Revealed on Wednesday, October 14, 2020
A CORNER of Leicester with a motor-racing previous, recollections of a ‘magical’ college and sporting glories new and previous are retold on Leicester’s newest crop of fascinating heritage panels.
The interpretation panels – which might be discovered at places throughout the town – are a part of the Story of Leicester mission, which celebrates the town’s wealthy 2,000-year historical past by remembering the individuals, locations and occasions of Leicester’s latest and distant previous.
Seven new panels have just lately been added to greater than 100 already put in, at places together with the King Energy Stadium, Leicester Royal Infirmary and Leicestershire County Cricket Membership.
In Braunstone Park, a brand new panel near Braunstone Corridor (now the Winstanley Home resort) tells the story of the corridor’s time as a junior college. With its sweeping staircases and unique options, former pupils bear in mind it as a ‘magical’ place to go to highschool. It additionally had ‘spooky’ former servants’ quarters, and through the Second World Struggle its cellars had been used as air-raid shelters for native individuals.
Leicester’s oldest hospital, the Infirmary, was established in 1771 and gained its royal standing in 1912. Its historical past – together with the muse of a kids’s hospital – is advised in a brand new panel positioned in Infirmary Sq..
Sporting glory – and tragedy – is relived in new heritage panels at Leicestershire County Cricket Floor and the King Energy Stadium. The cricket membership’s achievements embody trophies all through the 1970s, the county championship title in 1996 and success within the fast-paced Twenty20 sequence in 2004, 2006 and 2011.
No-one will ever neglect Leicester Metropolis’s wonderful premier league-winning season of 2015-16, however the heritage panel on the stadium additionally respectfully remembers the horrible helicopter crash of 2018, which killed common membership proprietor Khun Vichai and 4 others.
In Aylestone, Coalpit Lane, near the River Soar, is remembered with a brand new heritage panel. The panel – positioned the place Middleton Avenue meets Aylestone Street because it turns into Lutterworth Street – additionally remembers what’s now often called ‘Goode’s Nook’ after native racing driver and automotive technician Graham Goode. Graham and spouse Kay opened a storage right here in 1976, and Graham gained a number of touring automotive championships at house and overseas earlier than retiring from aggressive driving in 1994.
Deputy metropolis mayor and heritage champion Cllr Adam Clarke mentioned: “These interpretation panels at the moment are a outstanding characteristic of the town, with lots of them telling fascinating tales of latest social historical past, equivalent to the brand new panel at ‘Goode’s Nook’. I hope individuals will take pleasure in looking for out these newest additions to the gathering.”
Metropolis mayor Peter Soulsby, who first commissioned the heritage panels, mentioned: “Once we first started creating these panels, we unlocked a lot of Leicester’s hidden historical past and I’m delighted by their ongoing reputation with native individuals. These panels are a easy, efficient and entertaining manner of guaranteeing we preserve necessary hyperlinks with our metropolis’s distinctive and fascinating previous.”
Leicester’s heritage data panels might be seen in purchasing centres, on medieval church buildings, close to former warehouses and in entrance of the town’s iconic landmarks such because the Clock Tower and Corn Alternate. They can be seen in Leicester’s historic villages, together with Aylestone, Belgrave and Evington.
The panels are grouped in themes to inform totally different chapters within the metropolis’s story, and every theme is colour-coded to make them simple to establish.
To seek out out extra concerning the Story of Leicester, go to the web site at www.storyofleicester.info
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Image reveals Graham Goode with the panel at Goode’s Nook in Aylestone
