Advent 25: the Clocktower

As the world and its dog knows, the centre of the known universe is the clocktower in Leicester. This piece of High Gothic-ness was the winner of a competition in 1868 to create a centre piece for the newly cleared area just outside the site of the city's ancient East Gates. The site of trading and fairs for centuries, this became the centre of Leicester. From 1904-1949 electric trams ran round the clocktower, traffic choked the area for decades, but this year has finally seen the area almost completely pedestrianised.

However, the clocktower is not always the centre of civic merriment and this Christmas and New Year's Eve you will find people celebrating in the Town Hall Square as well as around the clocktower. Wherever you end up, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

A return to a less commercial Christmas?

The polemical call for a return to a more proper, wholesome Christmas, without the commerce and shopping, is not a new thing. There was a rather nice editorial piece in yesterday's FT, calling for less history, with a short historical survey of Christmas celebrations, eschewing all the spending from which, presumably, many of its readers make heaps of cash. Quite refreshing, especially within a fairly jaded genre.

Advent 24: Streets

This photo shows Churchill Street, Leicester. Here you see red brick Victorian terraced houses of the late 1880s to the left and right, while at the end is a larger terraced property from the 1870s. The street is packed with cars; telephone lines and television aerials run across the top of the picture, there are wheelie bins all along the pavements. To complete this scene of a modern city street the only things which are missing are satellite dishes (not allowed in what was until recently a conservation area) and traffic calming measures.

It was an interest in streets such as these that prompted me to buy a camera and start taking photographs. After a while one's eye develops and things which had previously not been noticed reveal themselves to the lens. Then, if you're like me, you create a wesbite. If you haven't already, have a look at the delights of terraced houses here: http://www.le.ac.uk/emoha/leicester/terraces.html

Advent 23: New Walk

For those of us who work close to New Walk it can be easy to take theis gem of Leicester for granted. It was laid out in 1785 but was still a path through fields in 1804. Today it remains a pedestrian-only path (despite the herds of cyclists) and is part of the New Walk Conservation Area. When he arrived as Leicester's Chief Planning Officer in the 1960s Konrad Smigielski declared Leicester to be 'drab' and 'depressing' but found a glint of hope in New Walk, and thanks to him it became one of the very earliest conservation areas. The picture shows the top of New Walk which was developed in the 1880s, later than the northern section. A full description of everything to do with New Walk can be found here: http://www.leicester.gov.uk/your-council-services/ep/planning/designandconservation/conservationareas/conservationareasleicester/new-walk/

Advent 22: Celebrations

Leicester's immigrant population has changed the city is many ways. For example, places of worship have been built, local politics has been engaged with, and the way we celebrate and commemorate has changed. Diwali, Vaisakhi, Eid, Caribbean Carnival etc. are all now celebrated on the streets of Leicester. Vaisakhi is a long established harvest festival in the Punjab and the men in the photo are known as the Panj Piare, or 'Beloved Five', after five men who answered a challenge of Guru Gobind Singh (do they need a special licence for the swords?!).

Advent 21: Plaques (2)

As we have seen, large Victorian houses often sported ornate plaques, but even small houses often had a plaque of some sort declaring the date of the house, the name, or sometimes both as in the example above. In a study of plaque names done at the Centre for Urban History it was found that while there were plenty of examples of names of flowers and coastal resorts (so the urban dweller would have at least a hint of the rural about their home), there were also many names which reflected current political figures and events, such as the South African conflicts. It was suggested that this resulted in a subtle reminder of authority and empire being present in even the humblest of streets. More examples can be found here: http://www.le.ac.uk/emoha/leicester/plaques.html

Advent 20: the Statue of Liberty

What on earth is a copy of the Statue of Liberty doing on a roundabout in Leicester? Well, the large building in the background (student flats) replaced a factory which was originally called Lennards Shoes. In 1920 the directors of Lennards Shoes visited New York, were impressed by the Statue of Liberty, and on their return to Leicester commissioned sculptor Joseph Herbert Morcom to produce one for their firm, which they named Liberty Shoes.

The statue was placed on top of the building and became a prominent landmark until the building was demolished in 2002. The council stipulated that the statue should be retained and, after much wrangling, it was finally erected on its current spot at the end of 2008. Bizarrely, the plaque on the statue's plinth makes no mention of Liberty Shoes, leaving the newcomer to Leicester with no clue as to why this unlikely scene came to be.

Advent 19: Lee Circle

This picture shows the top level of the multi-story car park at Lee Circle. Built in the 1960s it and its fellow car parks which circle the city centre were an attempt to cope with the growing number of cars coming into Leicester. It is said to be the first automatic multi-storey car park in Europe and it housed, at the time, what was reputed to be the largest supermarket in the UK, the first Tesco outside London. It also hosted a bowling alley and for a short period Lee Circle was the place to be seen.

At the end of 2009 it is looking rather shabby and there have been calls to demolish it. However, there are also voices which wish to keep this monument to 1960s modernism and planning. Which should it be?

Advent 18: Jewry Wall

Lest we forget, Leicester is an ancient city which traces its history back before the Romans. Pictured above is the 'Jewry Wall', site of the Roman baths and now Vaughan College, and St Nicholas Church, a medieval church whose building materials include Roman bricks taken from the Jewry Wall (the name is not Roman but is possibly linked to the Medieval Jewish community in Leicester). One of the highlights of the recent opening of Leicester's new digital arts centre at Phoenix Square was the presentation of a new virtual walk through Roman Leicester which, when fully developed, will be interactive. Have a look here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/leicester/hi/people_and_places/arts_and_culture/newsid_8364000/8364238.stm

Advent 17: Plaques (1)

Both large and small Victorian houses were often decorated with plaques declaring either the date of construction, the name of the house, or both. The larger the house the greater scope there was for the elaborateness of the plaque. This example, from Princess Road East in Leicester, shows great artistry. The soft bricks have been rubbed to produce the detail and the appearance of a sunflower, a favourite motif of the 'Queen Anne' style, indicates a degree of modern taste and style which would be reflected in the architecture of the house and, possibly, the people living within. More brick and terracotta plaques can be seen here: http://www.le.ac.uk/emoha/leicester/terracotta.html

Advent 16: Green Men (2)

As we have seen previously, faces with foliage sprouting from them can be found in churches and cathedrals across the country. The Victorians used Green Men as decoration for secular buildings and examples are often found on banks, offices, etc. Sometimes faces can be found on larger private houses and it may be an attempt to copy this fashion which led to the decorated lintels above the doors and windows of humble terraced houses. The example shown here is on Guthlaxton Street, Leicester, and is a sort of 'King of the Fairies' figure. His queen is on the neighbouring window or door. For more examples and links to websites about the Green Man have a look here: http://www.le.ac.uk/emoha/leicester/greenmen.html

Advent 15: Sun Alliance

The Sun Alliance building is on Horsefair Street, on the north side of Town Hall Square. It is a late Victorian building and is part of a good group of mainly Victorian buildings which form a pleasant composition in the heart of Leicester. However, it is more than that...

In the early 1970s the owners of the Sun Alliance wanted to replace it with a new building designed in a modern style. Leicester had already lost many of its historic buildings and the ensuing furore eventually contributed to Leicester's Chief Planning Officer, Konrad Smigielski, losing his job, while the reaction against this and the plans to build a multi-storey car park on Loseby Lane, led to the formation of Leicester's Civic Society. Nationally and locally there was a growing awareness of issues around the conservation of the built environment. As can be seen, the owners were forced to keep the Victorian facade and the preservation of this building now marks one of the points when the citizens of Leicester cried 'No more'!

Advent 14: The Market Square, North Evington

Arthur Wakerley was a Mayor of Leicester and an Alderman, and was celebrated as an architect, business man, and politician. In the 1920s he was the Chair of Leicester's first Housing and Town Planning Committee, as well as being a Weslyan local preacher, and President of the Temperance Union.

In the years around 1900, Wakerley perceived a need for good quality working class housing in Leicester, and to this end bought land comprising mainly brick pits and mud in the Spinney Hill/North Evington area. He set about creating a self-contained suburb which would provide everything its population required to work, rest and play. On Asfordby Street he built a market place with a hall, surgery, shops, and a police and fire station. Wakerley charged low prices for sites to encourage factories to the area, and by 1914 there were 28 factories employing over 5,000 people in 31 different trades.

Unfortunately, the market was never a success; having become run down its market license was withdrawn in 1947, and it was only in 1982 that it was redeveloped by Rod Hackney & Associates as an open area with bandstand, as shown in the picture above. More on Wakerley and his vast contribution to Leicester at: http://www.le.ac.uk/emoha/leicester/wakerley.html

Advent 13: Secular Hall

This bust of Robert Owen is one of five busts which adorn the front of Leicester's Secular Hall. Owen is known as the father of the co-operative movement and in 1839 he gave a series of four lectures in Leicester, supporting the already strong tradition of free thought in the town.

Leicester Secular Society was founded in 1851 and moved to the Secular Hall, Humberstone Gate, in 1881. The other busts on the Hall are Socrates, Jesus Christ, Voltaire, & Thomas Paine. To find out more about the Secular Society, the busts, the campaign to raise money for the Hall, and the list of upcoming speakers, have a look at their website: http://www.leicestersecularsociety.org.uk/

Poems based on entries from 'The Grasmere Journals'.

I based these poems on three December 1801 entries from 'The Grasmere Journals' by Dorothy Wordsworth. During this period, Dorothy Wordsworth, and her brother, the poet, William, lived at Dove Cottage in Grasmere. Dorothy was a poet in prose and her imaginative descriptions of the natural surroundings were a creative source for William's own poetry. Her journal entries also bear witness to the trials and tribulations of a harsh country life with accounts of hardship with particular concern shown for their friend, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge who wrote very melancholy letters describing his recent illness and affecting Dorothy and William's mood immensely. I include an entry to this effect after the poems.


Wednesday 9th

It was too dark to gather mosses
so we headed for Easedale;
saw Churn Milk force like a stream of snow.

The river came past at a gallop;
we walked backwards and forwards
till the shapes of the mountains disappeared.


Thursday 10th


We called at Aggy Fleming's
and shocking she looked with her hair tied up;
told us about her miserable house.
The children looked well, however,
and once again, not finding mosses,
went home to an evening of cards.


Saturday 12th

Helm Crag rose behind
the white marble ridge of mountains.

I thought of Coleridge,
his sickness, and just then
a bowl-shaped moon
flung itself through the clouds
above Silver-how
lighting up the roofs; the fields; the dark yew.



Monday 21st, being the shortest day, Mary walked to Ambleside for letters, it was a wearisome walk for the snow lay deep upon the Roads and it was beginning to thaw> I stayed at home and clapped (ironed) the linen a. Wm sate beside me and read the Pedlar, he was in good spirits, and full of hope of what he should do with it. He went to meet Mary and they brought 4 letters, 2 from Coleridge, one from Sara and one from France. Coleridge's were very melancholy letters, he had been very ill in his bowels. We were made very unhappy......

Advent 12: Hallaton Bottle Kicking

Each Easter Monday the villagers of Hallaton, Leicestershire, with assorted hangers on, meet to beat themselves up in an ancient ritual. The photo shows the moments after the vicar 'distributes' hare pie on the steps of the church (this actually means throwing it into the crowd indiscriminately) and the crowd turns towards the village green. On the left the master of ceremonies holds a staff with a hare on top of it, the three 'bottles' or barrels are carried aloft and later fought over; there is much noise and merriment. Two teams then assemble on a hill outside the village and engage in what seems like a rule free scrum which results in noise, injury and a winning team. All in all a fine example of traditional English rural madness.

Advent 11: Snibston

Broadly speaking the east side of Leicestershire is purely agricultural while the west side mixes agriculture with a number of extractive industries. In 1982 there were six coal pits operating in North West Leicestershire, employing 25% of the workforce and in some communities as much as 40-50% of the male workforce. By 1990 all the pits had been closed. Most visible signs of the coal mining industry in the area have disappeared under supermarkets and country parks - most as part of the National Forest - but the colliery at Snibston has been turned into a 'Discovery Museum' (as well as a country park). Indeed, Snibston has the largest fashion and costume display outside London and is the biggest interactive science, design and technology museum in the East Midlands. This photo from Snibston shows miners' artifical respirators, a vital part of the kit carried by all miners underground. For more information about the history of mining in the region, and Snibston itself, follow this link: http://www.leics.gov.uk/index/community/museums/snibston/snibston_about/snibston_history.htm

History Fail

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the real sense of history some people have, despite a clear lack of knowledge to back this up. The expectation that this wrong idea will support their political argument is remarkable. Have a look here and see.

Advent 10: Staunton Harold

The Staunton Harold Estate is in N-W Leicestershire. The Shirley family built the 18th century house on the right, which includes earlier buildings, while the church is very special as it was built in 1653 during the Commonwealth.

Over the door of the church can be read: “In the year 1653 when all things sacred were throughout the nation either demolished or profaned, Sir Robert Shirley, Baronet founded this church; whose singular praise it is to have done the best things in the worst times and hoped them in the most calamitous. The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance.” For this, Sir Robert was sent to, and died in, the Tower of London.

The Shirley family parcelled up and sold the estate in 1954. The house was saved from demolition by Group Captain Lord Cheshire V.C to become one of his homes for the incurably sick, then became a Sue Ryder home, and is now a private residence. The stables are now the very popular Ferrers Centre for Arts & Crafts.

Advent 9: Southfields

The purchase by the Corporation from the Freemen of Leicester of the ancient South Field at the beginning of the 19th century enabled Leicester to expand southwards. This area, which stretched to the race course at Victoria Park, has always been best seen from the top of the hill where the University now stands. This photo is a montage - photographer unknown - which shows the view from the Charles Wilson building in the early 1970s. From left to right, the cooling towers have gone, the football ground has moved, the Royal Infirmary has expanded and the views to the left have been changed by new University buildings in the foreground. Click on the photo to see it at full size.

Advent 8: Colonel Cheney in Gaddesby Church

Gaddesby is a pretty village to the north east of Leicester. Inside Gaddesby's fine church, in the chancel, is this almost life-size albaster monument which shows Colonel Cheney on one of the four horses which were killed under him at the battle of Waterloo in 1815. Britains's churches contain some of the finest art of their time and, while none of the churches in Leicestershire & Rutlands rank with the very best, there are still many fine things to be seen. Other church photos will appear in this advent series, while photos of Gaddesby can be found here: http://www.le.ac.uk/emoha/leicester/gaddesby.html

Advent 7: Stoneywell Cottage

For those with an interest in the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th century, Ernest Gimson is a well known name. Gimson grew up in Leicester and, as well as his more celebrated skills as a designer and craftsman, he was an architect of some talent. In the City he created 'The White House' in Clarendon Park and 'Inglewood' in Knighton. In the County he built a number of houses for his family in and around Ulverscroft, not far from Bradgate Park. Pictured is Stoneywell Cottage, a lovely house built of, and on, the rocks of Charnwood Forest. To find out more about Gimson's life and work have a look at this Leicester Arts and Museum Service website: http://gimson.leicester.gov.uk/GimsonHome/

Advent 6: the Hat and Beaver

This is a photo of the front bar of the Hat and Beaver pub which used to stand on Highcross Street and was, until its closure last year, one of the last remaining 'unspoilt' city centre pubs. 'Semper Eadem', a joint project between photographer Maxine Beuret and the East Midlands Oral History Archive (EMOHA), has documented Leicester buildings whose interiors have remained unchanged for at least 25 years, and although the project was run during 2007/8 several of the buildings we chose have closed since then. Have a look at some of the other interiors recorded at http://www.sempereadem.org/ .

Advent 5: Green Men (1)

This is a foliate face, or Green Man, from Norwich Cathedral where it is one of a thousand elaborate and colourful roof bosses which depict biblical stories, people and beasts. This will be one of a number of Green Men which I shall post for advent; the forthcoming pictures will show how the Green Man made his way out of the church and into the City of Leicester. Needless to say there are many more examples to be found on Flickr, while more information on Green Men and the Norwich bosses can be found here: http://www.cathedral.org.uk/historyheritage/art---collections-the-green-man.aspx

Advent 4: Ghost Signs

This 1950s advertisement for Bovril on Beaconsfield Rd, Leicester, is a fine example of what is commonly called a 'Ghost sign'. These painted advertisements can be found on buildings all over the world. They gradually fade over time - hence the 'ghost' - and sometimes reveal older advertisements, often created with more durable paint, underneath. Photos of Ghost signs can be found on Flickr and at this blog: http://brickads.blogspot.com/

Running out of shelf space?

I'm always running out of shelf space, and have recently considered a new bookcase. It's not entirely Gill Willingale's fault, with her 20p booksales, but they certainly don't help. This may be the solution. The BL have spent £26m on a new storage facility, with about infinity miles of shelves and magic robots to store and retrieve books. They even remember where they are: never hunt again for that elusive tome.

Welcome to Colin, and the advent calendar

Inspired entirely by our friends over at the attic, the museums studies blog, we've decided to have an advent calendar too. Our latest Pink Writer, Colin Hyde, will be producing this for us. Colin is a veteran labber, a fan of Leicester, and a fine photographer! Make sure you visit every day to see a super photograph and a bit of explanation from him. Merry Christmas!

Advent 3: Abbey Pumping Station

Leicester's Space Centre is located next door to the old sewage pumping station and visitors to one often go to the other. The pumping station is now Leicester's Museum of Science and Technology, displaying Leicester's industrial, technological and scientific heritage. More importantly for young children it has a working toilet with transparent pipes where you can follow the path of an artifical poo from toilet to sewer.

Christmas and the Co-op

This might be interesting for those of you went to Manchester and saw the Co-op building. Archives Hub are celebrating Christmas at the Co-op.

There's a great selection of photos including this one of the Christmas parade outside the Co-operative Society's store in Bolton in the 1960s.

But for anyone planning their Christmas menu there are these recipes from the 1940s, Christmas under rationing. Imitation marzipan sounds particularly appetizing.

"The Christmas Touch. Be as extravagant as you dare, with what you have got, this Christmas! " December 1943.



"Easy on the Rations Recipes. Christmas is a time when most of us make special efforts to provide fun and gaiety for the children." December 1945.

Advent 2: The Co-op

Co-operative buildings often show either wheatsheafs or beehives as a symbol of togetherness and co-operation. This example is from Hathern, Leicestershire where there is a cottage opposite the Co-op called 'Unity Cottage' which has a plaque showing two hands shaking.

Wellcome collection of AIDS posters

The Wellcome Library has a substantial collection of AIDS posters, which they have digitized and launched as part of world AIDS day. You can view a selection on the BBC website, and find out more on the library pages, as well as see a small sample. Perhaps, most usefully, this illustrates the rich holdings of libraries such as these. Their holdings are vast, and just because it seems specialised, doesn't meant that it mightn't have useful material.

Advent 1: 1 Salisbury Rd

The Squires family pose outside the family home at 1 Salisbury Rd, little aware that the house would later be used variously as a driving test centre, student accommodation, and the home of the History Lab.

A Victorian Christmas

So today is the first day of advent and as a consequence I pressume that most of you reading this will have the residue of your first advent chocolate on your lips and already preparring various christmas eggnog and whisky based cooking activities.

For those that would like to take christmas to an even more extreme and victorian level, I present you the BBC's victorian christmas site.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/victorianchristmas/

Various Victorian crafts are explored and video'd for your viewing pleasure over the few weeks leading up to christmas. On a student budget and need a present for a family member? Get some scissors and glue and make a toy theatre. A culinery explorer? Victorian christmas pudd is yours to try.

Who said history isn't fun...