The Spring 2016 Magazine Number 93 The Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society Image © redpix photography The Magazine The magazine and newsletter Contents of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical 4 Mary Annie Sloane Retrospective Society An exhibition at New Walk of the work of a former LAHS member and respected local artist Spring 2016 10 The Century Theatre Number 93 The closure of Snibston Discovery Park places a question mark over the future of the travelling theatre built in Hinckley and Published twice-yearly by the Leicestershire rescued from the Lake District Archaeological and Historical Society President - Michael Wood 14 The DMU Heritage Centre The Guildhall Elizabeth Wheelband, DMU Heritage Centre Co-ordinator tells Guildhall Lane how this new heritage centre was designed - around the remains of Leicester the church where Richard III’s body lay in state before his burial in LE1 5FQ Greyfriars. Distributed free of charge to all members, and available to non-members in electronic 17 Loughborough- Textile Town? from our websites: Dave Postles outlines the direction of his continuing research into www.le.ac.uk/lahs Loughborough’s socio-industrial past www.lahs.org.uk Editor: Stephen Butt 18 The Search for Richard III [email protected] Philippa Langley talks candidly to the LAHS Magazine © 2016 The Society and respective authors 24 2016 W.Alan North Memorial Lecture How to reserve your tickets for this important lecture to be given by Prof Andrew Wallace-Hadrill The Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society was founded in 1855 to promote the study of the history, 25 The Cotesbach Schoolhouse archaeology, antiquities and architecture of Leicestershire. News of a recently-opened and imaginative new heritage project in south Leicestershire Each year, the Society produces its Transactions as well as the Leicestershire Historian and two editions of the Magazine. PLUS: News of a generous bequest to the Society The Society also arranges an annual season of talks at the New Walk Museum, issues Reports from ULAS occasional publications and offers excursions and other special events. Latest acquisitions by the Society’s Guildhall Library For membership information and enquiries please contact the Membership Secretary, Nichols 100 - An update Matthew Beamish, by email to: [email protected] or 0116 252 5234. Membership Matters 3 LAHS URGENT News Transactions and Vol. 89 – A Notes Plea for Help! Our distributors have made a mistake and sent some members duplicate copies of Transactions volume 89. The W.Alan North Memorial Lecture As this error has combined with a reduced overall print run (a result We are delighted announce that the 1026 W.Alan North Memorial of our efforts to only print as many Lecture will be given by Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, copies of the journal as needed), this University of Cambridge. has resulted in very few spare copies. If any members have been sent The title of the lecture is Herculaneum : past perfect, future duplicate copies of Vol. 89, 2015, please return them to me at the conditional. The date is Thursday 10 March 2016 at 7.30 pm in address below. We will reimburse the Victorian Gallery at the New Walk Museum. you your postage costs. As we know this will be popular with our membership, we ask you Matt Beamish to please book your seats in advance. Please see Page 24 for full Hon Membership Secretary, details. LAHS, c/o ULAS, University Road, Leicester. LE1 7RH A major bequest for the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society In September 2015, the LAHS indicated - and the figure required several David Smith received a communication from a firm attempts to read in order to ensure that of local solicitors to advise that the there were no misunderstandings or As this issue of the Magazine Society had been mentioned in the misconceptions. We discovered that Mr went to press, the Officers of the will of a gentleman whose estate they John Scarborough has bequeathed to the Society were saddened to learn were managing. Society investments with a current value of of the passing of David Smith, £863,843.00. one of the Leicestershire They asked for confirmation that we Archaeological and Historical were a registered charity as this would In the last financial year, the LAHS enjoyed Society’s longstanding have a bearing on any monies that could an income of just over £25,000, and spent members, former Officer, come our way. It was further explained almost as much. Over the past five years, Honorary Minutes Secretary and the Society’s income has averaged about that the bequest was intended 'to provide Vice-President. a lecture each year on the High Medieval £18,000, and we have struggled to keep Period of the East Midlands to be given within that budget whilst maintaining our His funeral took place on Friday regular publications at a consistently high by anyone from Leicester University or 12 February 2016 at St Pius X other suitable qualified person ...' standard. Roman Catholic Church in Narborough. He was buried in We had no further communication until Although the fine detail of the bequest is just before Christmas, when the still to be indicated to us, including any tax the cemetery next door to his Honorary Secretary received a large for which we may be liable, and how much home. package of papers by recorded delivery. of this sum may be immediately available It was only after reading through many to us, this is a major event in the Society’s There will be a full written pages of legal notices, that the actual 161 year history. Needless to say, we shall celebration of David’s life and scale of the (pre-tax) bequest was be keeping the membership fully informed work in our next issue. of deliberations in the months to come. 3 Mary Sloane - A Portrait of the artist An important exhibition of Leicester born artist and one-time LAHS member Mary Annie Sloane (1867-1961) The Leicestershire Archaeological and In the 2013 edition of the Leicestershire Historical Society is delighted to be Historian, LAHS member SHIRLEY associated with this important exhibition AUCOTT wrote an article about Mary of a significant but rarely celebrated Sloane which attracted the attention of a Leicester artist. member of Mary’s family. Meetings and discussions followed which led to Born into a comfortable middle class life - negotiations with the New Walk Museum her father was a doctor at the Leicester and has resulted in this much-welcomed Royal Infirmary - Mary chose to pursue an exhibition. artistic path at a time when training opportunities for women were limited. She was educated at Belmont House School and ‘We are all agreed that then studied at the Leicester School of Art, continuing her training in Bushey, her contribution to the A Framework Knitter at work. Mary Hertfordshire and London. Arts and Crafts Sloane, Watercolour, 1891 Her energies were directed into her art, campaigns for womens’ suffrage, travel and Movement needs to be The exhibition opens on Friday 25 March a close friendship with May Morris, 2016 and continues until Sunday 3 July daughter of William Morris, father of the acknowledged and 2016 in Gallery 7 of the New Walk Arts & Crafts movement. Her interest in Museum. design was broad and covered medieval valued in jewellery, textiles and embroidery. Members of the Society are invited to a Leicestershire, as well private viewing of the exhibition on Bringing together many previously unseen as further afield.’ Thursday 12 May 2016 at 7.30pm as part artworks from private family collections, of the 2015/16 Lecture Season. The this exhibition will cover both her early viewing will be led by Simon Lake, Leicester period and later life in London. Curator of Fine Art, Leicester Museum Writing in the Spring 2015 issue of this Service. Magazine, Shirley also emphasised that Mary should be recognised as a pioneering woman who helped to forge a path for other women artists to follow at a time when their artistic talents were not always recognised, or valued. ‘Her watercolours and etchings of Leicester and Leicestershire scenes and its past trade of Framework Knitting are an Mary Sloane in 1891/92 by important part of the H. Steele and Co, 322 Upper Street, Portrait of a Young Lady, Mary Sloane Islington, London. county’s heritage.’ 4 Reports from ULAS Recent work by University of Leicester Archaeological Services Bradgate Late Upper Palaeolithic site (Lynden Cooper, Jen were likely left at their point of breakage. The tool classes and Browning, Matt Beamish, James Harvey) dispositions suggest that we have gearing up for the hunt (projectile point manufacture), re-tooling (replacement of November is a time of great change at the Park with the green damaged points) and subsequent processing of the catch trees transformed to autumnal hues and the beginning of their (numerous scrapers, retouched blades and piercers). If there is a leaf fall. The deer ended the rut and entered a period of palimpsest of activities this may well have occurred over a period gathering. The elusive red deer can be seen in large social of weeks during one autumn c 14,500 years ago. This seasonal groups of mixed gender – a herd of 33 deer were spotted on the model has some support from the findings from the Creswellian floodplain last week. Unfortunately for the deer this is also the cave sites: summer hunting of wild horse is known from the time when the culling programme restarts. Left : A solitary young stag feeding . Right: A successful stag parades with his harem on the floodplain. Perhaps similar behaviour occurred in the Late Glacial period and heralded the start of the hunting season where aggregations allowed successful kills.