Lynne About Loughborough: Leicester Road

Showing posts with label Leicester Road. Show all posts

Sunday, 15 August 2021

Pack Horse Milestone

The Pack Horse milestone - or the Organ Grinder milestone!

So, it seems that milepost situated outside the Pack Horse Inn, sorry, I mean the Organ Grinder, although appearing mysteriously one night, appeared long before the time that Harry Sheffield was landlord (late-1920s to c.1950). The thing about history is that its story often changes, as more information comes to light, so it’s worth me transcribing the article that appeared in the 'Loughborough Echo' of 24 July 1914, in full below.

“An Old Milestone

A correspondent writes:

Walking down Woodgate the other day with one of Loughborough’s finest tradesmen, he ventured to pass a remark about the milestone that stands at the corner of Pack Horse Lane. Upon my asking how long it had stood there, he could give no satisfactory answer, only to say he knew it had been there more than 50 years [so pre-1864] and he was still further surprised when I ventured to suggest that he did not know what was inscribed thereon.

I wonder how many of the hundreds who pass up and down this well-known thoroughfare and have noticed this familiar object, can tell from memory what it has to say.

Now, Mr Editor, can you tell us why it is there?

The inscription reads: Loughborough, 9 miles, Derby 8, London 108.

There is an old saying that runs like this: What can’t speak, can’t lie. What about this?”

The Editor then replies:

“Our correspondent is wrong in one important particular. The old milestone reads “London 118 miles”. We understand that the history of this stone is somewhat as follows:

At one time it told the tale of journeys to those who travelled by coach from London to Derby and all and sundry who passed that way, that they were nine miles from Loughborough, eight miles from derby, and 118 from London.

As Loughborough is about 109 from London and 17 from Derby, it follows that this stone originally would stand on the Derby Road, nine miles from Loughborough.

We are unable to say how it came to be moved, maybe this arose at a time when the roads were disturnpiked, and coming into the possessions of a Loughborough man who at that time engaged in the building near the Pack Horse Lane, the stone was placed in the wall. When the present premises were rebuilt two or three years ago the stone again found an honoured position in the outer wall.

What gives interest to the history of this milestone is to be found in the fact that the old coach road through Loughborough used to lass down Pack Horse Lane, in fact we may assume that the derivation of the term ‘Pack Horse Lane’ arises from there being a hostelry there at which pack horses rested.”

Well, that opens up a can of worms, does it not?! Perhaps the stone, which is purported to come from the area of Shardlow, arrived whilst that Leicester Road was being re-routed to cut out the dog-leg from Leicester Road that leads down Packhorse Lane, and then back out onto High Street. This re-routing meant that the Cross Keys pub, sorry, I mean The Phantom, was moved to its current position. This was way back in 1813. Is it possible the stone has been there that long? I'm off to hunt for evidence ...

Taken 2016: although hard to read, more inscribed letters are highlighted at this time

Picture from 2021: the inscribed letters are much less decipherable

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough 15 August 2021

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

Dyer, Lynne (2021). Pack Horse Milestone. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2021/08/pack-horse-milestone.html [Accessed 15 August 2021]

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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.

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Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne

Sunday, 13 June 2021

Phantom development

You might remember in a post last September I shared with you some changes that had been happening in and around Loughborough, which included a new building that was being erected in the town centre, next to the Phantom pub (previously known as the Cross Keys)? It's been 9 months since that post, so I thought it was about time I re-visited the construction site, and had a look to see where it was at. Although I haven't been out and about much over the past 15 months as I would have done pre-pandemic, and haven't regularly walked over that way, I do seem to have a selection of photographs covering various times in the past 9 months, to share with you.

Not so long ago, this area, on High Street was home to a blacksmiths, a jewellers, the army surplus store and the carpet shop both in the old church, and Anglian windows. Down on Pinfold Gate was Momento Mediterranean restaurant, a curry restaurant, a barbers, a baby shop, a tattoo parlour, an acquatics shop and a motorbike shop. Round the corner on Aumbry Gap was Corah the builders, followed by Groups Music Tuition, a gym and a furniture shop, whose entrance was off Barrow Street, and then a tyre place.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy seeing photographs of what's happening to this area at the moment.

October 2020 from Southfields Park

From Moor Lane, November 2020

February 2021

On Pinfold Gate, 9 April 2021

From High Street, 9 April 2021

From Leicester Road, 22 May 2021

From medical centre car park, 23 May 2021

Looking up Pinfold Gate, 23 May 2021

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough 13 June 2021

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

Dyer, Lynne (2021). Phantom development. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2021/06/phantom-development.html [Accessed 13 June 2021]

Take down policy:

You can leave comments below, but do check back as my reply will appear here, below your comment.

Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne

Sunday, 26 April 2020

Bikes about Loughborough past

So here we are, it's nearly the end of April 2020, and we've been stuck indoors for almost 5 weeks now. Admittedly, I've managed to go out and get some exercise by walking, but sadly, my bike needs a bit of attention, so I haven't been able to use it recently.

Instead, I've looked back over bike trips around Loughborough through the ages! Enjoy!

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

Dyer, Lynne (2020). Bikes about Loughborough past. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2020/04/bikes-about-loughborough-past.html [Accessed 26 April 2020]

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Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne

Sunday, 19 April 2020

From Clement to Clemersons

Pondering over the guest blog post written by Tony Jarram recently about artists in Loughborough, I was idly looking through some notes, when I spotted someone who classed themselves as a landscape painter, who at one time was living on Sparrow Hill.

Clement Edwards Pike was born in Quorn in 1859 almost the youngest child of James Carey Pike, born in Derby on 26 June 1817, and his wife Maria Balm, born in Quorn, who married in 1851. There were eight children in all. On the 1861 census, James was listed as a Baptist minister, while Maria was listed as a lace manufacturer, employing 31 men, 16 boys and 22 girls, the factory being on Leicester Road Quorn, and the family were living in Quorn. The Quorn company made twisted lace, silk net and cotton-tatting, and was at one time called Balm & Hill. For more information see:

http://www.quornmuseum.com/display.php?id=1035 AND http://www.quornmuseum.com/display.php?id=1614 AND

http://mountsorrelarchive.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/KFO_294-Melville-Directory-1854.pdf

Anyway, back to the Pikes!

This was James Pike’s second marriage. His first had been to Lucy Wherry from Bourne, in 1839, and together they had at least three children, but Lucy died in 1850. James then married Maria and had another five children. When Clement was 12, his elder brother, Joseph was a medical student at St Thomas’s hospital in London, and when Clement was 17, his father died in 1876. On the 1871 census, the family were living in Leicester, but quite what Clement was doing between 1871 and 1881 I don’t know, but on the 1881 census returns, Clement is listed a being art 30 Sparrow Hill, in the home of his brother James, who is a physician and surgeon. Their widowed mother, Maria, their younger sister, Caroline Annie, and their nieces Jane and Florence are also listed here.

For occupation Clement has been recorded as a landscape artist. As yet, I have been unable to trace any paintings Clement may have done, nor have I been able to trace him on the 1891 census returns. UPDATE: Thanks to one of the Loughborough Library Local Studies Volunteers (LLLSVs), Clement has been found on the 1891 census, masquerading as Clement Rike - at least according to the transcriber!!!! He is living with his sister Caroline and servant Kate Chapman, from Loughborough, at N0.10 Bramshill Gardens, Kentish Town. He is listed as a Minister of Religion, Free Christian Unitarian Church.

On the 1901 census, Clement is now recorded as being a Unitarian Minister, living on Carisbrooke Road on the Isle of Wight with his sister, Caroline Annie. By 1911 they had moved to Taunton Road, Bridgewater in Somerset, where they continued to live until at least 1919.

Clement died in 1928 at no.88 Leicester Road, Loughborough, although he was living in Mill Brook, Tavistock at the time. No.88, until recently the De Montfort Hotel, was the home of his sister, who had moved to Loughborough on her marriage, so presumably Clement was visiting her. She and her husband lived at the White House (formerly Maher’s the off-licence) on Leicester Road. Caroline had married relatively late in life, in 1923, at the age of 63, and she outlived her new husband, who died 2 years after their marriage, in 1927, by 10 years. Caroline died in 1937, and at the time she was living on Stanley Street.

So, the journey from Clement to Clemersons and the connection is that Clement’s sister, Caroline Annie, had married Henry Clemerson, a member of the Clemerson family who are so fondly remembered by many folk in Loughborough for their department store in the town centre.

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

Dyer, Lynne (2020). From Clement to Clemersons. Available from:https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2020/04/from-clement-to-clemersons.html [Accessed 19 April 2020]

Take down policy:

Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne

Sunday, 19 June 2016

Red, white or maybe green?

Ah, hello! Thanks for dropping by. If you landed here because of your interest in the 2016 US Presidential campaign, you may wish to go back to your search results and try a different link, unless you're interested in the houses of Loughborough, in which case, do please read on!

There's something that's been bugging me for a while, a couple of years in fact, since I did my tour guide qualification, when I had the luxury of time to spend looking through books, maps, newspapers and all the ephemera in the local studies room at Loughborough public library.

Now, I'm no map reader, but I spent hours poring over the old maps of the town, trying to visualise where things were then and where they are now - if you see what I mean! A good friend had said it would be really interesting to overlay the older map with a newer map and see what once stood on the site of those things that are so familiar to us today.

What a good idea, I thought, but not one I've ever had time to do anything about (I'm sure there's someone out there who has had the time and skills to do this though!), except to puzzle over the odd thing that I couldn't quite make sense of at the time.

So, I've now been thinking about this for more than 3 years, and, as is often the case, it's taken me this long to work it out. Ok, so it's been bubbling away in the back of my mind for this long, whilst a whole lot of other things have been at the front, but gradually I've managed to make some sense of what appeared to me to be conflicting information.

Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to get much pictorial evidence I need for this blog, so I hope my words, and the few pics I've got will be enough to convince you!

On an 1880s map of the town, I was looking along Leicester Road when I spotted the words "White House". Hmmm, was that going North or going South? Did I have the map up the wrong way, the right way, upside down, or what? Well, whichever way I held the map, it seemed to me that the White House was on the wrong side of Leicester Road. Ah, now, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, is it not? I was aware that the route of Leicester Road had changed over the years, and that the main road used to turn into Pack Horse Lane at one time (which, of course, means it was one-way in the opposite direction from what it is today), so maybe Leicester Road further down had moved too? Not very likely really, is it?!

Anyway, my consternation was because I had discovered whilst investigating the history of Middleton Place, that there was a White House on the Fairfield School site. This was so called because at one time, Fairfield House had been built as the home of the White family, who were owners in the hosiery company Paget and White, in 1823, before Augusta Sophia Middleton moved here quite some time after the death of her husband, Edward William Craddock Middleton, who died in 1887. At the time of the 1901 census she was still living in Shelthorpe Cottage (now The Cedars) and some of the White family were still living in the White House, but shortly afterwards, the Whites had moved out, and Mrs Middleton had moved in.

Today, Fairfield House, now called the White House, is still on the Fairfield School site, but the view has been rather eclipsed by a new building, which sits in front of it. The view from Southfields Park isn't all that great either.

As we all know, Fairfield School is on the right hand side of Leicester Road as you head towards Leicester, and I'm pleased to tell you that this part of Leicester Road follows the original road and hasn't moved! If we travel out of Loughborough along this stretch of Leicester Road, to the point where there is a left turn into Beeches Road, with the BP garage on one corner and Maher's the off-licence on the other (actually, Maher's is now called Lifestyle Express), let's stop here for a moment.

I believe this is the position of the other White House, which appeared as the only White House on that 1880s map! Maher's Lifestyle Express is it! If you walk along Leicester Road just beyond that left turn and look at the corner shop from the side and the back, I think you'll agree that this would have been quite a substantial property at the time it was built. And I believe this it the White House I couldn't quite place until recently. I haven't had time to check and see when it was built, nor who lived there over the years, so that's a blog post for another day! Talking of which, I haven't had time tonight to cover the Red House, or the Green House, or do I mean greenhouse? So that'll have to wait a while too!