Back In Leicester Again Part 7 — A New Walk And Beyond

10 min readJun 19, 2024

Saturday afternoon and I’m off to an old DSS staff reunion. It is a case of trying to find a slightly different way to get up to London Road opposite Victoria Park. I’m aiming to do most of the walk up the New Walk to fill in where the camera was taking blurry photos last year. Just a case of which streets to use to get there. And I decide to go up Millstone Lane, full of red brick monoliths.

And the Rutland & Derby, a pub used many times over the years.

There are new bars down here (or at least to me), certainly the Two Tailed Lion.

The Blue Boar looks like it has been here for decades (and the name would suggest it as well), but I can never remember having gone in there if it were there in the eighties and nineties.

Going up Pocklington’s Walk I pass the blue plaque to Fanny Fullagar on the wall of the register office.

And there are more pubs, Duffy’s, which I still want to call The Town Arms,

And the Distillery, which definitely wasn’t there when I lived in Leicester.

I pass Phoenix House again and start on the New Walk. I do take brief detours off it, first at King Street to head back to Welford Road and take a picture of the old Norton Street DSS office which is now Studyinn,

and at Holy Cross to go to Wellington Street and take a picture of the DSS office there, meaning I have passed all five of the old DSS offices I worked in back in the early nineties.

Revolution is in a lovely building, and was called something else when we used to come here back in the nineties, and I’m sure it had a little back entrance to it from Wellington Street.

All down the right-hand side (as I’m walking along) there are a series of regency style buildings, some painted in different and subtle colours. All of which are individually noted as Grade II listed buildings.

In fact the whole stretch from Holy Cross up to the bridge over the railway, and including all the buildings around Museum Square are listed buildings, with the exception of the IBM carbuncle.

There are seventeen separately listed Grade II and Grade II* buildings on that stretch alone.

Yet once over the railway, there are only four listings, one of which is the statue to Robert Hall in De Montfort Square. Two others are buildings around the square, and the other is the block of Queen Anne revival houses designed by Stockdale Harrison on the Upper New Walk.

Crossing over the railway, I climbed up onto the raised beds to take a picture down the track towards the station, and the grand arrival arches of the station. Looking down at the tracks, the walls to the right just before the bridge under London Road are locally listed.

On the corner on the other side of De Montfort Square is the moved and reassembled church of St Stephen’s which used to be on the site of the current railway station.

Opposite it are the Belmont Villas, which have an information board on them,

And further along them a blue plaque to Leicester’s Art & Crafts movement stalwart — Ernest Gimson.

At the end of the New Walk I turn right and pass another Stockdale Harrison building (his firm anyway, it was actually his son’s design) — De Montfort Hall, another Grade II listed building.

I walk around the outside of Sir Edwin Lutyens’ Arch of Remembrance, which is Grade I listed.

Before wandering across Victoria Park and out onto Queens Road for me to go to the LOROS music shop there for more record hunting. I did find one, so not a wasted trip. Coming out I did notice the cross and hanging baskets over a driveway between buildings on the other side of the road.

I go back to Victoria Park Road and note some of the massive houses along there,

Before crossing over and aiming to go into St James the Greater church.

Promisingly the front door is open, and I think that finally on one of my visits I’m going to get a look around inside, but I am thwarted again, as the inner doors are locked. I will get to see the inside at some point.

Then it was into the Old Horse for the reunion.

Five hours later as the sun was low in the sky, I had reached my sociable limits and started to head back to the hotel. There are some huge houses such as Wentworth

And Stoneville

Before I get to the Evington Footpath

Opposite the Grade II* listed gates and lodge houses to Victoria Park.

Was this where Vicky’s nightclub used to be. The steep steps down look familiar from seeing mates being thrown down them by over enthusiastic bouncers back in the eighties. They used to have the policy of a free cloakroom when you got in, only to charge you to get your coats out at the end of the night.

On the other side of the road and tall enough to stop the low sun getting in my eyes or the picture are the Victoria Park Villas,

And just a couple of buildings down is The Marquis Wellington.

On one corner of University Road is the Seventh Day Adventist Church, another Grade II listed building and former Victoria Road Baptist Church.

On the other corner is this impressive looking building.

And I didn’t miss it this time around, even with work going on to the outside of the ground floor, it’s the Top Hat Terrace,

With its collection of Tankie Smith’s disguises carved and painted on the outside.

On my side of the road is a metal arch I have never noticed before to Victoria Avenue.

Then it is past the Freemasons Hall, a locally listed building, with a blue plaque on the wall, and an information board on its railings.

Further along is the large Art Deco Beckville House.

On the other side of the road is the smaller Art Deco building, which doesn’t look as grand as Beckville House, but it is Grade II listed.

I continue past the train station, and head to go down Charles Street instead of the already well travelled (on this trip) Granby Street. At the top end is the former Charles Street Police Station, a wonderful Art Deco Grade II listed building.

Opposite it is the Rainbow and Dove,

And next to it on the corner of Northampton Street is the locally listed Minster House.

Continuing on I pass the Grade II listed Central Baptist Church,

And the (only) locally listed Art Deco behemoth of City Hall.

The upper part of Charles Street hasn’t got any statutory listed buildings, but the Royal Standard,

And Hannom Court are both locally listed.

I cut through the bus station and out to where the ABC cinema used to be, and is now a gap with murals to the former Savoy Cinema on what was a cut through, but is now Savoy Street.

I walk up past the no longer used Haymarket Theatre,

which along with the sculpture outside it are both locally listed.

On the way up to the Clock Tower I reminisce about this when it was Ainley’s records, and think about the money I must have spent in there.

The is an information board to Bailey’s, one of the old nightclubs which I never got the opportunity to get to.

And I’m back on the High Street again, and the sun has completely disappeared behind buildings now. The food delivery couriers are beginning to congregate. I stop to get food at Las Vegas chip shop, getting a kebab. There are others in there moaning about the quality of the chips, which brought back memories of having the worst ever bag of chips from there one night when I nipped out from the Dome. Rock hard and stone cold, which put me off chips for years. Some things it would appear never change.

I get back to the hotel and start to download the raft of photos from the day. And there is the most glorious looking sky over the north of the city.