Monday, November 27, 2017

The lodging house at 55 Britannia Street, Leicester


The ghost sign would have done me, but the terracotta panels were a wonderful surprise.

As one of the city council's heritage boards, which I was impressed to find at the end of the road explains, 55 Britannia Street was a lodging house opened in 1889 to accommodate 129 working men in large communal bedrooms. It was run by the Wilkinson family until it closed in 1946.

The panels show rather stereotyped representatives of the four nations of the British Isles, inspired by the name of the street or to emphasise that all were welcome within.




4 comments:

leo_sprayer said...

Great ghost sign! - not seen that onebefore, must go and have a look one day. Any Idea what it says, probably better to try and decipher it with the naked eye. 'Archpres****???'

Unknown said...

My grandfather James pawley was there in 1911 hew as a coal miner

Anonymous said...

Are their any records of people who lodgedthere my grand father was one James William PAWLEY he was a coal miner

Jonathan Calder said...

That I don't know. You could try the Leicestershire county record office.