Oadby, Leicestershire

Fluids Lane

This was a wonderful wildlife haven for children and I well remember playing for hours on end in the stream which meandered through. We lived in the Vicarage at No 1 London Road and had the idyllic childhood that few seem to remember. I think there were army huts or Nissan huts alongside the run of Fluids Lane and I assume... [more]

Fluids Lane

A demi paradise, Fluids Lane was at the far end of the village towards Glen Road, I think. It contained a stream, and woods. What wonderful memories I have of that place, nothing can compare, we played for hours damming the stream, climbing trees etc., away from home all day. The lane went on to the fields that housed the air... [more]

SWIMMING BATHS

My twin sister and I used to go to the Oadby baths on a Saturday morning with some friends, and we always used to have a race to see who got in first. Unfortunately one week I forgot to take off my watch before I jumped in and so got a good hiding when I got home for breaking it. I... [more]

black pad

We lived on Greenbank Drive and we used to walk to Langmoor School down the Black Pad, which is now called Lawyers Lane. Farmer Steele had his farm down there and we always used to stop and look at his cows, and, if there were any born, his calves. I can smell it all now. He liked to keep people talking... [more]

Leicester Photographic Memories

The pinnacled and canopied Clock Tower, designed by Joseph Goddard in 1868, dominates the forefront of the photograph, while its four stoney local worthies, Simon de Montfort, William Wyggeston, Alderman Gabriel Newton and Sir Thomas White, Mayor of Leicester and mine host at the nearby Horse and Trumpet, gaze down. Beyond Corts Limited can be seen the dominant dome of the Opera House, demolished in 1960, where each... [more]

Leicester Photographic Memories

The link between London Road and Gallowtree Gate, this short north-south road is visually of the later 19th century. The Grand Hotel of 1898 by Cecil Ogden (1858-1944) dominates its southern end, while the rather exuberant Turkey Cafe of 1901 by Arthur Wakerley and the Victoria Coffee House of 1888 by Edward Burgess (fl.1886-1915) add that longed-for touch of eccentricity and quality to an otherwise undistinguished townscape. The... [more]

Leicester Photographic Memories

The road extends to the now defunct railway line as 20th-century Countesthorpe balloons in an amoebic sprawl westwards towards Cosby and Whetstone. In the residual hedgerows and trees lie clues to an 18th-century rural landscape; the enclosures of the 1760s were hated by John Clare, the Northamptonshire poet, for its deleterious effect on the lives of ordinary village people, and for its... [more]