Walcote
Walcote 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!
Walcote books (14 available)
Market Harborough Town Walk Guide
Paperback
Melton Mowbray Town and City Memories
Paperback
Uppingham Photographic Memories
Hardback
Walcote memories
Read and share memories of Walcote and Leicestershire inspired by Frith photos
Be the first to add a memory of Walcote.
You can also read memories of nearby places in Leicestershire below.
Leicestershire memories
Alma Friston nee Oldfield
I was born in Smeeton on April 23rd 1935. I remember staying with a Mr and Mrs Webb. As you approached Smeeton there were cottages on the left hand side, we stayed in the last one next to a lane. The cows came up this lane everyday for milking, quite often straying on to the garden, it was our job to shoo them away. Down this lane was a chapel which was on the left hand side, I remember singing here. We lived in Leicester during the war, having moved from Smeeton and Kibworth Harcourt.
I remember the grocery shop run by Miss Terry, we bought Jelly Dummies to suck on.
Lots of memories walking in the fields and smelling violets ...read more here
A memory of Smeeton Westerby contributed by Alma Friston
Basset Street School
I remember this school so well, my first born went to this school in 1983 and so did my daughter, it's a shame they pulled part of it down. I remember walking the children over to what is now the infant school to use their swimming pool, later when they pulled some of the old school down the children were moved to the infant school in South Wigston, on the Countesthorpe Road, where all three of my children went, they then moved on to South Wigston High School where they had a real good head master, Mr Bothamy (sorry about the spelling).
A memory of South Wigston contributed by ruth carroll
South Wigston, Gloucester Crescent
I moved to South Wigston in 1978 as a newly wed, I lived on Marstown Avenue which then was a two way road, and very busy, and I remember using these shops all the time. I used to do my shopping in what is now called Jacksons and is a Sainsburys shop. I notice looking at the picture of the 1960s that not a lot has changed but the end shop on the left of the picture is now a fish and chip shop, all that keeps changing is the type of shop. I no longer live in South Wigston but do get to visit it still, and even now in 2008 things are very much the same.
A memory of South Wigston contributed by ruth carroll
Blaby Road west end
This view is not much different from the forties. This photo has been taken from outside Rawlinsons butchers shop to the right and St Thomas's church to the left ( both out of shot). The first shop to the right is Eric Holmes Cycle shop. Eric Holmes Jnr was a school friend of mine and we both attended Basset Street Juniors(just round the corner). The road off to the right is Countesthorpe Road. The roof that appears to stick out of the line of roofs on the right is the 'Ritz' cinema (now a bingo hall)
A memory of South Wigston contributed by Richard Child
Extracts From Walcote & Leicestershire books
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 year the Christmas pantomime was staged and
appreciated with thunderous applause
by generations of children.
An extract from from"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 shops to the left of the photograph retain their
excellent fronts with stall-boards and timber frames, a sight
which has become a rarity in a plate-glass world.
An extract from from"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 destruction of the open fields.
An extract from from"Leicester Photographic Memories".
A lovely composition of local stone cottages in the lee of the tree-shrouded parish church. They rely on simple
but excellent details, such as the timber-bracketed door hood and an unusual cantilevered canted bay window
prominent to the right - no incongruous plastic windows and doors in 1960. The modern expansion of Groby as
a Leicester suburb is to be glimpsed as the main road swings to the right towards Coalville. In front of the church
is a three-storey tower which forms a part of the basically 15th-century Old Hall.
An extract from from"Leicester Photographic Memories".
Beauchamp was added to the original name of Kibworth through Walter de Beauchamp around 1130. The
red brick village, which has expanded to become interesting rather than beautiful, has excellent examples of
Leicestershire vernacular, from the 17th-century Stuart House in Station Street to the well-proportioned late 19th-
century small houses in the photograph. Kibworth, although large, is a village to see on foot, combining it with
Kibworth Harcourt on the opposite side of the A6.
An extract from from"Leicester Photographic Memories".