Syston
Syston maps (2 available)
Map of Leicestershire
Beautifully hand-drawn and coloured, dating from around 1840
See this old map of Leicestershire
Personalised maps
Create an historic map centred directly on any postcode!
Syston books (14 available)
Market Harborough Town Walk Guide
Paperback
Melton Mowbray Town and City Memories
Paperback
Uppingham Photographic Memories
Hardback
- 11 photos on Syston appear in 4 Frith books - View photos of Syston
- Read extracts and see photos from these books on Syston and Leicestershire
Syston memories
Read and share memories of Syston and Leicestershire inspired by Frith photos
the cottage on The Green
The cottage on the left of this photo was where my great grandfather and his ten children lived at the turn of the 20th century. He was a butcher. There was a slaughterhouse at the back of the property. They lived there from about 1895 to 1908.
Contributed by Marianne Head
Leicestershire memories
the cottage on The Green
The cottage on the left of this photo was where my great grandfather and his ten children lived at the turn of the 20th century. He was a butcher. There was a slaughterhouse at the back of the property. They lived there from about 1895 to 1908.
A memory of Syston contributed by Marianne Head
Barn Croft.
The house in the middle is where I lived from 1972. The address is 62 Main Street and the house was called Barn Croft. The house on the right was a farm and the house that the middle house was built on was part of the farmyard. When the farm closed, one of the daughters had this built c1930. She lived there until she died c1970. Her name was Olive Clarke and was one of three girls I believe. The house had a barn at the bottom of the garden, converted in 1990 after my father sold the property in 1985. I have some belongings of Olive's like an autograph book and a booklet ...read more here
A memory of Cossington contributed by The Frith Memory Archivist
Growing up in Rothley
Rothley is and always will be my home no matter where in the world i live, It is 36 Years since i resided on Woodgate my father is George Hunt, he owned the Barbers shop at no 19 untill his retirement almost 25 years ago.
When i lived on Woodgate we had Betty Smith the chemist on one side of us and Dick Elkington and his wife on the other running the sweet shop, which later i believe became the Candy Store. and next to that was George Hutchins the Newsagent.
I especially used to love the time leading up to Christmas, when all the shop windows on Woodgate were decorated with Fairy lights and false snow, coming home from ...read more here
A memory of Rothley contributed by Sandie Lee
Extracts From Syston & Leicestershire books
By the turn of the century the village was growing very quickly, although it was still far from urban sprawl. Victorian and Edwardian villas of red brick with bay windows were uniformly built for artisans in this area.
An extract from from"Leicestershire & Rutland Living Memories".
How did it happen? Syston, a Domesday village situated about
four miles north of Leicester, was industrialised by an influx
of framework knitters in the 19th century, which generated
standardised red brick buildings of neat and unobtrusive
design. Even the cinema of the 1930s on the right is in relative
harmony with its surroundings. It is not, in fact, until after the
Second World War that the village became devastated by plan-
ning ineptness. In place of the cinema is now an ill-designed
single-storey supermarket with a similar building next door, and
this pattern extends its tentacles into the heart of the village
until it is spoiled.
An extract from from"Leicester Photographic Memories".
An attractive corner of medieval Sithestan (1254). The house which forms the angle with Chapel Street on the left
is pre-17th-century, lately repainted and rethatched. The turn of the century Bull’s Head pub is now in use as the
Syston District Social Club; as is so common in the village, over half the buildings in the middle distance have gone
to make way for unattractive 1970s replacements. Adjacent to the thatched house is an excellent early 19th-century
three-storey red brick residence which overlooks The Green on its south side.
An extract from from"Leicester Photographic Memories".
The 15th-century local granite and limestone church tower of St Peter and St Paul shows above the low rise houses
which bound The Green; it was heavily ‘restored’ in 1872 by F W Ordish. He also made additions to Leicester’s
Corn Exchange, and ‘restored’ St Michael’s Church, Rearsby, 1858, in a heavy-handed fashion. Although devoid of
good monuments, the interior is of some interest. In the churchyard are a number of simple local slate headstones
of considerable calligraphic quality; they remain upright and, praise be, have not been used as paving slabs.
An extract from from"Leicester Photographic Memories".
The 15th-century local
granite and limestone
church tower of St Peter
and St Paul, heavily
restored in 1872 by P W
Ordish, shows above the
houses of quality which
bound The Green. It must
have been a considerable
worry at Council meetings
when plans were discussed
for the transformation of
this attractive open area.
So, instead of being a
sensitive pedestrian and
architecturally friendly scheme, the area is now a peculiarly urban villagescape, half car park and half odd seating which
one would hesitate to use. All-in-all, it blends, I suppose, with the remainder of this unfortunate village.
An extract from from"Leicestershire Villages Photographic Memories".