Talk:Leicester

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[edit] Photos

I'm going to go and take a bunch of photos of stuff in the city centre.

So far I have on the list - Cathedral, the Market, Clock Tower and probably Gallowtree Gate and Humberstone Gate, Universities, the Station, the Guildhall, Jewry Wall, the River, the Shires, the Haymarket, St Martins', the Town Hall. Anything else?


Go for New Walk Museum, the Westcotes buildings like Pex, National Space Centre, the Jain Temple and the Phoenix.

How about photos of the magazine, St Mary de Castro, the old remains of the castle next to Newarke House museum, the train station and the view down London Road with Bradgate Park in the distance.

Maybe you could get some of Spencfield Lane near Downing Drive and/or some pics of inside the Shires. I was wondering if you could also get one or two of the area near Abbey Park and Bradgate Street, not to far away. The the idea for the National Space Center is a great idea. Cheers - Storms991- 1/3/06

  1. What about Abbey Park? The festival should be on soon (or have we missed it)? StormCloud 12:26, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Countytownness

I was under the impression that Leicester hadn't been the County town of Leicestershire for some while - and that Glenfield had that honour. Does anyone know for certain? -- Morwen

The headquarters of the County Council is County Hall, Glenfield, Leicester, LE3 8RA. Looking at the map, County Hall is (just) outside the boundaries of the City of Leicester, which is a unitary and is not administered by the County Council. So I guess the "honour" belongs to the parish of Glenfield rather than to Leicester. The "old counties" traditionalists might disagree. --rbrwr
I think, sociologically, the debate is whether the county town is the administrative centre of the region, or the commercial/religious/'traditional' centre. Having lived in Glenfield for most of my life, I can honestly say that it is neither a commercial or religious centre! County Hall is self contained, many employees do not live in Glenfield, and do not use what limited services are provided. So, personally, I would find it more accurate the describe Glenfield as the "administrative centre" rather than the county town. --TJWUK01

Taken from the history section:

It was then called after Lir, the British sea-god, who became the King Lear of the legend on which Shakespeare based his tragedy. "He (King Lear) it was", wrote Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12th century, "that builded the city on the River Soar, that in the British is called Kaerleir, but in the Saxon Leicester (Leirchester)."

This doesnt make much sense, whats it on about G-Man 01:03, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I believe it is saying that, according to this legend, Leicester was founded by King Lear and hence was called Leirchester (The Roman Town of Lear). The fact that this was written by Geoffrey of Monmouth immeadiate disqualifies it as fact, in my opinion.
I think the true origin of the name may come from the ancient name of the River Soar. In 753, the town was known as 'Legro Ceaster' (in other words, Roman Fort on the River Legro). Legro Ceaster is recorded later, followed by Legra Ceaster. By the Doomsday Book, the town was referred to a Ledecestre. In my opinion, this is a more plausable evolution of the name than the one stated by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It is concievable, of course, that the River Legro was named after a celtic god called Lir - but King Lear had nothing to do with it. --TJWUK01

[edit] slightly unrelated, but worth a look

This article is about Harold Hurst a resident of this town. "Hurst, the son of a village builder, was a man of modest means and background. Born in 1880, his family hailed from Leicester, England, where his family had roots stretching back for some three centuries.

Determined and dedicated, he left school at age of fifteen and worked as a carpenter, and learned a bit of chemistry on the side. By the age of 20, he had - against all odds - earned a scholarship at prestigious Oxford, eventually winning honors in physics despite no mathematical training."

"From 1951 to 1956, Hurst, then in his seventies, published a series of papers describing his findings. These findings roiled the scientific community and invited both criticism and praise." [1] The last article under this link.


[edit] Ethnic minorities

There appears to be a Typo as to the year when Leicester is expected to have a non-white majority. Under General Information: "non-white . . . census in 2011." and in the history, Post WWII it says: "Leicester is expected by 2012 . . ."

What is it? 2011 or 2012?

The following is someones opinion, he leaves no source: "Dubious honour" is not NPOV, and although Leicester may have a non-white majority in a few years, it's also probable that white people will remain the largest ethnic group.

That was me, and it's simple arithmetic (I shouldn't have written "probably"). The CRE estimate is that by 2011, 50% of the city's population will be ethnic minorities[2], which means 50% will not be. Since there are several ethnic minority groups, the non-minority group (i.e. white people) will still be the largest group. --ajn (talk) 21:03, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History

I know the market and Gallowtree Gate mark the location of the old city walls, but were these the same as the Roman walls? I've removed the claim about Roman street layout until we can find some evidence. I've also chopped some of the history section around and will do more tonight - there's lots of good stuff there but it needs rearranging and I'll also look up one or two books and pamphlets I have at home. --Andrew Norman 16:12, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

There seems to be some confusion as to whether the martyrs mentioned in Bede are from Caerleon, Chester or Leicester. It seems all three places had cults of Mithras and their latin names were similar: Legionum Urbs was the name for both Chester and Caerleon, and Legoria was Leicester's name. Which might explain why it isn't clear which is the place mentioned. I'm using a translation of Bede by Rev. William Hurst, in 1814, other translations might have different answers. Can anyone help by giving some information which could sort this out? It might be that the information I've added about the martyrs Aaron and Julius should be moved to the Caerleon/Chester pages or reproduced there (with a caveat saying that it is only "possibly" the location for the martyrs of course). --Amatire 15:12, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Added short section on Civil War. Richard Holmes (military historian) War Walks program showed there are still cannon ball marks on the Newarke. JRPG (talk) 09:34, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Annexing stuff

Have an interesting old map here. It shows the following entities

  • St Mary's, including West End of Leicester
  • St Margaret's, including Highfields
  • Abbey Parish -> part to Beaumont Leys in 1892(!), then all to Leicester in 1935
  • Evington - part to Leicester in 1892, then in 1935 split between Leicester and Oadby
  • Knighton - split between Leicester and Lubbesthorpe in 1892 (!), then the part that was in Lubbesthorpe to Leicester in 1935
  • Aylestone - same as Knighton
  • Parish of Braunstone - part to Leicester in 1935
  • Braunstone Frith - to Leicester in 1935
  • New Parks - to Leicester in 1935
  • Freak's Ground - to Leicester in 1892
  • New Found Pool - to Leicester in 1892
  • Leicester Frith - to Leicester in 1935
  • Gilroes - to Leicester in 1935
  • Anstey - part to Leicester in 1935
  • Beaumont Leys to Leicester in 1935
  • Birstall - part of Leys in 1892, then all to Leicester in 1935
  • Belgrave - all to Leicester in 1892
  • Thurmaston - part (South Thurmaston - "Thurmaston Urban District") to Leicester in 1935
  • Humberstone - part to Leicester in 1892, all in 1935

Of these, the Friths, Gilroes, New Found Pool are listed on visionofbritain.org.uk as "extra-parochial areas"

Morwen - Talk 22:56, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Recent titles won by local teams

The Guinness Premiership article suggests that Tigers did not win (the then Allied Dunbar Premiership) in 1998. Anybody have a source for this information? Guinness 23:38, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Leicester First

Anyone got a reference on the first roundabout fact. I can't find any info on it.

Jimmmmmmmmm February 23 2006 22:47

I think I found this on bbc.co.uk somewhere, but can't find it again now. I'll have a look again when I get more time. I also saw the information in http://waterheat.tripod.com/id1.html (or more specifically google's cache of this page). Guinness 18:24, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
Also found the same here, although it doesn't claim to be an authorative source http://www.answers.com/topic/clock-tower-leicester Guinness 18:29, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
And another one http://www.webplay.org/themes_leic_why2.php Guinness 18:31, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Famous people

George Fox, as far as I can tell, has no connection with the city itself - born in the county. Lady Jane Grey is I suppose a little more justifiable, given that her home is visible from the city. What's Alastair Yates's connection? There's a list at University of Leicester which needs to be raided (Philip Larkin, Alec Jeffreys, etc). --ajn (talk) 09:17, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Quite a lot of the 'Famous Leicesterians' are from outside of the city. I'm not sure what the convention is for this sort of list - would it be better to move some of them to a section on the Leicestershire page? --Mike2121212 18:37, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Article

This has been nominated as a featured article but has been turned down. Apparently is to listy and the intro isn't long enough. Anyone who can help me sort this, I would love to see this make the main page. Jimmmmmmmmm 10:47 13th July 2006

[edit] Urban area?

Somebody put the urban area figure for Leicester as 441.000. I know this figure came from the ONS urban areas headcount thingy, but I'm almost certain it is wrong, as it appears to count Leicester's urban area twice. A more reliable figure is about 330.000. what does anyone else think. G-Man * 15:42, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

The city itself has a population of 280k according to the city council website, 319k according to the government. Adding up the figures there gives a population of 416601, the 441213 is from here, I'm assuming the "missing" 25k is from various little villages. The figure doesn't seem unreasonable if you are including Oadby, Wigston, Glenfield, Thurmaston, Birstall, Leicester Forest East, various bits of other suburbs which poke out into the county and some of the surrounding towns (Kirby Muxloe, Cosby, Groby, Whetstone, Ratby), all of which are in the Leicester Urban Area. Where is your "more reliable" 330k coming from? --ajn (talk) 15:59, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Waste Management

Suggest the page has an extra section about waste management and recycling in the city. Snowman 17:17, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Closest cities and towns"

Is there really any need for this information? Especially considering that a few of the places listed aren't even that close (>100 miles) 87.114.128.39 16:34, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Yup. It's pointless and it's gone. Atraxus 16:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Polish

The following link discusses the post war immigrations of Poles into Leicester. [3] In the 1960's, Leicester underwent development under the creative vision of a Polish architect, likely to be the architect mentioned in the article. I think this should be mentioned in the Leicester article. I know little about it, I think it should be noted, and would benefit from further development from Leicester Wikipedians.

--Minotaur500 20:06, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Leicester/Leicestershire

There seems to be a lot of content being added to both this and the Leicestershire article recently, resulting in considerable duplication. This article links to the one about the county, so can I suggest that content added here should be specific to the city. Thanks.--Michig 14:07, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Demographics

Unlike most articles about towns and cities, Leicester does not contain a section on demographics, this is an extremely important section, describing the people of the city. Also the fact that Leicester is soon to become the only place in Europe where indigenous people are a minority, has not been made much of a point of, and is intertwined in the history section for some reason. Someone please consider the addition of a demographics section, which will include age, gender and most importantly for Leicester - ethnicity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.107.203.212 (talk) 20:36, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Next.gif

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BetacommandBot (talk) 23:01, 2 January 2008 (UTC)