The history of Kibworth Beauchamp, Kibworth Harcourt and Smeeton Westerby is well-documented. These three villages in south Leicestershire share a long and often dramatic past in which their inhabitants have faced the horror ofthe Black Death, have struggled through times of poverty and hardship, and have witnessed the growth of industry following the building of the canals and the railways. In more recent times, the ever-changing landscape of the villages has been recorded diligently by a...

Until the railways arrived, Westonsuper- Mare was a town without a history. From a little fishing village with just a handful of houses, Weston grew into a major seaside resort, and this happened rapidly in just under one hundred years. After a period of decline, it has recreated itself, successfully, as a holiday destination for the twenty-first century and as one of Somerset's major towns. Romans and seventeenth-century smugglers, television comedians and top-selling writers, and even th...

Leicester is built upon the work of the innovators, entrepreneurs and pioneers of past centuries. Henry Walker looked for a meat substitute during rationing after the Second World War and created the world-famous potato crisp brand. Another local man, Henry Curry, used metalworking skills acquired maintaining steam engines to construct bicycles, and his business would later become Curry’s PC World. In this book, author Stephen Butt celebrates the heritage, culture and identity of the city....

The city of Leicester can boast a long and distinguished history and has been at the very heart of the country’s political and economic development for over two millennia. Evidence of Roman occupation remains at the Jewry Wall and Cardinal Wolsey lies buried in Leicester Abbey, but the jewel in the city’s proud historical crown was the discovery, in 2012, of the skeleton of Richard III lying beneath a car park. The city’s stories can be found everywhere: from the Victorian mills and textil...

Nineteenth century visitors to Ashby entered a world of make-believe, thanks to Sir Walter Scott's romantic hero, Ivanhoe. They flocked to the town in their thousands to bathe in the spa waters which were brought in by train and canal, and to relax in the shadow of the impressive castle ruins. A thriving market town in the heart of the National Forest, Ashby is still a place for history and heritage. Georgian frontages line the ancient Market Street, and all around are reminders of the bui...

This book extensively covers rock mechanics and engineering, playing a vital role in mining, geological, and civil applications. It explores the stability, failure, and behavior of rock masses, offering control and prediction methods. Fundamental concepts, stress and strain analyses, failure theories, and rock characteristics are addressed, essential for safety in mining and construction. Applications like geological hazard assessment, slope stability, and foundation design demonstrate its...

Poverty and Antitheatricality argues that many major analytical approaches today misunderstand the problem of poverty by emphasizing its status as an experience. These experiential models transform poverty from a specific socioeconomic status lived in a particular historical sequence into a transhistorical presence of marginality that is not only inevitable but necessary. Embedded in capitalist, socialist, and populist forms of socioeconomic organization, these m...

Leicester’s pubs have always been more than mere watering holes. They are where businesses were created, battle plans drawn up and where murderers once faced up to their crimes. Richard III spent his final night in Leicester at the Blue Boar in Highcross Street. Nathaniel Corah began his textile manufacturing empire, which employed thousands of Leicester people, at the Globe on Silver Street in 1815. Condemned prisoners on the way to the gallows at Red Hill were allowed a final drink at th...

Leicester’s history can be traced back to an Iron Age settlement by the River Soar and a subsequent Roman town where the Fosse Way crossed the river. Medieval Leicester flourished around its Norman castle, merchants and religious houses but was also subject to plagues and civil war. Industrialisation and coal mining brought wealth into Leicester in the nineteenth century but also prepared the ground for welfare movements and radical politics in the city. Today’s Leicester is a bustling cit...

Leicester History Tour is a unique insight into the illustrious history of this East Midlands city. Local author Stephen Butt guides us through the streets and alleyways, showing how its famous landmarks used to look and how they’ve changed over the years, as well as exploring its lesser-known places and hidden corners. With the help of a handy location map, readers are invited to follow a timeline of events and discover for themselves the changing face of Leicester.

John Nichols’ monumental History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester has been the foundation of historical research in Leicestershire since it was completed in eight massive volumes in 1815. With millions of words, including transcripts of documents from the Domesday Book onwards, and thousands of engravings of churches, their monuments, houses, lakes, abbeys, castles, coats of arms and even fossils, this was a project on a scale never envisaged before, and rarely since. A London pr...

This illustrated history portrays one of England’s finest major cities and some of its county towns and villages. It provides a nostalgic look at Leicester’s past and highlights the special character of some of its most important historic sites. The photographs are taken from the Historic England Archive, a unique collection of over 12 million photographs, drawings, plans and documents covering England’s archaeology, architecture, social and local history. Pictures date from the earliest d...