Bull-in-the-Hollow Part 2
Bull-in-the-Hollow April 2020
Last week we looked at the early history of the Needless Inn/Buffalo’s Head/Bull-in-the-Hollow up until the end of the nineteenth century. This week, let’s travel through the twentieth century – and take care not to have an accident!!
In 1905 a cyclist collided with horses attached to a brake[i] whilst cycling down the Bull-in-the-Hollow Hill between Loughborough and Quorn. She was pitched forward onto her head, and was taken to Loughborough hospital with severe injuries. She and her friends were returning home from visiting Costock.
In February 1908, severe gales hit the Loughborough area, and a large tree was uprooted near the Bull-in-the-Hollow and fell straight across the road. As it fell it broke the whole of the telegraph and telephone wires on the opposite side of the road and traffic was unable to pass, until the trunk had been sawn through and removed.
In the summer of 1910, a couple of accidents occurred, the first of which involved a horse that was being led near the Bull-in-the-Hollow by a Loughborough man. The horse reared and struck the man on his right shin. On being taken to Loughborough Hospital, he was found to have two broken bones in his leg. In the second incident, in July, a young man suffered serious injuries when he tried to cross the road near the Bull-in-the-Hollow, after following a van. As he ventured to cross the road, there was a car coming down the short slope in the direction of Loughborough, and the man was knocked down by the lamp on the front of the car. The occupants of the car took the man to Loughborough Hospital. As it happened, the driver, who was acting as chauffeur to the gentleman passenger, was driving without a licence, it having run out on 6th June and not been renewed.
Two accidents also occurred in 1914, the first in May when on a journey from Sileby to Loughborough to visit the market, people travelling on the brake suffered a serious fright when they reached the Bull-in-the-Hollow Hill, and the horse stumbled, falling, breaking one of the carriage’s shafts as it fell. Later in the year, two motorcyclists attempted to pass a governess cart [ii] near the Bull-in-the-Hollow close to the lane leading to Woodthorpe, and in so doing one of them clipped the wheel of the cart, causing the motorcycle rider to be thrown to the ground. He was taken to Loughborough Hospital in a passing car, where he was treated for severe head injuries.
In 1915, a driver was fined for accidentally killing a dog, while driving near the Bull-in-the-Hollow, although there was a conflict in evidence presented between the two parties involved. In the winter of 1916, a local policeman was found unconscious on the road at the Bull-in-the-Hollow near Woodthorpe Lane. It appears that some part of the bicycle he was riding had broken whilst he was riding it, and that caused him to fall to the ground. He was taken to Loughborough (presumably to the hospital), where he regained consciousness, and his condition improved.
In the summer of 1919, it was alleged that a horse had been cruelly treated, but the case was dismissed once the evidence had been presented. Apparently, the horse stumbled at the Bull-in-the-Hollow, and on being pulled up sharply, went lame, but because the person leading the horse took it to be looked at immediately, this was not deemed to be cruelty.
So, the majority of the accidents that have happened so far have involved either horse-drawn carriages of some sort, horses themselves, cyclists or pedestrians. In subsequent years, the motorcycle becomes more popular and accidents involving these, more frequent.
A couple travelling in a motorcycle and sidecar tried to overtake a char-a-banc [iii] at the Bull-in-the-Hollow near Woodthorpe, in September 1920. As they sped down the hill, a car approached coming the other way, and the couple were dragged for some distance as their cycle and sidecar overturned. They were driven to Loughborough Hospital, and returned home later that day in the borough ambulance.
Pedestrians and cyclists were, however, still vulnerable, as is seen in December 1921 when a lady from Stanford-on-Hill [is this Stanford on Soar??] collided with a pedestrian at the Bull-in-the-Hollow, while she was out cycling with her husband, and sustained head injuries. In May 1923, a car collided with a motorcycle and sidecar at the Bull-in-the-Hollow. All vehicles were badly damaged, and the sidecar passenger sustained a broken ankle, abrasions to the arm, and possible internal injuries. Several lorries were held up on their journey between Loughborough and Leicester.
By 1925, the Bull-in-the-Hollow had ceased to be an inn, and was now a gardeners and craftsmans place. Ted Symes ran the nurseries at the property, and was still doing so into the 1970s. It seems to be around this time that the name of the former Bull-in-the-Hollow Inn seems to have been transposed and applied to the area in which the Inn, and now the nursery, stood.
In August 1926, a man sustained a broken collar bone when his motorcycle hit a large log and he was thrown to the ground, at the Bull-in-the-Hollow, and the next month, a car approached the top of the Bull-in-the-Hollow and swerved to miss a parked lorry. In the process the car driver hit a cyclist, who was thrown to the ground. The car driver was fined £2. And in November 1926, a lady was taken to Loughborough Hospital for treatment when she cycled into a ditch near the Bull-in-the-Hollow and broke her thigh bone, during a dense spell of fog. In June 1928 there was yet another cycling accident when a young boy was thrown from his bike at the Bull-in-the-Hollow, and sustained serious head injuries.
By now, the area was beginning to get a reputation, and the ‘Leicester Evening Mail’ of 25th October 1929, carried the following report:
“ “Bull in Hollow” mystery. Drivers of motor vehicles coming into Loughborough from Leicester are continually beset in wet or frosty weather by a notorious bugbear known as the Bull-in-the-Hollow. It is a deceptive dip in the road, where numerous skidding mishaps have occurred but the cause seem to be something of a mystery. One theory advanced by a motorist is that an accumulation of oil dropped by passing motors, particularly buses, is carried down the dip on every rainfall. That may be so, but what about frosty weather mishaps?”
Knowing this was a bit of a dangerous area did nothing to curtail the accidents though. In 1932, a verdict of accidental death was reached when a van knocked down and killed a little boy from Woodthorpe Avenue, Loughborough. A number of accidents were reported in 1935. It is not clear if a lorry laden with bricks skidded near the Bull-in-the-Hollow, and plunged into the garden of a farmhouse, plunged into the Bull-in-the-Hollow farmhouse, or if it were the farm on the opposite side, known as Quorn Lodge. That was in July, a month that also saw a lorry from a Leicester firm [Pridmore] pulled across the road to pass a stationary bus, and in so doing collided with a car that was coming the other way, ripping off its door. The lorry driver was fined for dangerous driving.
In August 1935 the Loughborough Fire Brigade were called out to attend two grass fires in the vicinity of the Bull-in-the-Hollow, and later that same month, two students who were attending the Loughborough College summer school for teachers were in a car that collided with a lorry near the Bull-in-the-Hollow. Both students were treated at Loughborough Hospital for head injuries, having been thrown from the car, which was wrecked.
Thus, by September of 1935, this particular area of the road from Loughborough to Leicester had its reputation cemented as the “Main Leicester Road danger spot known as the Bull-in-the-Hollow” in a report which appeared in the ‘Leicester Evening Mail’ concerning a Loughborough motorist who had a ‘remarkable’ escape when his two-seater touring car skidded, and hit a telegraph pole, before landing overturned in a ditch.
Throughout the mid-late 1930s, accidents continued to happen near the Bull-in-the-Hollow. In both January 1936 and January 1937, snowy weather may have contributed to these incidents, the first when a driver was absolved on the payment of costs, when charged with driving a lorry without due care and attention. It was snowing and while the driver saw the car coming in the opposite lane, he didn’t notice the cyclist until he was very close to it, and thus drove into the back of the cycle, knocking its rider off, when descending the slope near the Bull-in-the-Hollow. In the second accident, a lady cycling to work at Quorn, from Loughborough, fell off her bike near the Bull-in-the-Hollow and broke her arm.
In June 1937, a three-month-old passenger escaped unhurt, but the other passengers in the motor car were treated for cuts and abrasions at Loughborough hospital when their vehicle collided with a lorry at the Bull-in-the-Hollow. By November 1937, the area was not just a danger spot, but now a 'notorious' one, according to a report of a crash involving a car and a lorry in the ‘Leicester Evening Mail’.
In 1938, William Dakin was the farmer at the Bull-in-the-Hollow farm: I doubt he’d have been surprised that in August of that year there was a crash when a cyclist from Woodhouse Eaves collided with a bus at the Bull-in-the-Hollow, “a notorious Loughborough danger spot.” He suffered concussion and was treated at Loughborough Hospital. I’m pretty sure though, that Mr Dakin would not have expected there to have been an aeroplane crash in the area! A half-buried plane fuselage in a ditch near the Bull-in-the-Hollow caused a delay to hundreds of motorists as they were stopped by a traffic policeman. Luckily, this was not a real accident, but a staged event for the Loughborough College Rag Week, and motorists who were stopped dug deep into their pockets to make a contribution to the rag fund which was in aid of the Loughborough Hospital.
More real accidents, did, however, follow in 1939, when in April a motorcyclist died when he fell from his bike near the Bull-in-the-Hollow whilst travelling back to Derby, and the bike fell on top of him, and in the same month when a lorry driver, dazzled by the headlights of an oncoming car, crashed into a cyclist. Later, in August, a lorry skidded and left the road, plunging into a ditch near the Bull-in-the-Hollow. One occupant of the lorry escaped unharmed, but the other sustained a cut to the forehead and was treated at Loughborough Hospital.
In May 1941 a car crashed into a stationary lorry near the Great Central Railway Bridge, close to the Bull-in-the-Hollow, but in March 1946 an accident happened at the Bull-in-the-Hollow, which was described in a report in the ‘Leicester Evening Mail’ of 2 March: “four cars were piled up last night, rendered temporarily useless by the snow and weather conditions. A mantle of snow covered the whole of Charnwood Forest area, and trees and hedges presented a Christmas card appearance as a result of a ‘silver thaw’ – that is, a temporary thaw followed by a severe frost. Snow was from two to three inches deep in many places.” And in the same month, a motorcyclist from Sileby was killed at the Bull-in-the-Hollow when his machine skidded. His passenger escaped unhurt.
1947 and 1948 also saw a variety of accidents at the Bull-in-the-Hollow. In January 1947 a motorcycle collided with a lorry at the Bull-in-the-Hollow, and both rider and passenger were taken to hospital with injuries, and in August a car collided with a lorry at the Bull-in-the-Hollow. The car driver was taken to Loughborough hospital for treatment. In August 1948, a motorcycle ridden by a student of Loughborough College collided with a lorry at the Bull-in-the-Hollow; the rider sustained multiple injuries.
The toll of accidents just goes on and on …
In April 1955, a pig strayed into the road near the Bull-in-the-Hollow. A motorcyclist fell from his machine, and sustained head injuries as the pig was hit. The rider was taken to Loughborough Hospital for treatment, but the pig died in the collision. In April 1959, an accident at the Bull-in-the-Hollow saw a car smash through an iron rail, and uproot three concrete posts, before overturning into a ditch. Luckily, the occupants were unhurt. In June 1959, a cyclist died when his cycle was in collision with two motorcycles. A passenger on the motorbike sustained a broken collar bone, various lacerations and concussion.
In July 1963, opening batsman, Harold Bird, missed playing in the match between Leicestershire and Hampshire at the Brush sports ground, because on his journey to the match, he swerved to avoid a dog at the Bull-in-the-Hollow and crashed his car in the ditch, and suffered with concussion.
With all these accidents taking place at or near that notorious ‘Loughborough danger spot’ the Bull-in-the-Hollow, it was surely about time the road was made safer, somehow. Now, I’ve read somewhere that the dip in the road was actually levelled out a bit, sometime in the 1960s, but I can’t remember where I read that and I can’t find the reference again, so, forgive me, this is just dredged up from my memory. If you can shed any light on the truth, or otherwise of this, I’d be pleased to hear from you!
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| September 2021 |
[i] A brake is a
type of four-wheel, horse-drawn carriage, sometimes with a hood. The seats face
to the front and to the back, so that passengers face each other. There are a
variety of brake types, like the shooting break, and the waggonette break.
[ii] A governess car
can be seen at Calke Abbey. Basically, it is a small two-wheeled horse-drawn
cart, with a tub-shaped body, which led to them being nicknamed ‘tub carts’. It
could carry two people, who would sit facing each other. If one of these people
was the driver, they would sit sideways on, so they could see where they were
going and direct the single horse.
[iii] A char-a-banc was pulled by four horses, and initially was used to carry shooting parties, before becoming a mode of public transport. It was open to the elements, and passengers sat on side-facing benches, with luggage stored underneath the seats, which were removable.
