Spotlight on Glebe House Part 2

History of Glebe House part 2

In the previous post about Glebe House, we looked at the period during which it acted as the rectory associated with the Emmanuel Church, before moving on to look at who the rectors of Emmanuel were. In this post, let’s look at how Glebe House was used after the rector from 1904-1923, Richard H. Fuller, completed his incumbency.

In 1923 Rev. Douglas R. Robson accepted the position of Rector of Loughborough, and came from the small parish of Par, in Cornwall, but rather than coming to live at the impressive Glebe House, Rev. Robson moved into no.57 Forest Road, where in June 1923 Mrs Robson was advertising for the services of a cook / general servant.

So, who was now living at the beautiful Glebe House, in its lovely setting?

Prior to moving to Glebe House, William Shirley Northcote Toller, known to his family as Shirley lived in Stafford Lodge, Quorn. Toller had taken part in the First World War, and in March 1918, at the age of 40, he was taken prisoner of war: shortly after the Armistice was declared, he returned to England. From 1921 to 1926, he was Lt. Colonel of the 1/5th Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment and it was during this period that he moved from Quorn to Glebe House, where he continued to live until around 1930, when he moved to Quorn Court.

The family that moved into Glebe House following Toller, were the Barthels. Albert Gustave Vincent Barthel was born the year before Toller, in 1887, to parents Louis and Edla [sic], in London. Barthel started his career as a bank clerk, but at the time of his marriage in 1917 to Eva Bigwood, he was an export manager. The couple continued to live in London, sharing the home of Eva’s parents in Battersea. However, in 1920 they registered the birth of their daughter, Joan, in Chepstow. By 1925, the family had moved to 31 Park Road, in Loughborough for a few years, before taking up residence in Glebe House.

On the 1939 register, Barthel is described as the managing director of a public limited company. A newspaper report from June 1940 describes the plight of the couple’s twin sons, Paul and Peter, the outcome of which was that Peter Vincent died in 1942. At the time, father Gilbert was the managing director of Genatosan, a firm which was begun in 1906 in London, as part of Sanatogen, and which in 1937 was taken over by Fisons.

Although there is no information on when Barthel retired, he and his family continued to live at Glebe House until about 1952, after which they moved to Storrington near Horsham in West Sussex, where Albert died in 1982.

Meanwhile, back in Loughborough, William Davis moved into Glebe House in around 1962. Prior to this, he and his wife Kathleen had been living at 24 William Street since at least as early as 1939. In 1935, William Davis had established his house-building company, who built their first houses on Edelin Road, the year the couple’s first child, Edelin was born. By the time of the move to Glebe House, the company was extremely successful.

Sadly, resources beyond 1962 are not available to me at the moment, so I am not sure when the Leicestershire County Council bought Glebe House, but I do know that the project known as Glebe House rented Glebe House from the council in 1982, and opened the building in 1983, offering a pre-school playgroup, and a holiday playscheme, amongst other things. In 1992, the project became a charity in its own right.

In 2004 Glebe House was added to Charnwood Borough Council’s register of locally listed buildings. The Glebe House charity continued to operate from Glebe House until 2010, when it moved to the former Magistrate’s Court on Wood Gate. In 2013 the Hardwick House School moved into Glebe House, and opened in 2014, and remains there to this day. Hardwick House School offers a curriculum that is rich and inspiring, and aims to provide an enjoyable learning experience for children and young people. It is a specialist independent school which is part of the group known as Cavendish Education.

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough 20 December 2020

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Dyer, Lynne (2020). Spotlight on Glebe House Part 2. Available from:https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2020/12/spotlight-on-glebe-house-part-2.html [Accessed 20 December 2020]

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Village Bands

When I first came to Loughborough way back in the late 1970s, I was very interested in the musical activities of the town, and did some research into these, which resulted in a directory of such things. I remember there used to be loads of brass bands in the town, the surrounding villages, and nearby towns, which was great because having lived in the coal-mining areas of South Wales, and also having lived in Yorkshire, brass bands have been a big part of my musical life. 

It seems that bands may have originated from the town waits from Medieval times, or from musicians associated with the army. The latter may have influenced local musicians to found their own bands. The tradition of Medieval wandering minstrels may also have had some influence on local bands.

Brass instruments didn't become particularly common in town bands until about the 17th century. Village bands could either be small, and composed of families, or they may have been bigger affairs which practised in the local pub.

Over the years there have been many, many bands in the area. As I was saying I remember the Loughborough Town Silver Band, as well as the Desford Colliery Band, and the William Davis Construction Group Band. At the time, Hathern was a little too far for my interests, but, of course, I have since become very familiar with the Hathern Band family of bands! The Loughborough Echo has had some great pictures and news of Loughborough bands on its Looking Back pages recently.

Anyone who follows the world of banding will be familiar with the website 4 Bars Rest, where there is live coverage of contests, lists of band rankings, news from the world of banding, and notice of vacancies within bands. Of course, there are loads of other band-related websites out there, and I would suspect that most bands have their own page: I know Hathern does.

While I was hopping around the internet, I also found a very interesting site on which people list what it is about banding they are researching; collections of music and instruments of historical interest, like at Cyfarthfa; some great old pictures of people and their brass instrument (check out the trombones!); and lists of both existing and defunct brass bands. Do have a look at the defunct bands, as probably every town, village and hamlet you can think of in and around Loughborough and North West Leicestershire has at least one entry (although I couldn't find one for Mountsorrel, so do let me know if you spot one!). Would you believe that Newtown Linford had its own band in about 1840-1850, that Lord Donington had a private band around the 1890s, and that there was a band called the Best Blooming Band between Burton and Bagworth, known as the Five Bs Band about 1890.  

Anyway, this is what I was up to last evening:

At Hathern Church we were treated to a veritable cornucopia of beautiful music from English composers, played by the Hathern Band. The last time I was here, the band were joined by Loughborough Male Voice Choir, but tonight was solely hosted by the band. Music from the royal court of the 16th century (John Bull's King's Hunting Tune) and from King Henry VIII himself (Pastime with Good Company (aka The King's Ballad) and strains of Greensleeves in the first half piece Fantasia on the Dargason (by Holst) jostled for favourite position alongside pieces by Vaughan-Williams, Coates, Binge, Langford, Elgar, Lloyd Webber, Walton, Alford, Elgar, Vinter, Sullivan, and Lennon & McCartney.

I simply can't remember when I last heard Dashing Away With The Smoothing Iron, nor Pineapple Poll, but I've certainly heard Cornet Carillon and Fantasia on the Dargason more recently. Ashamed to admit I was not familiar with Spitfire Fugue. I was relieved the Vaughan-Williams piece played was the theme of the film the 49th Parallel, and not the Talis Fantasia which is a very powerful piece of music that never fails to reduce me to tears!

As ever, the conductor, Dave Newman, tells me something I don't already know, either about the music or the composers. This time it related to the composer of the music for Desert Island Discs, which was composed by Coates, and that for the Shipping Forecast, which was composed by Binge.

Finally, for encore, we were treated to Jerusalem, a rousing English anthem, that always has me longing to hear music from my own country, and leaves me with a strong feeling of hiraeth.

So immersed was I in the music that I only took a couple of photos, which really didn't do the band justice, so here's some taken at previous events:

 

The 4-piece trombone trio at Hathern Church!

On the Banks at Quorn, summer 2016

On stage at Loughborough Town Hall in Brassed Off!

At the bandstand in Queen's Park, summer 2016

At the Baptist Chapel in Shepshed.

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

Dyer, Lynne (2016). Village bands. [Online] Available from: http://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2016/10/village-bands.html [Accessed 30 October 2016]