Leicester

The history of Leicester

Transport History

For trains, you probably need look no further than the Railway Archive site, which is part of the Transport Archive, a site which covers the history of trains, planes, and canals. This site has links to several good websites which look at Leicester, including the excellent Great Central Railway Through Leicester by Nigel Tout. The Leicestershire Aero Club's website has a brief history of aviation in the area.

The East Midlands Oral History Archive contains numerous memories of bus, canal, tram and train workers and passengers. Search the EMOHA catalogue.

Areas In Leicester

• Highfields Remembered: The Highfields area of Leicester typifies many of the changes that the city has been through.
• Conservation areas: The Leicester City Council site describes the 23 conservation areas in Leicester.
• The Main Parks: The Leicester City Council site describes the parks and gives a bit of their history.
• The History of Braunstone is an EMOHA on line exhibition.
• The West End by Leicester City Council.
• Charnwood Street - a blog by Cynthia Brown.
• Belgrave, Braunstone, Highfields and Saffron Lane are looked at on the Story of Leicester website.

Oral History

The East Midlands Oral History Archive includes interviews from both the Leicester Oral History Archive and the Living History Unit collections. These interviews date from the early 1980s and cover a wide variety of topics: people speaking about specific areas, and eras, of the city, growing up in a variety of circumstances, working in different trades, leisure pursuits, politics, sports, different lifestyles etc. The City Council's Living History Unit published local history books using oral history, such as 'Wharf St Revisited' and 'The Story of the Saff', and a list of these books can be found here.

Covering 12 places in the city centre the Leicester Oral History Trail can also be accessed on mobile phones.

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