Saturday, July 16, 2016

In praise of eyesores: The Bull's Head, Tur Langton:


I seem to have reached the stage where I am revisiting local villages that I have already photographed for this blog. Today it was the turn of Tur Langton.

When I was there in 2010 the Bull's Head, though empty, still stood. You can see it in the photograph above.

It had closed around the turn of the century - a reminded that it is not so long since a village of any size could support two pubs.

Now it has gone, replaced by a chaste terrace with, I believe, some larger houses behind. The terrace is in the photo below.

But at least someone from the Markta site got inside the derelict pub before it was demolished,

The Bull's Head turns out to have an interesting history.

If you know your Michael Wood's Story of England, you will recall the Gartree, an oak tree situated to the north of the Roman Gartree Road and west of the ancient ridgeway running north to south, between Shangton and Illston-on-the-Hill.

Gartree is also one of the hundreds of Leicestershire. And, records This Was Leicestershire, it was at the tree that the hundred court met between at least 1458 and 1750.

After that, it relocated to the Bull's Head, the nearest convenient inn to the ancient meeting place.

Anyway, what I have learnt in my travels is that ever you see a building described as an 'eyesore' you should go and photograph it. It will have an interesting story and one day some well-meaning person will pull it down.


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