Toothill Road

Part of Beating the Bounds

Last weekend I was lucky enough to go on a guided walk around the area, which was once part of the grounds of the Old Rectory, which is at the junction of Steeple Row and Rectory Place. It was really quite surprising that the small building in its compact, grassy surroundings actually used to be situated in extensive grounds, and that the building itself, by the Georgian times, was rather large!

As I was being walked around the area surrounding the oldest part of the town, I remembered that a while ago I had wandered around there myself and taken quite a few photos. But, as usual, when I come to find them I can only find a few of them!! So, here's the few photos of Toothill Road that I could find, Toothill Road once being land belonging to the Old Rectory, and its name meaning something like, a lookout on a little hill. There's also a few photos of the other streets from the walk.

Toothill Road

Other areas of the walk

Fearon Hall

Looking down Meadow Lane

The Rectory Garden

The Old Rectory

The gates to the Old Rectory - for more gates, see this blogpost

Looking up Meadow Lane

A familiar name!!

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough 1 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). Toothill Road. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2021/07/toothill-road.html  [Accessed 1 August 2021]

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.

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

Remembrance 2019

Remembrance in Loughborough, 10 November 2019

Remembrance in Melbourne, 10 November 2019

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

Dyer, Lynne (2019). Remembrance 2019. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2019/11/remembrance-2019.html  [Accessed 10 November 2019]

Take down policy:

 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.

Thank you for reading this blog. 

Lynne

Kendal Troutbeck Scotland Carlisle and the Loughborough Connection Part 1

Oh dear, I've been on holiday again, but, even as far away as Scotland, Loughborough has never been far from my mind!

On the way up to Scotland (somewhere called Portsonachan - we stayed in the Portsonachan Hotel, a break we bought at the Prestwold Hall Food Festival in May 2016) we stopped off at Kendal in the Lake District. I was quite impressed with the size of the Carnegie Library, and the fact that it appeared to made of red stone, rather like our own.

The other thing that impressed me was the obvious care that was given to their yards and courts: we also had a lot of these in Loughborough, and funnily enough, Kendal had an Angel Yard, not unlike ours, although I doubt they had a world-famous publisher based in theirs!!

Like Loughborough, Kendal has a market, the charter for which was granted in 1189, while Loughborough's was granted in the 1200s:

Sign over Kendal Market

The main street in Kendal is called Highgate, and this was the name of Loughborough's High Street before it became the High Street:

Highgate, Kendal

Having spent a few hours wandering around Kendal, we moved on to Troutbeck, a small villlage near Windemere. Here we were in serious rolling countryside, the home of sheepfarmers. While my thoughts turned to Robert Bakewell, I was also struck by the piles of slate I saw scattered along the roadside. 

Sheep at Troutbeck

Slates at Troutbeck

We still had a long journey to Scotland ahead of us, so we stayed the night in Dumfries. This was a very interesting town with strong links to Robert Burns, the celebrated Scottish poet, and we were staggered by the mausoleum, but even more so by the size of the gravestones in St Michael's churchyard. Most seemed to be made of the local sandstone, and were huge, and some had angels carved into them.

Enormous gravestones

What I would call normal sized gravestones

An angel carved into the sandstone gravestone

We visited several museums in Dumfries, many with a Robert Burns connection, but it was at the Dumfries Museum that there was a strong connection with Loughborough, in he shape of a sock - a garment fashioned on a framework knitting machine, although most likely to be made of wool.

A framework knitted sock 

As if that weren't enough, there was also a model of a cruck frame building, rather like our very own Windmill Inn, our Manor House (now Caravellis) and Lowes.

Model of a cruck frame building

Gosh, we're still only in Dumfries, and so so much more to write!! I think I'll leave that until next week! Pop back and hear about more local connections!

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

Dyer, Lynne (2017). Kendal, Troutbeck, Scotland, Carlisle and the Loughborough connection part 1. [Online] Available from: http://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2017/02/kendal-troutbeck-scotland-carlisle-and.html [Accessed 18 February 2017]

Spotlight on Ancient Loughborough, part 1 The Windmill Inn

The Windmill Inn

The Windmill Inn, Sparrow Hill, Loughborough

Last week, having showed you some of Canterbury’s impressive old buildings, and mentioned the cruck-frame building in Loughborough on Church Gate where Irish is now, I promised you I’d investigate some of Loughborough’s oldest timer-framed buildings. So, here goes!

The Baker's

Down on Sparrow Hill, next to the right of the Parish Church, and to the left of what used to be Merrin’s the bakers, you’ll see a pub claiming to be “The oldest pub in Loughborough”.

The back of The Three Nuns

I think there’s a battle going on between The Windmill Inn and The Three Nuns, on Church Gate, to lay claim to the title, but I’m really not sure who wins! According to that expert, and dear friend, Bill, the Windmill was opened pre-1600, and the Three Nuns pre-1666, so whatever, it’s a pretty close call!

The front of The Three Nuns

Another friend of mine has been upstairs in The Windmill Inn and has dated the timber used in the cruck-frame to the 15^th century, and on these timbers you can still see the carpenter’s marks. The Leicestershire traveller, John Throsby, included in the record of his travels, an engraving of a romanticised view of the Parish Church, viewed from the meadow [presumably the Big or Nether Meadow, now one of the Coronation Meadows], with a windmill [his engraving showed a Midlands Post-mill] in the foreground. This engraving appeared around 1789, although I’m convinced I’ve seen it in one of my books with an earlier date, but, of course, I can’t find it now!

The Windmill from the side

No matter, I think it’s pretty obvious from the date of the timbers, and the view from the side and the back that this building is as old as we think it is. We are pretty sure that there was a farm in this area, many, many years ago, so I shouldn’t be surprised if this pub were not one of the farm buildings themselves, probably not the farmhouse, but possibly one of the outbuildings.

The Windmill from the back

The pub has a wonderful history, and has been a meeting place for a variety of interesting clubs, including the United Order of Druids in 1837 (perhaps the Druid’s Arms down on Pinfold Gate was shut that particular evening!), the Buttonhole Club (who also used the Blackamoor’s Head in Market Place as a meeting place for a while) and the Royal Antediluvian Order ofBuffaloes. It may also he haunted by a lady in grey.

I can tell you who a few of the owners and landlords have been over the years, but not all, and certainly not since 1989:

Pre-1830 – Charles Limb

c. 1830 –  c.1859 John Cleever/Cleaver (may have been the owner of the property rather than the landlord of the pub itself)

c. 1849 – Christopher Cleever

c. 1861 – Matthew Stafford

c. 1866 – Robert Speed

c. 1872 – owned by Mr North

c. 1883 - 1895 Benjamin Sharp & Mrs E. Sharp

c. 1895 – Alfred H. Ellis

c. 1899 – Luke Birkin

c. 1904 – Mr Dowding

Pre-1928- c. 1960 – Everard Hickinbottom, and Mrs M. A. Hickinbottom

1960 -1975 Peter and Doreen Heath

1975 – 1989 Doreen Heath

My own connection with the pub goes back to the late ‘70s, early ‘80s when we used to go down every Wednesday lunchtime for a cheese cob and a game of darts. The landlady at the time was Doreen Heath, and, coincidentally, her barmaid was also called Doreen. And one of those spooky coincidences is that while I was starting to write this article, a picture of Doreen popped up onto my facebook page, as someone was posting pictures of pub landlords/ladies! The local paper, The Loughborough Echo, referred to Doreen as one of Loughborough’s most colourful and respected characters.

I admit, I haven’t been in for many, many years, but the memories remain, and an affection for the place has been re-ignited by researching into its history.

Yours truly outside The Windmill Inn