BAKEHOUSE - See KING'S BAKEHOUSE
BANK HOUSE c.1835 - see LEICESTERSHIRE & WARWICKSHIRE BANKING COMPANY PREMISES c.1834
BAPTIST (GENERAL) CHAPEL 1768 Wood Street. Formerly united with Barton-in-the-Beans, it was autonomous by 1766. The first meeting-house of 1768, now demolished, stood near the old burial ground at the east end of Wood Street, where a few slate headstones remained until recent years.
It was 're-built on a larger scale in 1789; was taken down, and one built, much enlarged, in another place in the town, in 1806' (Nichols, Leicestershire, 697).
[By 1998 the headstones from the little burial ground had disappeared.]
BAPTIST (GENERAL) CHAPEL 1806-7 Baptist Walk. The building of the new meeting-house began in 1806. It was opened in February 1807.
'On Wednesday the 18th inst. will be opened at Hinckley, the New Meeting House belonging to the General Baptists. The ministers expected to preach on the occasion are the Rev D Taylor, the Rev R Hall and the Rev B Pollard. Service in the morning at 11 o'clock' (Leicester Journal, 13 Feb 1807).
'The building is of red-brick with three bay sides. The front, drastically altered in 1920-1, has three round-arched upper windows' (RCHM, 123).
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| left: The chapel as it was built, photographed in 1902. right: As it is now. |
1872 - Additional school accommodation provided.
1878 - Chapel re-pewed and renovated.
1889 - Side galleries erected and organ installed.
1921 - vestries reconstructed and church enlarged and renovated. The work included 'the construction of new vestries for the ministers and deacons, a room for the primary department, new leaded windows, a new pulpit, wood blocks in the aisles, the installation of a low pressure hot water heating apparatus throughout the entire church and school premises, the installation of electric light in the church and vestries, and the erection of a porch and vestibule as a memorial to the men associated with the church who fell in the war… Externally the appearance of the familiar old building has been entirely transformed. A modern renaissance style, with details of classical feeling, has been used in designing the [war] memorial porch, which consists of an open colonnaded porch in artificial Portland stone, with side pavilions in brick and stone to match. An antique rustic brick has been used to combine with the old front, and to bring the design into homogeneity, a heavy stone cornice has been added to the main block, thus giving the whole front an appearance of solidity and dignity formerly lacking.
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| left: Facade, showing colonnaded porch, 1921. right: Original fenestration to upper storey. |
The old brickwork, both to the front and sides, has been skilfully handled and restored… In the open entrance porch a feature has been made of a stone cenotaph, in artificial Portland stone, with a cast bronze metal plate on which are given the names of the members of the church to whose memory the scheme has been carried out. Entered from the porch on either side are the new lobbied leading into the church and to the new approaches to the gallery. New pitch pine wood block flooring has been laid down in the aisles, and a new pitch pine pulpit of Gothic design has been installed in place of the old rostrum. The old sash windows have been taken out, and new windows of more suitable design installed, filled in with leaded lights in a very chaste and restrained design. The windows have been finished off in a simple and severe manner, and the opportunity has been taken to enlarge the side gallery windows to a better proportion. In keeping with the serenity of design, the scheme of decoration itself is one of restful simplicity and quietness. The ornamental plasterwork of the ceiling has been very sparsely picked out in gold and colour, and the only splash of colour has been concentrated on the organ pipes and as a background to the pulpit, the dominating colour being blue, to tone with the new carpet to the platform and pulpit, picked out with black and gold. The rear portion of the building has been entirely remodelled. Two vestries have been formed, with a junior schoolroom behind, the latter being divided into classrooms when required with a folding partition. Electric lighting has been installed throughout the chapel, and the whole of the buildings, including the schoolrooms and classrooms, are now heated with an up-to-date hot water system of pipes and radiators. The work has not been carried out without considerable and anxious thought on the part of the committee and their architects…' (Hinckley Times, Sat 12 Feb 1921).
The final cost of the extensions amounted to about £6,200. At a meeting held in association with the work's completion, the Hon. H. D. McLaren (MP for Bosworth division) said that 'the Baptists of Hinckley had not only built what was suitable for a place of worship, and what was convenient for Sunday Schools - they had gone further. They had built, by their own resources and efforts, a church which had great architectural features and which was an ornament to the town, and would be to any town' (Hinckley Times, Sat 19 Feb 1921).
See also: Osborne, S.C., The Hinckley Baptist Church: the First Two Hundred Years (1966). NMR - 1 photo.
BAPTIST (GENERAL) SCHOOL ROOMS 1894, 1938 . In 1894 'the present magnificient school halls were opened…' The memorial stones for the extension were laid laid 9 June 1894. 'The new schoolroom is adjoining the chapel, being separated by a passage only, which forms the entrance and is facing the Walks. It is to be a two-storey building with an upper and lower room, the dimensions of which are 39ft by 45ft, and 25ft by 39ft respectively.' The upper room was to be for the accommodation of the older scholars. The cost was £950, including about £200 for alterations to the existing building (Hinckley Times, 16 June 1894).
1938 - New primary Sunday school room erected fronting Holliers Walk. The foundation stone was laid 14 March 1938 (Hinckley Times, 18 March 1938, with perspective of the new schoolroom (below)). The architects were Messrs. Cowdell & Bryan of Leicester and the builders, Messrs. J. H. Mason and Son of Factory Road, Hinckley.
BAPTIST (PARTICULAR) CHAPEL ('EBENEZER CHAPEL') 1803 New Buildings/Leicester Road. Of brick with hipped slate roof, rendered front with one round-arched upper window and one pointed-arched lower window remaining, was built in 1803 for a small church formed in 1795, to which William Gadsby was then a preacher (RCHME).
'The Particular Baptist Meeting House at Hinckley, Leicestershire, will be opened on Wednesday June 1st, 1803. Worship to begin at Half past Ten o'clock…' (Leicester Journal, 20 and 27 May 1803).
The chapel was purchased by the Primitive Methodists in May 1854 for £280. The original congregation returned to a former meeting-house in Mansion Street (see below), built Zion Chapel, Trinity Lane in 1886, from whence in 1974 they moved to Mount Road (RCHM, 123).
From 1875-1894 the building was the armoury and drill hall of the 10th Company of the First Battalion, Leicestershire Rifle Volunteers (L. Co. First Volunteer Battalion the Leicestershire Regiment from 1883).
See also GRAMMAR SCHOOL 1877.
By 1931 the old chapel was said to be 'now a portion of the warehouse of Messrs S. Davis & Sons hosiery factory' (Hinckley Times, 31 July 1931), its site now occupied by B&Q. There is an attractive drawing by Cicely Pickering of the chapel after its purchase by the Primitive Methodists, in A. J. Pickering, The Cradle and Home… (below). It shows a plain box-like building with pyramidal roof and round-arched windows, and, to the front, a projecting portico with Doric pilasters supporting a pediment with the legend PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHAPEL 1854. Built in brick with a stucco facing.
See also METHODIST CHAPEL (PRIMITIVE) 1854.
BAPTIST (PARTICULAR) CHAPEL pre-1886 Mansion Street... 'former meeting-house' used from c.1846 until 1886, when Zion Chapel was erected in Trinity Lane.
BAPTIST (PARTICULAR) CHAPEL 1886 Zion Chapel, Trinity Lane. The chapel was built 1886 by the congregation after leaving their meeting-house in Mansion Street. It was described as 'Calvinist' in Wright's Directory, 1900 and appears in the Illustrated Guide to Hinckley (1902) (below, left). It was was demolished shortly after the congregation moved to a new chapel in Mount Road in 1974. Its site is now occupied by Hollies Furniture Store.
BARCLAY'S BANK - see TOWN HALL
The BARLEY MOW - see The BARLEY SHEAF
The BARLEY SHEAF (BARLEY MOW) Lower Bond Street, adjacent to the former Atkins' factory. It is supposed to have the oldest vaults in town, dating back to the 1600s. The hostelry appears in a newspaper advertisement, 1799 (Leicester Journal, 19 July). It is listed as the Barley Sheaf in Holden's 1808-11 Directories but as the Barley Mow in Pigot's Directory of 1822-23.
'Public house, early-mid 19th century, probably incorporating earlier fabric. Brick, the front rendered and colour-washed: Welsh slate roof. Three storeys and three bays. Second-floor sill band. Panelled double doors in corniced doorcase between bays one and two; 20th century small-paned casements to lower floors, shortened nine-pane sashes. Heightened stacks at ends and lower one on ridge. Rear elevation: two rear wings, northern obviously truncated but has hints of incorporated timber framing; an old timber is exposed in the rear wall of the main block to the north of the wing roof. Cellars reputed to be of 16th or 17th century date' (Peter F. Ryder, Hinckley... Historic Buildings Appraisal (2000)).
BEARDSMORE'S BREWERY 23 Stockwell Head. 1850-1900.
The BELL INN A document of 6 May 1774 at LRO (DE 226/17/25) mentions premises 'lately known by the name of the Bell Inn'. See also the BLUE BELL INN.
BILLIARD HALL 1915 Station Road. Opened Tues 10 August 1915. Part of a chain of such establishments owned by Amos Taylor of Burnley, with fourteen billiard tables (Hinckley Times, 14 Aug 1915, with photograph of façade). The façade of this handsome little building featured an elaborate entrance with segmental pediment bearing a legend and foliate decoration (below). It was demolished early in 1973.
BIRMINGHAM AND DISTRICT BANK See TOWN HALL
The BISHOP BLAIZE INN This inn, one of Hinckley's oldest, stood near the old Liberal Club in the now demolished block of buildings at the junction of the Borough and Mansion Street. It was probably seventeenth century, half-timbered with brick in-fill. Pulled down in 1931 as part of a road widening scheme.
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| left: The Bishop Blaize as it appeared about 1910-20. right: Drawing by Cicely Pickering, c.1940 (with Royal Oak behind) from A. J. Pickering, The Cradle and Home. |
The BLACK BOY Castle Street - see The RED LION
The BLACK HORSE 44 Upper Bond Street. Listed in Pigot's 1822-23 Directory. Still in existence, remodelled in mock half-timbering c.1950s (below).
The BLUE BELL INN Lower Bond Street, adjoining The Duke of Rutland Inn. A document of 6 May 1774 at LRO (DE 226/17/25) mentions premises 'lately known by the name of the Bell Inn'. It was advertised in the Leicester Journal, 2 July 1802, and appears in trades directories from 1809 to 1916. Photographic views show a substantial 3-storey 3-bay late 18th/early 19th century red brick 'lodging-house', which it remained until being purchased by the UDC in the summer of 1928 (Hinckley Times, 17 Aug 1928). It was demolished in 1931 for road widening at the junction of Mansion Street.
The BLUE BOAR 33 Regent Street (formerly Coventry Street). The Boar Inn (formerly the Kings Head) was available for letting in 1802 (Leicester Journal, 2 June). It appears in Holden's Triennial Directory for 1809-11 (located in Coventry Street) and in trades directories until 1922. It was a fish shop by 1930. Three-storeys with pedimented doorway (below).
BLUE BOAR YARD Typical jitty or yard of 19th century buildings formerly housing homes and frameshops (Lindley, Hinckley Town Trail, 2). There is an attractive drawing by Cicely Pickering - 'Seaming in the "Blue Boar" yard' - in A. J. Pickering, The Cradle and Home… (below). Slum properties here demolished in 1937-8 (Hinckley Times, 15 Oct 1937).
The BOARD A public house situated in the Market Place and listed in Pigot's 1822-23 Directory.
BOARD SCHOOLS 1878 Holliers Walk/Albert Road. Later Hinckley Council Schools, and subsequently Albert Road Primary School. A very good example of a Victorian board school, largely intact. It was opened, 2 September 1878, as one of the largest board schools in the county, with places for 545 children (enough for all those not yet receiving education in the town). The overall cost was £5-6,000 (although Wright's Directory (1900) put it at over £14,000). The architects were Messrs. R. J. & J. Goodacre of Leicester and the builders, Messrs. T. & G. Harrold of Hinckley (clerk of works, 'Mr. Friend of Blaby').
'The interior presents a very cheerful appearance. The fronts are of dressed red bricks of the neighbourhood, even in colour and of a good tone. The roof line is frequently broken from the eaves by gables and chimneys, and the roofs are all covered with brown tiles, which when toned down will have a very nice effect. A bell turret, covered with lead, surmounts the mixed school' (Hinckley Parish Magazine).
A new wing for the girls' school was opened in January 1883, and a further enlargement was effected in January 1887, making a total accommodation for 1,400 children (Wright's Directory, 1900). Also a master's house (above, left).
See Hugh Beavin, 'Two schools of the eighteen seventies serving the nineteen nineties', Hinckley Historian, 41 (Spring 1998), 15-18. 'Albert Road School' centenary was commemorated in the Hinckley Times, 16 and 23 June 1978.
BOND STREET MISSION ROOM - see DRUID STREET MISSION ROOM
The BOOT INN Coventry Street. Listed in Pigot's 1822-3 Directory (under Litchfield Street) and in trades directories until 1953-4. Demolished in 1954. Shown in old postcard of Fosse Harriers meet, c.1905 (below). Three storey, three bays.
THE BOROUGH One of the oldest of Hinckley's thoroughfares and once an independent liberty with its own officials.
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| The Borough, about 1905, with Congregational Chapel in foreground. |
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| The Borough, about 1905, with Pares Leicestershire Bank, right foreground, and the Union Hotel in the distance. |
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| The Borough about 1900, looking towards the Market Place |
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| A fine sixteenth century timber-framed house, pulled down in 1866 to make way for the new Congregational Chapel |
Above: Numbers 2-2a, a handsome Georgian house with Venetian windows to the first floor, demolished between March 1961 and March 1963, its site now occupied by Kwiksave (2 photographs in NMR, taken July 1960).
In August 1912 the purchase of properties in The Borough was announced in order to build 'a high-class picture house for Hinckley… equal to any in the Midland counties' which was to seat 1200 people and would be 'the last word in picture palaces' . The old properties to be demolished were the residence of Mr. J. Harrold and the shop of Mr. A. Brown (Hinckley Times, 24 August 1912). See HINCKLEY THEATRE AND PICTURE HOUSE
A Hinckley Times article of 24 May 1935 headed 'When walls were built of wattle and daub' described the demolition of two shops in The Borough to make way for the Hinckley & South Leicestershire Permanent Building Society premises. An accompanying photograph shows one wall with half-timbering and wattle in-fill.
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| Looking towards the Union Hotel, about 1950, with the Odeon Cinema to the left and W. Pickering & Sons on the right |
The following are the Dept of Culture, Media and Sport's notes on listed buildings:
3 - House, now shop (Fashion House). Late 18th century with 20th century additions. Red brick; slate roof and brick end stack to left. Two storeys with moulded eaves cornice and fluted frieze; a continuation of that on no. 5 (Castle Restaurant). Reduced proportions to second floor. One window front; glazing bar sashes with rusticated plaster lintels and raised key blocks. Mid- 20th century shop-front at ground level.
5 - House, now restaurant. Late 18th century with later alterations. Plastered walls, slate roof and brick end stacks. Three storeys with moulded cornice and fluted frieze continued on no. 3. Reduced proportions to second floor. Three bays; blind Venetian windows to first and second floors centre, glazing bar sashes to first floor left and right, and mid to late 19th century four-pane sashes to second floor left and right. The side windows have rusticated plaster lintels. 1930s tiled restaurant to ground floor, with later alterations (below, left and right).
['...in The Borough a house with two Venetian windows' (Pevsner, The Buildings of England, 178).]
8 - House, now office (Suttons Estate Agents). Roughcast walls, slate roof and brick end stack to the left in front of the ridge. Three storeys with moulded eaves cornice; reduced proportions to second floor. Three window front; glazing bar sashes with rusticated plaster lintels and raised key blocks. Late 20th century shop front at ground level with large plate glass windows.
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| From The Union Hotel, About 1940, with W. Pickering & Sons to the left and Lloyds Bank in the distance. |
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| Looking towards the Union Hotel with the Odeon Cinema to the left, about 1950. |
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| Borough facades about 1880-1900 (courtesy David Knight). | |
See Knight, David J. & Jenny, 'The Borough, Market Place and Regent Street in the Victorian Period; an Illustrated Guide', Hinckley Historian, 32 (Autumn 1993), 9-22.
THE BOROUGH: COMMERCIAL/INDUSTRIAL W. Pickering & Sons Ltd, Stationers and Printers.
Above: Pickering & Sons prior to rebuilding, about 1905
The company rebuilt its prominent premises in the 1930s. These were of three stories, the upper floor of seven bays, department-store style with attached pilasters and large windows. It housed a substantial printing works, with a retail store below.
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| left: view of W. Pickering & Sons, about 1940. right: In the early 1950s. |
Above: view of W. Pickering & Sons, about 1940.
To the rear the printing works stretched back a considerable distance. Amongst the papers relating to the rebuilding of Bank House (now the National Westminster Bank) in 1897-99 is an architect's elevation of the printing works from the bank side (below) (NWB Archive). The building was demolished in the 1980s to make way for Hansom Court shopping centre.
The BOROUGH THEATRE 1930 - see HINCKLEY THEATRE
The BOUNTY - see The GEORGE INN
BOWLING GREEN - see PRIORY HOUSE; SUMMER HOUSE
BRICK KILN HILL ROAD CUTTING William Parsons (1796-1857) carried out important road works in connection with his work a surveyor to the County and the Harborough-Loughborough Turnpike Trust. This included a cutting to carry the road up Brick Kiln Hill near the town (see Bennett, Leicestershire Architects(, 45).
BRICKYARDS. At the beginning of 1901 two brickyards and kilns were to be let adjoining the Ashby Canal (Leicester Journal, 2 Jan 1801) and, several months later, 'two brickyards with kilns, half a mile from Hinckley, on the Coventry turnpike road, adjoining the Ashby Canal, to be let' (Leicester Journal, 6 Nov 1801). In 1803 they were available again, together with a dwelling house in Bond Street (Leicester Journal, 7 Jan 1803). Another brickyard was situated on Barwell Lane, continuing in business until at least the 1950s.
BRIDEWELL - see HOUSE OF CORRECTION.
The BRITANNIA 15, Stockwell Head. Appears in trades directories from 1809 until 1911. Extensive cellars were exposed during the demolition of some neighbouring cottages in about 1928.
BRITANNIA YARD In 1873 the Local Board published a report on the dilapidated state of the properties here (Leicester Journal, 17 Oct 1873).
The BULL'S HEAD INN 6, Market Place.This was the second Bull's Head Inn. The first stood in the block now occupied by Barclay's Bank. It is described as 'formerly an inn' in a deed of 1659 in the Great Feoffment Accounts. See David Knight, The Accounts of the Great Feoffment Charity 1623-1759 (Hinckley Museum, 1998). It is noted in the Hurst papers at Leics Record Office from 1605 to 1711 (DE 226/7/1-7). Millers Statutes were held here in the years around 1789.
The Bulls Head was situated on the prominent site at the foot of Castle Street now occupied by the Woolwich Building Society, and was one of the town's chief inns, along with the Plough and the George. For some years until 1803, the garden of the old Priory House was let to its landlord, Mr. Hunt, (described as 'the principal inn-keeper of the town') who converted it into a bowling-green (Nichols, Leicestershire, 682).
George Canning, whose son was seeking treatment from the orthopaedic surgeon, Robert Chessher, stayed here in 1807, famously describing it as '...the vilest inn, in the nastiest town, in the dirtiest country that imagination can conceive'.However, later that year he took up residence at Castle Hill House, staying until April 1811, when he moved to nearby Burbage.
A naive engraving of about 1840 published by Thomas Short (above) depicts the Bull's Head prior to the addition of shop-fronts. The inn was regularly used for assemblies etc (see, for example, the Leicester Journal, 3 Oct 1800, in which an advertisement appears for such an event). It was also used for sales of property, auctions and other business purposes. It had over thirty rooms and stabling for more than a hundred horses. In the 1840s it acted as the excise and posting office. The Bulls Head was listed in trades directories until 1891. It was a substantial three-storey building of four bays with an elaborate wooden[?] portal and cornice supported by fluted pilasters (below).
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| The Bulls Head Inn. |
BURBAGE ROAD (now London Road). In 1872 the Local Board considered plans for twenty houses on Burbage Road submitted by Joseph Bloxam, builder, which were to stand fifteen feet from the road (Hinckley News, 13 July 1872).
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| Burbage Road about 1905 |
BUS STATION 1960 A new bus station was opened on 30 Sept 1960 (Hinckley Times, same date). This involved moving 3,700 tons of earth and laying 250 tons of hardcore. The loading bays took 3,000 tons of concrete and there were 1,400 yds of footpaths. At the rear was parking for 130 cars. It was claimed that Hinckley now had a bus station second to none in the Midlands.
[Abbreviations: AAS - Associated Architectural Societies reports. HUDC - Hinckley Urban District Council. LRO - Leicestershire Record Office. NMR - National Monuments Record (Swindon). NRO - Northamptonshire Record Office. RCHM - Royal Commission on Historical Monuments for England. TLAS - Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological Society. VCH - Victoria County History]
