B is for Brooks

Just recently I've found myself discussing Loughborough's brooks with a few different friends. We have very many brooks in Loughborough; you could probably say we were awash with them (except that the Wash is in East Anglia, I think!). The brooks and their tributaries are one, among many of the reasons Loughborough is prone to flooding.

These are some of the brooks in Loughborough, or on the edge of Loughborough:

The Black Brook; this is the biggest of Loughborough’s brooks, and it flows from nearby Shepshed into the River Soar. It was built to feed the Charnwood Forest Canal in 1796, and a dam made from earthwork was created, but failed in 1799. The brook was later dammed successfully in 1906. The brook passes along by Morrisons, and through the Garendon Estate.

Black Brook Reservoir

The Burleigh Brook; this runs along Ashby Road, besides the site of the university, and some arms of the brook actually run through the campus. There was once a pond approximately where Cotswold Close is now, which was known as Burleigh Brook Park, or Tickle Belly Park. The brook passes under the Ashby Road and Garendon Road, and then runs alongside Alan Moss Road, and joins the Wood Brook close to the fire station and Loughborough hospital at the end of Epinal Way. Together the Burleigh Brook and the Wood Brook pass under the canal, right across to close to Bishop Meadow Lock, where they meet the Summerpool Brook, before then joining the River Soar, which itself then joins the canal.

The Grammar School Brook; this brook is relatively short and runs parallel with Shelthorpe Road, crosses under the Leicester Road, under and around the area around Tuckers Road, and then under the canal, close to the Peter Le Marchant moorings, to join the Hermitage Brook.

The Hermitage Brook; this is joined by the Grammar School Brook, and together they join the River Soar, where it runs parallel to Stanford Lane.

The Summerpool Brook; this appears to start at the Meadows, close to the Adey Steel factory, and is joined by the Wood Brook, and together they flow into the River Soar, before they all join the canal.

The Willow Brook; the route of the Willow Brook is very much harder to find! It is around and on the opposite side of the derby Road, where the Willow Brook Retail Park is now, and where the Willow Brook Coach Works was previously. I’ve written a bit more about this in ‘A-Z of Loughborough’, published in 2021.

The Wood Brook; this brook is probably the best known in Loughborough and joins with another brook around the bottom of Valley Road, then runs parallel to Forest Road, alongside the Home Farm sports field, across Outwoods Drive, through the Forest Green Belt, down the middle of Forest Road, skirts the leisure centre, passes the Queen’s Park entrance gates at New Street, crosses under Granby Street, then under Market Street, alongside Brookside, under The Rushes, alongside the canal, then under Jubilee Drive, and out towards the River Soar, close to Bishop Meadow lock, where it is joined by the Summerpool Brook!

As brooks in Loughborough are so important, there have been a number of streets named to reflect our brooks. These include:

Beck Crescent

Brook Lane

Brookside

Brookside Road

Summerpool Road

Woodbrook Road

Woodbrook Way (footpath)

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This post is part of a series in the 2024 ‘Blogging from A to Z April Challenge’.

 

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

_______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this blog.

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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 (2024). B is for Brooks. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2024/04/b-is-for-brooks.html [Accessed 2 April 2024]

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A is for Abbeyfield

During the lockdown of 2020, and into 2021, I used to take my daily exercise in the form of a walk, which sometimes took me along Ashby Road. As you may know, I have been fascinated by this road since I started this blog in August 2013, and have tried to document the changes, for example, visiting the even-numbered properties in 2023.  

Much of Ashby Road, which was the main turnpike road out of Loughborough, towards Ashby, and thus once had a toll house, is lined with large, Victorian residences, homes to numerous well-known names of Loughborough – Clemersons, Schofield, Burder, Middleton, and more. Some of the larger properties were better known by their name – Redholme, Iffley, Ingleside, Westfields, Essex Lodge, and so on. Beautiful houses, some of which were built by local builders, William Moss, of local bricks by Tuckers.

So, imagine my disappointment when No.190 Ashby Road was demolished during 2021!

From my early days in Loughborough, I had become familiar with Abbeyfield, most especially their property on Forest Road (at number 59), at 17 Victoria Street, and at 190 Ashby Road. At the time, the Society also had other properties, which I wasn’t aware of, namely 7 and 8 Park Street, 11 and 12 Park Road, and 45 Toothill Road. Their logo, printed on a white sign with blue and red writing was quite distinctive.

It seems the Abbeyfield Society, a charity, was founded in 1956 by one Richard Carr-Gomm, who had given up his position in the Royal Berkshire Regiment and the Coldstream Guards and become a home help, rather an unusual role in the 1950s for a man. Anyway, realising that many people benefitted from his company, he bought a house in Bermondsey, East London, and had a couple of people come and live with him. This was in 1955, and in 1956 he bought more properties and formed the Abbeyfield Society. The Society received donations from the public, such that by 1963, there were more than 100 Abbeyfield homes across the country.

In 1963, the Abbeyfield Loughborough Society, Ltd was formed, as an independent body, but also a member of the national Abbeyfield Society, the idea for which came from members of the recently opened John Storer House. A grant was obtained from the Smith’s Charity. 

In 1964, the Abbeyfield Loughborough Society provided care homes at 45 Toothill Road, and 59 Forest Road, and then in 1967 at 11 and 12 Park Road. In 1968 the Society bought 17 Victoria Street, which they opened in 1969, and extended in 1974. Numbers 7 and 8 Park Street were then bought between 1974 and 1976, and 190 Ashby Road, which was left to the Society in 1976, and opened in 1978.

In 1990, the Society built a property at 44 Westfield Drive, which was behind number 190 Ashby Road, and number 42 Westfield Drive was bought in 1999 and along with number 42, was extended. During this period, in 1991, the Victoria Street building was refurbished, and during the same year, Toothill was closed, Park Street was sold off in 1995, Forest Road was extended in 1996, and Park Road closed in 1997.

During its existence as a home, the Victoria Street property was host to a couple of visits from Mrs Eva Emily Larkin, mother of the poet Phillip Larkin; she lived on York Road, and spent a few weeks in the home while her daughter took a well-deserved break. The property remained with the Society until 2011, when it was closed, and all the focus was then on the Westfield Drive and Ashby Road properties.

The Victoria Street property

And so we come to 2018, and the closure of the Ashby Road property, which was demolished during 2021, and rebuilt as a purpose-built facility to look after those living with dementia. As a Dementia Ambassador for my previous employer, I realise how important such a focus is, and also that a Victorian building, despite its many modifications can hardly be made suitable for its prospective residents.

I hope previous residents of number 190 Ashby Road, also known as Ingleside, would approve of the changes the site of their house has seen.

The new building going up July 2021

Detail of the new facility

The new Ingleside House, 2023

____________________________________ 

This post is part of a series in the 2024 ‘Blogging from A to Z April 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 (2024). A is for Abbeyfield. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2024/04/a-is-for-abbeyfield.html [Accessed 1 April 2024]

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