A Walk Through Leicester Part 1

A Walk through Leicester.

by Susanna Watts.

ADDRESS.

The Editor of the following pages, while he has been solicitous to furnish those who _travel_ with a POCKET CICERONE, feels at the same time a wish that it may not be unacceptable to those who are _at home_. The latter, though, in the subject of this survey, they trace an old, a familiar scene, will still feel that it possesses that interest which the native spot binds around the mind, and when they point out to their intelligent visitors and curious friends the most memorable objects of their antient and honourable Town, it is his wish that this little companion may be found useful; he, therefore, while he rejoices in their support and feels their liberality, inscribes it with respect and grat.i.tude, to the

INHABITANTS OF LEICESTER.

A WALK THROUGH _LEICESTER_.

To the traveller who may wish to visit whatever is deemed most worthy of notice in the town of Leicester, the following sketch is devoted. And as the highly cultivated state of topographical knowledge renders superficial remark unpardonable in local description, we shall endeavor to produce, at the various objects of our visit, such information and reflections as a conductor, not wholly uninformed, may be expected to offer to the curious and intelligent, while he guides him through a large, commercial, and, we trust, a respectable town; the capital of a province which can honestly boast, that by its rich pasturage, its flocks and herds, it supplies England with the blessings of agricultural fertility; and by the industry of its frame-work-knitters, affords an article that quickens and extends the operations of commerce.

We now request our good-humoured stranger to accept of such our guidance; whether he be the tourist, whose object of inquiry is general information--or the man of reflection, who, wherever he goes, whether in crouded towns or solitary fields, finds something to engage his meditation--or the mercantile rider, who, when the business of his commissions is transacted, quits his lonely parlour for a stroll through the streets--we shall endeavor to bring before his eye as much of interest as our scenes will afford: and as for the diligent antiquary, we a.s.sure him we will make the most of our Roman remains; and we hope he will not quarrel with the rough forest stones of our streets, when we promise him they shall conduct him to the smoother pavement of Roman mosaic.

What may have been the name of the town we are about to traverse, before the establishment of the Romans, cannot be ascertained; for the Britons had no written monuments, and it cannot be expected that tradition should have survived the revolutions, which, since that period, have taken place in this island. King Leir, and whatever surmises may have been founded on the similarity between his name and the present name of the place, may safely be left to those who are more fond of the flights of conjecture than the solid arguments of truth.

After the establishment of the Romans, Leicester became one of their most important stations; was known, we are well a.s.sured, by the name of RATAE, and was a colony, composed of the soldiers from the legions, having magistrates, manners, and language the same as Rome itself. Under the Saxon dynasty it obtained the name of LEICESTER, compounded of _castrum_, or _cester_, from its having been a Roman military station, and _leag_, or _lea_, a pasture surrounded by woods, for such was antiently the scite of the town. This name it has preserved, with less alteration in the mode of spelling than almost any other town in the kingdom, through the barbarous reigns of the Saxon kings, the oppressive system of the feudal times, the dark gloom of monkish superst.i.tion, and the fatal revolutions occasioned by the civil commotions of later ages.

Such is, most probably, the true etymology of the name of the place we are now proceeding to survey; for which purpose we will suppose the visitor to set forward from the Three Crowns Inn, along a strait wide street, called

GALLOWTREE-GATE,

(corruptly p.r.o.nounced _Goltre_), from its having formerly led to the place of execution, the left side of which is the scite of the antient city walls.

At the bottom of this street, a building, formerly the a.s.sembly-room, but now converted to purposes of trade, with a piazza, under which is a machine for weighing coals, forms the centre of five considerable streets. The

HUMBERSTONE-GATE,

on the right, leads to a range of new and handsome dwellings, called SPA-PLACE, from a chalybeate spring found there, which, though furnished by the proprietor with neat marble baths and every convenient appendage for bathing, has not been found sufficiently impregnated with mineral properties to bring it into use. The Humberstone-Gate is out of the local limits of the borough, and subject to the concurrent jurisdiction of the county and borough magistrates; though in the reigns of Edward VI.

and Elizabeth, attempts were made to bring it exclusively under the magisterial power of the town. It is part of the manor possessed by the Bishops of Lincoln, in the twelfth century, and is still called the _Bishops' Fee_.

Southward from the Humberstone-Gate to the Goltre-Gate, very considerable additions, consisting of several streets, have lately been made to the town.

Advancing forward, the visitor, on pa.s.sing the weighing machine, enters the

BELGRAVE-GATE,

a street of considerable extent, in the broader part of which stands what may justly be deemed one of the most valuable curiosities of the place; it is a _milliare_, or Roman mile-stone, forming part of a small obelisk.

This stone was discovered in 1771, by some workmen, digging to form a rampart for a new turnpike-road from Leicester to Melton, upon the foss road leading to Newark, and at the distance of two miles from Leicester.

Antiquarians allow it to be the oldest _milliare_ now extant in Britain; and perhaps the inscription upon it is older than most others that have been found upon altars, or other monuments of Roman antiquity in this island. It is about three feet long, and between five and six in circ.u.mference. The inscription, when the abbreviations are filled up, may be read thus--

Imperator Caesar, Divi Trajani Parthici Filius Divus, Traja.n.u.s Hadria.n.u.s Augustus, Potestate IV. Consulatu III. A Ratis II.

Hadrian Traja.n.u.s Augustus, Emperor & Caesar, the son of the most ill.u.s.trious Trajan Parthicus, In the 4th year of his reign, and his 3d consulate.

From Ratae (Leicester) 2 miles.

Such is the inscription on this _milliare_, which our industrious antiquaries seem faithfully to have extracted from among the ruins of time and the injuries of accident; an object, which exhibits a curious instance of the civilization introduced by the Roman arms into this island; for the erection of marks to denote the distance from place to place, is an accommodation, at least to the travelling stranger, which unpolished nations never devised; and which the inhabitants of Britain never generally enjoyed from the final departure of the Roman legions, till the last century, when mile-stones were again erected along our princ.i.p.al turnpike roads. The unlearned visitor, it is confessed, will be apt to view, with some degree of disappointment, the object of which we are speaking, and about which much busy conjecture, and learned antiquarian research has been employed; for indeed, its appearance is neither singular nor striking, the engraving being but slight, and the letters rudely formed. But the ingenious observer will esteem it a valuable curiosity; not only because it clears up the long doubted question, whether the RATAE of Antoninus's Itinerary was the present Leicester, but because it is one of those objects which a.s.sist the reflecting mind in connecting the past with the present; and, by confirming from sensible evidence the records of history, give greater weight and effect to the lessons she may teach.

The situation in which this stone is at present placed, has often been thought improper; for it is undoubtedly exposed to injuries from the wantonness of play, and is so little conspicuous from its place in the obelisk, that nothing appears necessarily to attract the attention of the stranger. A situation more private, though not wholly so, would be more proper; such a one as the garden of the Infirmary would afford: it would there have all the publicity the curious could wish, and all the security the antiquary could desire.

Our visitor, continuing his walk along this street, which, as he probably will know, is on the great road from the metropolis to the north-west part of the kingdom, arrives at a scene of busy traffic. Here, among numbers of newly-erected dwellings (proofs of the increasing population of the town) is the public and princ.i.p.al wharf on the navigable ca.n.a.l, near which is an iron foundery. This ca.n.a.l was formed, in consequence of a bill pa.s.sed in 1791, for the purpose of opening a communication with the Loughborough ca.n.a.l, and through that, with the various navigations, united to the Trent. The line of the ca.n.a.l from Leicester to Loughborough is near sixteen miles in extent, and serves to supply Leicester with coal, lime, and the greater part of all the other heavy articles, which the consumption of a place, containing sixteen thousand inhabitants, requires.

The rates of tonnage, according to the act, from Loughborough to Leicester, are--

For coals 1s. 2d. per ton.

Iron, timber, &c. 2s. 6d.

Quant.i.ty of the articles brought by this ca.n.a.l:

_tons_ Coal annually consumed in Leicester and its vicinity 35,000 Ditto forwarded to other ca.n.a.ls 18,000 Merchandize for Leicester 4,000 Ditto sent down (chiefly wool) 1,600

Thus, whether we consider the saving of corn, &c. consumed by the horses employed in land carriage, the comparative cheapness of the conveyance, or the improved state of our roads, relieved from such heavy weights, it must be acknowledged that this ca.n.a.l adds more than might have been expected to the convenience of Leicester, and the greater part of its county. Indeed, these _water-roads_, as navigable ca.n.a.ls may be termed, reflect the greatest honour on the ingenuity of man, exemplified in their formation, and prove most strikingly to the thinking mind, how boundless are the advantages of civilized life, and how inviolable the security afforded to property by laws, wisely framed and judiciously enforced.

The view from this spot, across the Abbey Meadow, extending on the opposite side of the ca.n.a.l, with the ruins of the Devons.h.i.+re mansion, commonly termed the _Abbey_, from its being the scite of _St. Mary de Pratis_, will, by most visitors, be considered, at least, as very pleasing; but as we mean to conduct our traveller to that place, we shall, at present, forbear to particularize it.

We shall immediately, along a lane, called Arch-deacon's Lane, about the middle of which is a Meeting house, with a small burial ground, belonging to the General Baptists, guide our stranger to

ST. MARGARET'S CHURCH.

This structure is rendered venerable by its tower, whose pinnacles and trefoil-work, with the niche, or tabernacle, on the corner of the south wall of the church, would have even shown it, had not its date been confirmed by Bishop Alnwicke's register, 1441, to have been the work of the era of the regular gothic. From this tower, a ring of ten bells, well known for their excellence, sound in frequent peals of harmony along the meadow and river below.

This, when the other churches of Leicester were given to the abbey by Robert Bossu, was annexed as a prebend to the cathedral of Lincoln, by the bishops of that diocese to whom it then belonged. The right of presentation is vested in the person holding the prebend, and the parish, with the neighbouring dependent parish of Knighton, is exempted from the jurisdiction of the Arch-deacon of Leicester. The inside of the church is handsome; the nave and side aisles are supported by gothic arches, whose beauty and symmetry are not concealed by aukward galleries. The organ was erected by the paris.h.i.+oners in 1773.

Several elegant modern monuments adorn the walls, and in the north aisle is the alabaster tomb of Bishop Penny, many years abbot of the neighbouring monastery of St Mary de Pratis. In the church-yard the military trophies of a black tomb commemorate Andrew Lord Rollo. This n.o.bleman was an instance of the attraction which a martial life affords to an elevated mind, for he entered the service at the age of forty, when generally the habits and inclinations of life are so fixed, as scarcely to admit any change. After many years of severe and dangerous services, he died at Leicester, as the inscription informs us, on his way to Bristol, for the recovery of his health, 1765.

It is to be observed of this and the other churches in this place, that the entrance is by a descent of several steps; a circ.u.mstance proving incontestibly, that the ground without has been considerably raised, since no reason could induce the founders of these sacred edifices to sink the floors beyond the natural level; nor is the surface of the church-yards alone, higher than the floors of the churches; so caused by the continued interment of the dead: but the general level of the pavements of the streets is also higher; from which it must be inferred, that the ground on which the present houses are built has been every where raised, and that very considerably. That the rubbish produced by buildings, and particularly the consumption of fuel, should produce this effect, is what any one may readily believe; and the Bishop of Llandaff calculates in his Chemical Essays, that the quant.i.ty of coal consumed annually in London, would raise an area of ten miles square, a full inch.