Here are 10 things you didn’t know about Western Park – brought to you by Western Park Beer Festival, which was held over September 14 to 15 at St Anne’s Church Hall, Letchworth Road, Leicester. This year we raised £10,000 for local causes Action Homeless, The Bridge homeless charity and…
Leicestershire has many claims to fame. One; it has the world’s largest private collection of grand prix cars. Two; it has the world’s largest private collection of WW2 military vehicles. Both have been on show at Donington Park in north west Leicestershire for many, many years. Alas, time moves on.…
Riqueval Bridge looks inconspicuous enough, but the goosebumps climbing my legs, arms and neck know otherwise. A hundred years ago it was here the men of the Midlands broke through the Hindenburg Line. Spanning high above the narrow San Quentin canal, the bridge was witness to one of the…
It was the first day of the German spring offensive. The date was March 21, 1918 and the Kaiser’s boys were launching Operation Michael, an audacious bid to puncture Allied lines and seize the Channel ports that lay beyond. If they achieved that aim, Britain would be bracing itself…
On the edge of Leicester’s newest bar you’ll find a pink elephant, a gnome and two Trappists from Belgium. This unusual quartet is among 150 UK and international beers at Head of Steam in Market Street. The elephant, AKA Delirium Red, is a silky smooth cherry brew, the gnome is…
It’s Western Park Beer Festival on September 15 and 16. It’ll be ace. This year we’ll be spreading the love for Loros, the local hospice, and saluting the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love. Drinks-wise it means 16 cask, six keg, four ciders and liver-shaped swimming pools of gin…
A hundred years ago WW1’s second most notorious bloodbath was churning up souls in Flanders. Here, I spare a few words on Leicestershire’s involvement at Passchendaele. The three Leicestershire Regiment officers stared at the map, looked hard at the surrounding mud and then, with incredulity, at each other. The…
Greetings one and all. I’ve been so busy and under the weather lately that I’ve been neglecting all sorts of things. My camera is like a swollen heifer ready for milking, and the contents, fret ye not, will be poured into these pages when time allows. Yesterday, I wrote two…
They say time is a great healer but a poor beautician. Try telling that to St Peter’s in Belgrave. At almost 800 years old, this 13th century stunner can turn the head of even the most hardened aesthete. St Peter’s is what you may consider the Kylie of the Diocese…
Portugal was founded in the 14th century by a Leicester woman. Seven centuries later and Portugal is being founded (okay, it’s a liberty) in Leicester. Our table for six was at the Madeira a Vista in Woodgate on a drizzly Friday night. The restaurant is sandwiched between Celebrity Pizza and…
The niggling human conscience affects people in different ways. In the case of Co-op salesman Roy Watts, it made him leave the comfort and security of his life in Leicester, travel all the way to war-gripped Spain, and take up arms for a cause as black and white as ink…
Ulverscroft Priory, just minding its own business, 13th century. Aylestone Meadows on Sunday, January 22. Poplar skeletons at Western Park on Wednesday, January 25th. Twin Lakes in Melton, back in December. Imagine saying house to that. Twin Lakes. Nothing says Christmas like meerkats shivering under a heat lamp. National Space…
The suggestion came at the end of a terrifyingly large Greek meal. “We should do this again, but somewhere new,” said Emma. “…there’s Madeira a Vista in Woodgate,” I respond. At that moment it was settled. Our group of four had probably eaten enough after the second of five courses…
Framework Brewery is a name you’re going to be hearing good things from in 2017. Leicester city centre’s first craft brewery started taking shape in the summer and their first brew, a hoppy American Pale Ale, only sloshed into a pint glass as recently as December 6. Since then,…
On Christmas Eve, more than a century ago, a brave officer from the 1st Leicestershire Regiment climbed out of his trench and walked steadily towards No Man’s Land. Major Archibald Buchanan-Dunlop, who was serving on the frontline at Ypres in Belgium, hadn’t lost his mind. And he hadn’t gone accidentally…
Old newspapers, journals and books are a rich source of eerie WTFisms …as exhibited by these few pieces of shrapnel below. Having rifled through city and county’s past the most disturbing tale was found in John Nichols’ near biblical History of Leicestershire. Nichols himself relays the story in hushed tones…
It’s a tough question. Marlene Yeo looks skyward and then slides her eyes to the left in the hope of tweaking out the answer from a corner of her brain. The grey-haired 74-year-old looks defeated – she can’t remember how many times she’s been arrested. “I should keep a tally,”…
It was February and raining when they found him, covered in a century-old cloak of earth and chalk. In the dirt near his bones, attached to a shred of uniform, they found a brass shoulder title, green with age and a little twisted. One word could be seen clearly…Leicester.…
In classical parlance I am ‘knackered’. In recent days there’s been a double funeral in France, a christening in South Wigston, an orchestral concert and film on the Somme at Leicester Cathedral, and an archaeological dig at Castle Hill Country Park. Which is why I am sat in my comfies,…
It’s a hot day at Charnwood Acres Country Club. So hot, in fact, that people aren’t wearing any clothes. But that’s par for the course at Charnwood Acres, one of the largest naturist resorts in Britain. At this verdant paradise in Ratby, just a 15 minute drive from Leicester city…
Edward Ludlam’s name didn’t do the decent thing and die with its owner in the summer of 1776. Instead it emerged rudely triumphant more than 30 years after Edward – or Ned – was laid to rest at St Mary’s Church in Anstey. If the name rings a bell, it’s…
Simon de Montfort drew his last exhausted breath on a bloody Worcestershire battlefield. Outnumbered four to one, the powerful sixth Earl of Leicester had refused pleas to escape to safety as the Royalists continued their charge forward. “Our bodies are theirs, our souls are God’s,” he boomed as a hit-squad…
Earlier today I was at a friend’s house. Her garden has been transformed into an open air larder. Squashes grow beside the fence, cucumbers dangle excitingly from the vine in her green house and tomatoes as fat as your fist seem to grow about everywhere. In an effort to help…
You’ve said it, I’ve said it, we’ve all said it: “Meet you at the Clock Tower, yeah?” It’s a sentence which has been doing the rounds for almost 150 years. And yet, apart from its role as Leicester’s most well known landmark – and a hub for noisy religious irritants,…
The 4th Leicesters had sat in trenches overlooked by the Boche on the Messines Ridge and at Hill 60. And now at Vimy the enemy were at the top of the ridge again thanks to those responsible for our shortage in guns and munitions. If you had wished to…
The entrance to the walled garden at Braunstone Hall… Braunstone Hall, if you didn’t know, was the seat of the Winstanley family. The last of their line expired a decade or so ago. What’s left is their old home, its stables and a walled garden with the most elegant magnolias.…
Ralph Hollingworth was a man who didn’t like fuss. When something was over, it was over. It was how he was with the Second World War. Once the dust had settled, Ralph turned his attention to running the family business in Thurmaston and to raising his three daughters in Stoneygate.…
This little feature was published back in the summer of 2013. Austin Healey, as you can see, gives good copy. Sports people, generally, can be rather dry. The commitment, the single mindedness, often doesn’t do much for personality. Again to Tigers, that doesn’t go for Cockers. The Tigers coach was…
It’s that Paganistic time of year when 120,000 tattooed, long-haired, skinny jeanists come to worship upon the sacred fields of north west Leicestershire. Roll ups? Check. Leather boots? Check. The ability to lose one’s mind/wallet/friends? Check. This weekend, Download festival is serenading Donington Park. Rock’s General Synod first hooked up…
When you own a full deck of cards but shuffle a little slower, old age has a habit of throwing up a few impeccably-timed niggles. If it’s not grappling with parcels sealed like a drum of North Sea uranium or dragging leaden luggage on to buses, trains and…
Braunstone: It’s an old place name meaning brown stone and brown stones y’all can often be mistaken for poo. This scatological parallel fits well with the the general thinking on Braunstone Estate, AKA Braunstone or Brauny. But Braunstone, a name which anoints the housing estate, town and village, isn’t shit.…
Some clever artist from London came up and sprayed this all over a wall off King Richard’s Road. It’s a corker. Just after taking this pic this morning, I called into Dayman’s DIY store “If you’re going to do it, do it with Dayman’s” – which is a stone’s…
Leicester City are holding on at the top of the Premiership with four games to go. Meanwhile, on eBay, the action is also hotting up… What’s not to like? Claudio has probably already got his. “Latest design for Leicester City fans, quality ring spun cotton. Be quick as stock…
Wave after human wave crashed against the bar, the demand for beer ripping our prediction of 1.8 firkins per hour a new whatsit, and by the time we were four hours in – four hours ahead of schedule – the beer had gone. GONE! This is what happens when…
Yes, quite. Taken on the walk home from town yesterday. A billboard in King Richard’s Road, just after West Bridge. One of my favourite places in Leicester for lunch. Excellent pies washed down with Swithland spring water. The staff are lovely too. Also a great place…
With the annual French/Belgian battlefield experience rapidly approaching and Download rock festival soon after, my thoughts are currently turning towards Donington, which combines military on one hand and music on the Devil-horned other. Cue an article from 2012… Kevin Wheatcroft next to a German half-track Some people…
Simon Hoggart was one of our most respected parliamentary sketch writers – and he grew up in Leicester. Back in 2007, he told me about Westminster, Wyggeston and why you had better watch Brown. Simon, much to our loss, left this mortal coil in January 2014. It has been a…
The Beatles played at De Montfort Hall three times. Sunday, March 31, 1963, December 1, 1963 and October 10, 1964. It was as if time at De Montfort Hall had gone into some kind of gloopy slow motion. From the back of the stage, John, Paul, George…
Leicester prison is a narrow, claustrophobic building, overcrowded with men who’ve made bad choices. I’ve been to HMP Leicester twice. It is, on the outside, a whimsical concoction. A romantic dream of what a castle should look like – a portcullis, meaty turrets and arrowslits (Image at the bottom). On…
Frank Haines, a lieutenant in the 8th battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment, died during WW1. He was killed, aged 29, on the last day of the Battle of Arras in Croisilles. He was living in Knighton before joining up. His parents lived at The Moorlands in Syston. He got…
What says Mothering Sunday more than dressing as one of Simon de Montfort’s knights at the Battle of Evesham (August 4, 1265)? Exactly. We were back at Jewry Wall Museum on Sunday to join in the 50th birthday celebrations. There were demonstrations, from Leicester’s many different periods, my daughter had…
Tony Magee is searching for the right words as he absently taps his fingers on the table in an airless conference room at Mercury headquarters. “What do you call it when something is like something else?” asks the grey haired 55 year old, his accent a disarming patter of Midlands-softened…
The people of Leicester and Leicestershire have always enjoyed their baths. Always. Since at least AD150 (See Jewry Wall for proof). The Victorians, the people who made the city into a pleasure dome, also enjoyed getting steamy, cold, hot and wet. The Turkish Baths in Friar Lane had been going…
I’ve just been watching Our World War on BBC iPlayer. It was moving, factual and the action was brilliantly done. Got to the final credit, and saw the name of the director – Bruce Goodison. Bruce is a Bafta winner who did Our War – a real eye opener…
There were two Wars of the Roses battles in our neck of the woods. There was one on Bosworth Field that saw Richard III lose his crown… and the other one happened in Rutland. Farmer Andrew Beckingham has a battlefield in his back garden. Not that you’d know it. A…
When you live in an unfashionable city with two thousand plus years of history, it’s easy to be a bit meh about the things you graze past every day. Easy and a bit, well, silly. A 25 minute amble from my house and you’re in Roman Leicester. Jewry Wall…
What in the blazes is going on? Beer. Firkins and firkins of it. For £3 a pint. Where? St Anne’s Church Hall, Letchworth Road, Leicester. And when is it? Friday, March 4, from 5pm. Eh? It’s a pop-up pub serving the liquid gold of Leicestershire’s finest brewers; Charnwood, Tres…
It’s one of Leicestershire’s unofficial tourist destinations. Tucked away down a side street, removed from the bustle of the city centre. “I get plenty of visitors,” nods Mukhtar Shah, who has a car workshop in Great Central Street. “Sometimes 10, 15 people come a month, a lot of people who…
Leicester City FC won the league in 2015/16. But what do you know about the city and county which spawned them? 1. Leicestershire is the Spiritual Home of Rock Music. It started back in 1980 with the first Monsters of Rock at Donington Park. It continues today…
There are some days as a journalist that you’d rather not remember. The crown court cases, the inquests, the death knocks, dealing with Tory MPs, the endless parish council meetings about dog poo bins and street lighting. And then you get a job like this one. I can’t remember what…
It’s 7.30pm on a Friday at Leicester’s All Nations Hall and almost 600 people are standing shoulder to shoulder to witness the healing power of the reverends David Carr and Richard Taylor. Tonight’s Free American Methodist service in Frog Island has drawn people from all parts of the city, from…
Fingers clatter across an iPad and up goes the internet chat room profile of 14 year old Jess. A couple of seconds pass and the phone vibrates to indicate a message. The date is December 14, 2014 and this is the first contact from Peter Hyam in Essex. “Hello Jess…
It’s a sweaty Friday night and scores of people are enjoying the bars of Leicester’s leafy New Walk. Basking in the fading rays outside Pause, the time has just gone 8pm when Tony de Sergio arrives. Tall, toned and tanned, he takes a seat and soon, perhaps expectantly, the conversation…
In the moth-tattered annals of De Montfort Hall, many a band have turned up, plugged in and rocked out. Yet none have executed an edge-of-your-seat show with quite the same singular panache as Pink Floyd. Technologically advanced and technically adept, Floyd swept into the city on February 10, 1972,…
Before we go any further, you need to know this is an old post. This feature ran in 2005 but it still shines a light on politicians kicking around today. Some of them even gave some considered and interesting quotes. Some, like Vaz, dodged the question. The original outro,…
It was the sort of place where it was okay to spill your pint, ruminates Andy Wright. “It was what it was – stage, bogs, bar. Some called The Charlotte a toilet stop,” he shrugs, “I don’t have a problem with that.” For many, The Charlotte needs no introduction. For…
It’s a riches-to-rags story where the ponies, nannies and chauffeurs are swallowed in the vortex of a collapsing city knitwear firm. It’s a story where the finishing school-raised family matriarch, recently divorced, finds herself making a living changing roller towels in pubs and clubs across Leicestershire. It’s a story which,…
Author Nina Stibbe talks to Catherine Turnell about her past life as a London nanny, how Leicester City almost ruined her job chances and why Alan Bennett’s a good man in an emergency. Nina Stibbe is hotly tipped to be the author of this Christmas’s best-seller. Every review, from the…
With a world class archeaology department on our doorstep and a 16th century churchman at large, is it time to start disturbing the soil in Abbey Park? Cat Turnell reports. The mortal remains of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey have lain sleeping beneath the ruins of Leicester Abbey since the winter of…
1. The Beatles’ AA Side Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane was kept off the Number One spot by which county singer? 2. Which world religion was founded in Leicestershire? 3. Which well-known TV fashion stylist once told me, “I was fat, gay, mixed race and grew up on a council…
The voice on the other end of the phone needs convincing. Amir Zarbafi has spoken to the Mercury three times already – why, he says, do you need another interview? It’s the advert in Saturday’s property guide, he’s told, a full-page invitation to “meet the most controversial developer to hit…
Mr Azim Walters is a defence lawyer with a handsome office at 58 London Road, but, as you may be aware, his Georgian building, along with neighbouring properties at 52, 54 and 56, are now on borrowed time. “We don’t want it demolished, for historic reasons,” he says. Set…
“And the boys of the NYPD choir were singing Galway Bay, and the bells were ringing out for Christmas Day.” Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl’s Fairytale of New York gets everywhere at this time of year. Even Tesco in Narborough Road, where this week I was shopping and…
You’re high above the ground in a revolving transparent cage. A six year old girl sharing this cage is talking about the cage dropping and falling, and everyone dying. A four year old boy hearing all this is getting nervous. A 40 year old with newly discovered vertigo is hoping,…
Newish among the artillery of the National Trust is an Arts and Crafts family home nestled in the scenic folds of Charnwood Forest. “This is the postcard shot, really,” grins Joe Thompson, the head gardener, as he leads us down the proverbial garden path, past a crest of heather…
It was supposed to have been a little chat about coracles, a gentle natter about how the ancient river boats handmade in rural Leicestershire end up in the waters of Westeros, Middle Earth and Camelot. And it was, mostly. But then, like the boats themselves, you end up going…
There’s a smidge of a lady talking in the middle of The Smiths’ Pretty Girls Make Graves. “Oh, really?” says the voice. And that’s it. Many years later and the identity of that voice’s owner is still adding intrigue to numerous Smiths’ biographies. Each time, the writer invariably points…
A century ago the world was at war. Leicester and Leicestershire’s boys and men were packed off to the Front. Here’s a feature which gives you a little taste of where we were in 1915, although do remember that not all of our lot would have served in the…
He is Leicester’s head man, giving the biggest say so in the city every day of the week. And, let’s be honest, Sir Peter Soulsby could quite easily get a warm seat in an executive box or the director’s box at the King Power. With the other people…
Lilian Lenton in court in Doncaster with co-accused Harry Johnson in June 1913. Lilian Lenton’s prison photograph sits in a display case at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The sepia image, now more than a century old, was taken covertly by police when she was among…
Graham Dury was working on a botany PhD at the University of Leicester when he accepted a job at Viz, the cult comic which parodies the likes of The Beano and The Dandy for a kidult audience. Fast forward 27 years and Graham’s now editor of the mag famous for…
He’s a reluctant national treasure who has been exploring the natural world for 60 years. Sir David Attenborough talks to Catherine Turnell about growing up in Leicester, not discounting the yeti and nature fighting back. Sir David Attenborough is a man who requires little in the way…
How they covered football in the old Leicester Illustrated Chronicle. These two pictures were published in an October 1915 issue of the Leicester Illustrated Chronicle. Helpfully, there is no final score mentioned. Or when the game was played. A cursory glance at the internet and I can find…
My, what an impressive organ. This is the dazzling interior of Bishop Street Methodist Church. It overlooks Town Hall Square and is just a couple of doors away from the library. They run the Chapel Cafe here, where, for a nominal fee, you can get…
With vandals on one side and the elements on the other, Western Park School – formerly Western Park Open Air School – has taken a bit of a kicking in recent years. Shut in 2005, this elegant 1930s building – Grade II listed and one of very…
“Always and always facing toward the light.” They’ve not seen Poltergeist, have they? Here are some magnificent suffragists standing proud in Bowling Green Street. I don’t know their names but I’d like to buy each of them a drink. Which they’d most likely turn down, cos they’re probably part…
Take Mr Henry Lee, the verger of St Peter’s Church in Leicester. Add Professor GF Moss, who had consulting rooms at 70 Sparkenhoe Street. And then throw in photographer Mr HJ Hitchcock to take a picture. What do you get? The answer is this rather spiffy advert…
Salford, Manchester. 1950. Green hills in the foreground, smoking chimneys in the distance. Life in between. Laurence Stephen Lowry was a genius. And generally I dislike the word genius, but in this instance it’s bang on. You’ll find this magnificent painting in the little gallery on the left in…
Sometimes she’ll find herself alone in the middle of a deep forest. In the dream, she’s a shivering nine-year-old girl again, searching for mushrooms and berries. It’s then, as she hunts for food among the trees, she’ll be gripped by an old terror. You’re lost, says the panicked voice in…
At this time of year the people of Heather like to go a bit batty. In a nice way. Across the village, wherever you turn, the streets and gardens are full of scarecrows. Some will have a contemporary theme, some will be traditional and the rest…
You don’t need me to tell you this, but Old John, a chubby stone tower that looks a lot like a beer tankard, is Leicestershire’s most iconic landmark. This photogenic enigma has been crowning the highest, rockiest peak in the tumbling, well-loved acres of Bradgate Park since the autumn…
The headliners Sienna Root were rocktastic organic man-flesh from Sweden. The Cult of Dom Keller were a Leicester-Nottingham hybrid with an awesome drummer. And my oldest mate Ben, representing Western Park, and to some extent Hinckley, did the opening Moog atmospherics under the moniker The Early Remains. Oh,…
Graham Chapman helped make the world a much sillier place. The Life of Graham, a new book about the pipe-smoking Python, retreads his formative years in the county. Graham Chapman was the Leicestershire-born hero of British comedy. One-sixth of trail-blazing surrealists Monty Python, the pipe-smoking Chapman was…
Mick Bunnage is a dream interviewee. The former musician, Loaded writer, cartoonist and Leicester resident has an unerring habit of making the mundane seem peculiarly jocular. Even when he’s trying to pronounce the address of his old stomping ground in Belgrave. “Leer-rah Street,” he hazards. “Leer-eh?” He…
It’s a sunny Sunday in October and I’m pootling around Faircharm Industrial Estate with a camera. Faircharm is a mixed use industrial estate on the edge of Aylestone Meadows, bisected by the River Soar and the Grand Union Canal. On first appearance it’s pretty underwhelming, but carry on walking, graze your…
