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 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....

Rutland is at the very heart of England. It is England's smallest historic county, less than twenty miles in distance from north to south or east to west, a patchwork of incredibly picturesque and peaceful villages. At its centre is Rutland Water, by surface area the largest reservoir in the country covering more than 3000 acres of land, which has matured over the past thirty years into a sanctuary for wildlife and a major tourist attraction. From hilltop stately homes to clusters of thatc...

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...

For the people of Leicester, the 1960s was a decade of great social and economic change. It was to see a revolution in social attitudes reflected in the popular music of the time, in fashion, and in the print and broadcast media. Life changed for everyone. Railway stations closed as the motor vehicle grew in popularity. National Service ended, the pirate radio stations were scuppered, colour television became available, and the fashion garments manufactured by Leicester’s giant textile com...

The 1970s was a decade of change. Supermarkets began to take over from traditional stores, high-rise office blocks appeared on the skyline, and Leicester’s first shopping centre replaced familiar Victorian shops and hotels. It was a time of industrial unrest. The lights went out as coal stocks diminished. Pay packets were depleted as Leicester’s workers faced a three-day week, prices in the shops began to soar, and we all shivered during the ‘winter of discontent’. It was a turning point i...

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...

Tourism was born in Market Harborough in 1841 when Thomas Cook, a local cabinetmaker, set off towards Leicester and had his dream of worldwide working-class travel. The town was born to serve travellers. Centuries before, the town had been built to provide a market place for trades-people near to the 'new' highway connecting Northampton and Leicester. Eight hundred years later, the market is still busy, though now indoors, and the original Square is still bustling with shoppers. As a boy o...

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...

Leicester is proud of its industrial heritage. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw the city’s population grow rapidly with the construction of the Grand Union Canal and the arrival of the railway, which not only provided a supply of coal to the town from nearby collieries but also linked the town to the national network. These developments encouraged and accompanied a process of industrialisation that intensified throughout the Victorian era; hosiery, textiles, and footwear became ...

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...

Weston-super-Mare History Touris a unique insight into the illustrious history of this famous old seaside resort and shows just how much it has changed during the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Readers are invited to follow author Stephen Butt as he guides them through its streets and alleyways, pointing out the well-known and lesser-known landmarks along the way.