In this assignment, I will be writing about the history of certain attractions, buildings and statues situated in the city Centre of Leicester. Most of the information I have gathered to write this comes from an activity booklet that I completed by exploring the city of Leicester and writing down details from different monuments I saw. Leicester is a place that has lots of historical value that relates to the topic of travel and tourism, such as it once being the home to Thomas Cook, who founded the travel agency Thomas Cook & Son, who made his first excursion from Leicester to Loughborough in 1841. I will go into further detail in this assignment.
One historical attraction is Leicester Cathedral, also called Cathedral Church of St Martin, which has been standing for around 900 years, but restored around 100 years ago to keep it in condition. Although this church is still very commonly used a place of worship to many Christians, it’s also the burial place of King Richard III, which attracts many tourists each year. He was buried here in 2015 after his remains were discovered by an archeologist in 2012.
Another historical attraction is the Clock Tower which is found in the Town Hall Square. It was built in 1868 and its purpose was to aid in the controlling of traffic, as this used to be where six main roads around the city met, also being the first traffic island in Britain. Recently, it’s now often used a main meeting point as it’s easily recognizable to those who live in Leicester
When I visited this clock tower, I found that the four statues surrounding it represented Sir Thomas White, Ald Gabriel Newton, William Wigston and Simon De Montfort.
Sir Thomas White was the founder of Sir Thomas White Loan Charity which started in 1582, that offered loans to those who wanted to go into the business industry, at an interest-free rate. Gabriel Newton was elected as mayor of Leicester in 1382, after becoming an Alderman which is a member of an assembly or council. William Wigston became the Mayor of the Corporation of Leicester, also known for setting up a hospital in 1513, now called Wyggeston’s Hospital. Simon De Montfort was an Earl of Leicester, a nobleman and politician who led a revolt against King Henry III in the Second Baron’s War starting in 1263. He was the ruler of England for just under a year and there is also a university in Leicester named after him.
Other statues in Leicester include the Sporting Success Statue, near the Clock Tower, which show three sportsmen playing football, rugby and cricket. This is because it was Leicester teams who won trophies in these sports from 1996 to 1997.
The former Thomas Cook building can be found along Gallowtree Gate, and above the buildings you can see tiles that represent the trips planned by Thomas Cook himself. These include excursions to Loughborough, London and Scotland. As mentioned in the introduction, Thomas Cook made his first ever excursion using rail travel, setting up a rail line that took around 500 customers from Leicester to Loughborough that costed his customers just one shilling. This excursion has been marked in history because it was this that made rail travel grow enormously, once it was shown to be popular by all customers. From here, Thomas Cook then looked into other possible journeys that he could plan such as his next journey to Liverpool in 1845, and then how he realized that he could make a higher profit if he included accommodation in the price, which created the idea of a ‘package holiday’. You can see how far his work has spread as there are now Thomas Cook Airlines and Thomas Cook Retail which is a travel agency.
Leicester market place can be found on the right towards the end of Gallowtree Gate and is still very much in use. It sells a range of different products such as seafood at the fish market, clothes, vegetables, flowers, souvenirs and much more. The outdoor market is originally around 800 years old, however there is an indoor market too which is around 40 years old.
The Turkey Café is now a modern café-bar found on Granby Street; however, it’s been open since 1901 because in this era, Turkish coffee appeared to be very popular so was very different to most traditional cafés that would’ve been around, also making it more popular as it was different. The inside of the café has been designed exotically to fit in with the Turkish theme, along with a blue and orange turkey at the top of the building, despite Turkeys not actually be Turkish but American.