long one, and I don’t have space to tell it all here, so let’s move on to the Art Deco period. The Hathern company began making faience tiles towards the end of the nineteenth century, as architects began to use glazed ceramics on building façades. This product was known as Hathernware Faience, and eventually, in 1938 the company changed its name to Hathernware. The tiles were made from glazed terracotta which was moulded rather than carved to imitate marble and granite surfaces.

There are examples of Hathern’s tiles across the country. I believe Hathernware had the contract for cinemas in the Odeon chain, and certainly some Burton’s Menswear stores were also of Hathernware. In the 1970s the company merged with Shaws, and was taken over by Ibstock Brick in 1990. During that period, much of the work was concentrated on renovations, and this included repairs to the Wrigley Building in Chicago. The local site eventually closed in 2004, but the Hathern name is now owned by Michelmersh Brick Holdings, who still produce terracotta and faience ware under the Hathern name.

Locally, we have many examples of buildings clad in Hathernware’s faience, not least the original Odeon on Baxter Gate, and the current Odeon on Cattle Market, on the former Echo Press offices on Swan Street, and many others.   

PIC – Odeon, Beacon Bingo, Echo   

 

 

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I'm taking part in the A-Z April Blogging Challenge!!

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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). H is for Hathern Station Brick and Terra Cotta Company, Hathernware, and the  Hodson Family. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/04/h-is-for-hathern-station-brick-and.html  [Accessed 9 April 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

G is for Glazed Tiles

I’m sure we’re probably all familiar with glazed tiles, which are totally different from encaustic tiles that are often seen in churches, or in the hallways of Victorian properties. Encaustic tiles are made from ceramic, and the pattern is created by the use of different coloured clays, whereas the pattern on a glazed tile comes from the actual glaze itself. Unlike glazed tiles, encaustic ones are quite porous. Here’s an example from A.W.N. Pugin, 1843:

Some great examples of Art Nouveau glazed tiles can still be seen in some Edwardian properties, for example along Frederick Street. Sometimes these tiles are simply an embossed pattern, the whole tile being glazed in the same colour, other times these tiles are glazed in different colours.

Art Deco wall and floor tiles often tended to reflect the patterns of the day – brightly coloured with angular shapes, although I haven't personally found any in Loughborough. Here’s an example of the sort of thing I mean, four tiles made into a pattern:

As far as I can see, we no longer have any examples of high gloss tiles adorning our 1920s-1930s pubs, you the know the sort I mean, where the bottom half of the building is clad in shiny, often green tiles, like this one in Southampton from my 2019 visit, and one from my Nottingham visit a few years earlier:

Having said that, there are examples of these tiles in a sort of tan colour on Market Street, which would once have been part of the Old Talbot Inn.

What we do have on some of our pubs, however, are faience tiles – sort of creamy coloured, or pale green – as on the Blacksmiths Arms and the Swan-in-the-Rushes. The dark grey, slightly more glossy tiles of the Royal George, from 1925, are, of course, no longer around.

 

The definition of faience tiles seems to differ with whatever resource you consult! All agree that faience tiles are glazed, but some suggest the tiles are made from glazed terracotta (a clay-based which is glazed at a low temperature, leaving the tile non-vitreous) others that the body of the tile itself is made of a composite material, often said to comprise crushed quartz or sand, with lime and plant ash.

One way of telling if a tile is of the faience type is to tap it. This will give off a dull sound, unlike, for example, porcelain, which when tapped gives a metallic bell-like note. Another way is by looking at an area of the tile that might be chipped. Your posh dinner plates are probably porcelain, and hopefully not chipped, but if they were you’d see the damage would be white: if the item was made from faience, then the chip would be more reddish/brown/beige. A perfect example of this in Loughborough is the beautiful columns we saw under Egyptomania at the former Echo Press offices – distinctly red where the column is damaged, top right.

The other preponderance of faience tiles are to be found on our local cinemas. I’m not going to wax lyrical about them here as the blog is full of posts about them, but do look out for the beige faience tiles on the current Odeon, and the former Odeon (Baxter Gate), and the beautiful brightly coloured tiles that serve as stunning decoration – the yellow, green, and blue patterns on the Odeon, and the black and green bands running across the former Odeon.

Many of these twentieth-century tiles were made by a local company. Perhaps we shall hear more about them in the next post …

Please note: No dinner plates or historical columns were damaged in the creation of this post!

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I'm taking part in the A-Z April Blogging Challenge!!

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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). G is for Glazed Tiles. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/04/g-is-for-glazed-tiles.html [Accessed 8 April 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

F is for Fascines, Fans, and Feathers

Art Deco buildings often show off elaborate embellishments, or motifs, and there are plenty of these to be found on Loughborough’s Art Deco buildings! Let’s look at some fascines (bundles of wood), fans, and feathers, and where we might find these …

Fascines

Probably the best example of fascines can be seen on the old No.1 Branch Co-op building on Derby Road, a building which has featured numerous times on this blog! [1] It’s a beautiful building which has a lovely balustrade, almost forming a faux balcony in front of the gabled roof, and bunches of foliage dropping down along columns of the second floor. The fascines are in the middle of the three bays, leading up either side to the metal lettering, indicating that this is a Co-op building. I’m calling these fascines, but it’s probably open to individual interpretation, and you might see long-handled torches, or tied bamboo stems! Here’s a couple of photographs of the building and the detail.

Fans

Again, my interpretation of a fan motif might be slightly different from yours, but after a long time spent looking up at the detail on some of Loughborough’s buildings, it gets a bit tricky to tell exactly what the motifs are! The detail on the first floor of the building that used to be PoundStretcher on High Street, both on the middle gable and on the surrounding two bays, could loosely be described as fans. Alternatively, you might see wall lights, or candelabras, or maybe feathers or shells!! But, I’m sure we can all agree that the detailing is beautifully on what was opened as one of Russell Smith’s drapery stores. We might, however, consider the building is in a domestic revival style, not Art Deco!!

Feathers

And finally, we take a look at feathers!! Art Deco feather features often depict peacock feathers. Again, in my opinion it’s a bit of a subjective thing, so some feathers might be shells, and vice versa! The motif on what is now Caffe Nero, just above the first floor window, with its faux balcony, looks like peacock feathers in the centre, with decoration leading out to some proud miniature columns, with possibly a round flower motif to complete the design.

 

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[1] See the following examples:

https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2022/12/no1-co-op.html

https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2024/01/changes-in-loughborough-2023.html 

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I'm taking part in the A-Z April Blogging Challenge!!

____________________________________

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). F is for Fascines, Fans, and Feathers. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/04/f-is-for-fascines-fans-and-feathers.html [Accessed 7 April 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 – Paul Pry

Introduction – Christie Connections with Loughborough

As you know from last a recent post, I recently finished the challenge of reading all the Agatha Christie novels, and had been surprised at how many references there were within her books to Loughborough-related things, or, at least, things that connected in some way with Loughborough.      

“Hickory Dickory Dock”

Today’s post is prompted by something I read in Hickory Dickory Dock, on p300.

Written in 1955, unlike Sleeping Murder which featured Miss Marple, HDD is a Poirot affair, a synopsis of which can be found elsewhere. In short, a number of items go missing from a student hostel, then come the murders …

One of the characters in the novel, Mrs Christina Nicoletis, is the eccentric and volatile owner of the student accommodation, and in the reference we’re interested in, she is in conversation with Mrs Hubbard, who is the warden of the accommodation, and incidentally just happens to be the sister of Poirot’s secretary, Miss Lemon. Here’s what’s said, when Mrs Nicoletis flew into one of her tempers:

“Ah, you do not think I have cause for anxiety? You know best as usual! You know everything! You are so wonderful: you cater, you manage, you spend money like water on food so that the students are fond of you, and now you want to manage my affairs! But that, no! I keep my affairs to myself and nobody shall pry into them, do you hear? No, Mrs What-do-you-call-it Paul Pry.”

The Loughborough Connection

Back in March 2022 I posted an article entitled ‘So Who Was Paul Pry?’

This post gave a detailed description of the character of ‘Paul Pry’ – a do-gooding, nosey busybody – as he appeared in a play written in 1825 by the writer John Poole (1786-1872). And it is this character that is referenced in Hickory Dickory Dock, in which, essentially, Mrs Nicoletis is telling Mrs Hubbard to mind her own business!

Apparently, according to a report in the Leicestershire Mercury of October 1839, we had a Paul Pry in Church Gate, one John Hollingsworth, who knocked over William Smith, who he accused of catching him “playing the part of Paul Pry, by listening under [someone's] window, a practice of which he was frequently guilty.”  

However, in my earlier post about Paul Pry, I focussed on the name as the name of a local beer-off premises, that according to a newspaper report (Leicester Evening Mail of 5th March 1930), was on Leicester Road, and was once the home of the Clemerson family, when it was known as the White House, and later was Maher’s Off-Licence. Since then, research has revealed that the George Moore referred to in that article, who was of the Paul Pry and who had been in court in 1832 for not looking after his apprentice, was listed in a trade directory of 1835 as a beer retailer on Wood Gate. Later, in 1841, a report of a gun being shot up the chimney of the Paul Pry gives no indication of who was running the business, nor where it was situated, although we are told that the perpetrator lives close to the Roman Catholic Chapel – presumably on Ashby Road.

A similar situation arises in 1846 when two shoemakers – Mr Rozzell and Mr Barker – have a bit of an argument. They were drinking in the Paul Pry – but where, is not stated!

Could the Paul Pry have been in Ward’s End?

By 1851 we find that there is a publican listed in Ward’s End, called Matthew Ward. On the 1841 census return he was in Ward’s End but listed as either a farrier or a farmer. I suspect the latter, as he also appears in a polling book as owning property in Ward’s End. In 1858, Matthew Ward of the Paul Pry beerhouse (no address given) was convicted of keeping his house open on Sunday 17 th January, for the sale of beer, and was fined £1 and costs. Matthew Ward died in 1859, aged 75, and is buried in Emmanuel churchyard.

In October 1923, a letter which appeared in the Leicester Daily Mercury mentioned that a farmer stopped off at “the tavern known as the Paul Pry, in Bedford Square”, I don’t know about you, but I can never quite work out where Bedford Square ends, and Ward’s End begins, but this could well be the same premises as mention in 1851.

In 1952, the Loughborough Echo published a piece quoting extracts from an account book that was about 100 years old. This account book belonged to Mr John Cooper, a maltster from Hathern and in it is recorded the sales he made, many of which were to Loughborough folk. The first entry in the book is for 1843, but the one of more interest here is an entry for 1852, which named the Paul Pry on Ward’s End as one of the customers.

So, was there a Paul Pry on Leicester Road, and on Ward’s End / Bedford Square? I can honestly say I really have no idea!!

But, just one more thing before I leave you in peace, in September 1891, the Loughborough cyclers indulged in a lantern parade, and the participants were decked out in gorgeous array, representing historical characters like "Ally Soper", "Paul Pry", and others!

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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). Christie Connections – Paul Pry. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/03/christie-connections-paul-pry.html  [Accessed 6 April 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

E is for Egyptomania

For today’s A-Z April Art Deco Blogging Challenge, I was originally torn between going into [too much!] detail about Egyptomania, and some detail about the Paris Expo of 1925. But, instead I included details of the Expo under letter A, where I explained how the Art Deco movement was only named in the 1960s, and how it was a name that was influenced by that 1925 exhibition. So, let’s look at the influence of Egypt!

Egyptomania – an enthusiasm for all things Egyptian, particularly Ancient Egyptian – has always been a thing! The Western world has always been fascinated by Ancient Egypt and Egyptian motifs, and Western interpretations of these, have been around for centuries.

However, when in 1922 the tomb of King Tutankhamun was discovered, and subsequently opened, by Howard Carter, there was a renewed interest in Egyptian designs and artefacts. These Egyptian ideas were incorporated in, and became part of, the visual culture, including in the UK. They were adopted in many aspects, including fashion, like jewellery and clothing, furnishings, and in architecture.

We saw in D is for Diamonds, the brightly coloured painted columns on a shop on Ashby Road, which somehow hints at Egyptian decoration

But, our most magnificent Egyptian treasure is hiding behind some wooden covering, so not easy to spot! The building on Swan Street that was once home to the Echo Press shows off many of the features of Art Deco architecture exceedingly well, and it is here that the Egyptian columns can be found. They are hiding as when the road was open to two-way traffic one of the columns was hit and damaged by a lorry. First we have an aerial view of Swan Street, with the Echo Press building closest, and then a view of the two columns, with their stunning colours.

 

 

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I'm taking part in the A-Z April Blogging Challenge!!

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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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). E is for Egyptomania. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/03/e-is-for-egyptomania.html  [Accessed 5 April 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