A glimpse into Leicester’s past: One day on Fosse Road
With another season almost upon us, why not first take a breath and another deep dive into Leicester history. This solves the mystery of a day on Fosse Road and its connections to some lost Leicester City history.
Around 2,000 years ago, shortly after the Roman invasion of these islands, a man sat down with a primitive map and, like a modern-day referee with a spray can, drew an oblique line to mark a defensive boundary.
It was called ‘The Fosse Way’.
Many centuries later, on the west side of Leicester, a track running parallel to that old Roman route was named ‘Fosse Road’.
In the Victorian era, as the West End of the town developed, its extensions were named Fosse Road North and Fosse Road South.
This is a story about that northern section.
It starts with a photo posted over on Foxestalk by ‘davieG’, a fellow who provides us with a constant stream of evocative old photos. This was one:
It’s a picture that leaves you wanting to know more. When exactly was it taken? And in what circumstances? Usually it’s impossible to answer these questions. But this photo really demanded attention, so I started to investigate.
First, let's get our bearings. Look at this map of post-war Leicester:
You can see Fosse Road North running from top to bottom, north to south, with the bridge of the old railway line near the top. The arrow marks the spot where the photo was taken. Notice that black square in the bottom left corner. That's the old Fosse Cinema, closed in 1981 and then demolished in 1998:
Now let's go back to the original photo and look more closely at those advertising hoardings by the railway bridge:
On the right is a poster for that very same Fosse Cinema, and it seems to be advertising a film called 'Calcutta'. It shouldn't be too difficult to find out when that film was released, and when it was showing in Leicester.
The film is from 1947.
And here's the entertainment column of the Leicester Mercury from Saturday May 17th that year:
There we are - it began showing at the Fosse two days later, on Monday 19th.
It seems Calcutta was only at that cinema for three days - so that narrows down the possible dates for the photo. It was most likely taken that weekend - May 17th or 18th.
Can we say anything else? What was happening in Leicester that weekend? Anything that might give us more clues?
The football season would normally have finished by mid-May, but the winter of 1947 was the most severe that anyone could remember, and the season was extended till June. There would have been a full programme of League fixtures that Saturday. Were Leicester City at home?
No - they were at Chesterfield, losing 2-0 to a side that contained Stan Milburn, future Filbert Street favourite. Here's the headline in the Mercury:
But who's that athlete next to the report? The caption under the photo reads 'Forbes, remarkably fresh, reaches the finishing point in Filbert Street to win the Mercury Walk with a good margin.’
Interesting - so that's why, when the season was extended, Leicester had to have an away game on this Saturday. There was already another sporting event scheduled at Filbert Street - the annual 20 mile walking race, sponsored by the Leicester Mercury.
The 'Forbes' mentioned is Harry Forbes of Birmingham. This is the Mercury again:
In third place was T. Lloyd Johnson, the Melton athlete who would win a bronze medal at the London Olympics the following year.
But how does this help us with the photo?
Well, what was the route of the Mercury Walk that day? Could it have gone anywhere near Fosse Road North?
The day before the race, the Mercury gave the details:
Bingo! The walkers would have passed right under the railway bridge, heading the same way as the tram, and past the point where the photo was taken.
So now we have a theory. The photographer went out with a camera that day not to take pictures of trams - but to take pictures of the event. The Mercury Walk was the biggest thing to come along Fosse Road North for years (this was the first staging of the event since the War).
But just as I was settling on that theory, I came across something else that rapidly overturned it.
Two days before the Walk took place, a report appeared in the Mercury about the future of trams in the city. It told us that the Fosse Road North route would be discontinued in the summer, replaced by a bus service.
Trams had been running under that railway bridge and up the hill towards King Richard Road since 1904, but now 43 years later, the lines would be ripped up and trams would rattle along Fosse Road North no more. Two months later, on July 5th, came this short Mercury report at the bottom of page 6:
So we can ditch the tentative theory and replace it with a confident assertion. The person who took the photo read about the scrapping of the tram route, and while they still had the chance, took a souvenir picture.
To save you scrolling back up, here it is again:
Now let’s imagine that immediately after that picture was taken, our snapper hurried across the road to the tram stop and jumped on board.
Let’s follow the journey.
You can see the next section of the route on the map below. After the tram passed the cinema (the black square is at the top this time), it would have passed Fosse Road Recreation Ground. This was the first park opened in the West End of town, in 1895, and it’s still a beautiful little place, a hidden gem just a mile from the city centre.
After that, the tram would have turned left into King Richard Road. The red circle just below that junction marks the location of the shed where, as the story goes, a group of young men met in the spring of 1884 to set up a football club called ‘Leicester Fosse’.
If, instead of turning left, you go straight ahead at the junction, you get to Fosse Road South. Just off that road in 1884, in a private field, Leicester Fosse played their first ever game.
It’s a little strange that, for a club born in the West End of Leicester, that was the only game ever staged on the west side of the River Soar. Here’s the latest tally: On the west – once. On the east - about 4,000 times and counting.
Had the club’s plans to build a new stadium at Bede Island in 1998 come to fruition, we’d have ‘gone home’ to the west side, but a year later the plans were called in by the Department of the Environment and judged to be in breach of planning guidelines. The following year there was a new plan, back on the east side of the river.
As our tram went down the hill, heading for the Clock tower, it would have passed Kate Street on the left, then crossed Bow Bridge, with passengers able to see the famous plaque:
The plaque is still there now, even though the theory about Richard III’s remains was about as accurate as my first one about the photo. It’s considered, quite rightly, a significant part of the story, so there it stays.
What a shame that Leicester City’s history hasn’t been treated with the same respect.
There should now be a ‘heritage walk’ of some kind, celebrating that double miracle - the discovery of the King’s remains and our title win. It would start at Richard’s car park, go past the Cathedral where he was reburied, over the River Soar to see the plaque at Bow Bridge, past the wonderful mural in Kate Street commemorating the title triumph, then finally the shed where the club was formed.
All those places lie pretty-much on a straight line, heading out from the centre of the city – the exact line of that old tram route. At least, they did. One of them is not there anymore.
Leicester Council has in fact been establishing a series of heritage trails across the city. On their website they are introduced like this:
Leicester is an ancient city with 2,000 years of history. If walls could talk, Leicester’s historic buildings could tell some fascinating stories.
But the tale that wall in Kate Street once told has been erased. The small remaining section, featuring Vardy and King, serves only as a bitter reminder of what was lost.
Just like the tram, all we have now are the photos.
