Exploring four hidden Leicestershire sites with What Once Was

The first site - the Royal Observer Corps post - is at Billesdon, near the old prisoner of war camp I once explored myself.

I won't reveal what the other three are, but they're all worth seeing.

Man admits to spreading porn images around villages

BBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award for this tale of life in High Leicestershire:

A man has admitted to leaving pornographic images around three Leicestershire villages over a "significant period of time".

Hundreds of the images, which were printed onto A4 paper, have been found around Billesdon, Tilton on the Hill and Hungarton, police said.

Officers arrested a 62-year-old man from Oakham under the Indecent Displays Controls Act 1981.

Reader's voice: What this post needs is a pay off involving a village in that part of the county.

How about: "It's a good thing he didn't leave those images in Tugby"?

That'll have to do.

Save the 747 Leicester to Uppingham bus

On Saturday I arrived at St Margaret's bus station in Leicester with the intention of catching the 747 bus to Houghton on the Hill.

But it runs only every two hours and there was still an hour to wait for the next one, so I went to Mountsorrel instead.

Then today came news that the service, which runs from Leicester to Uppingham, is to be withdrawn altogether.

My old friend Simon Galton, leader of the Liberal Democrats on Leicestershire County Council, is leading the campaign to save the route.

He writes on the Leicestershire Lib Dems Facebook page:

Residents in the villages along the A47 between Leicester and Uppingham face loosing their bus service after 8 Jan following a decision by Centrebus to axe the service. 

This is the only remaining bus service serving places like Houghton, Bushby, Billesdon and Tugby. People depend on this bus to get to work, school, college and the doctors surgery in Billesdon. 

If no other operator comes forward the only hope is that Leicestershire County Council and Rutland County Council will use their powers to subsidise a minimum level of service. Please sign the petition to support these villages retaining a bus service. It cannot be acceptable for a major A road like the A47 not to have a bus link to Leicester. 

If having a bus service on the A47 is important to you, please sign this petition.

I can remember when this route ran between Leicester and Peterborough every hour. But it has been cut back and reduced in frequency over the years.

The result is that people (like me on Saturday) are less likely to use it. There's a moral there.

Touring Leicestershire with W.G. Hoskins

A drive around East Leicestershire following Tour 1 from the 'Touring Leicestershire' booklet by W.G. Hoskins, 1948. Villages and places on the route include Great Stretton, Kings Norton, Gaulby, Skeffington, Tugby, Launde, Withcote, Tilton and Billesdon Coplow.

A mud wall in Billesdon

Time for another one in my very occasional series on the mud walls of Leicestershire (also called cob walls).

This one is in Billesdon, where ironstone and bricks made in the village can both be found.

The Old School, Billesdon

George Villiers, later the Duke of Buckingham and a favourite of James I, was educated in Billesdon between 1602 and 1605. (He was born in 1592.)

Most authorities dismiss the tradition that George Fox, a found of the Quakers, was educated there some years later. (He was born in 1624.)

The Old School in the village does not date back quite that far. It was put up by William Sharpe of Rolleston in 1650.

Nineteenth-century antiquarians feared its loss, but - no doubt much restored over the centuries - it still stands today.

Former prisoner of war camp, Gaulby Lane, Billesdon

Billesdon's Woodland Pool nature reserve can be found just outside the village on Gaulby Lane.

With woodland and a pool it is a pleasant spot, but it has a surprising history.

Because the reserve occupies the site of a wartime prisoner of war camp that held first Italian and then German prisoners.

The remains are labelled and, according to Derelict Places, there is a hut still standing (which I failed to find). Another is said to have gone to Thurnby to be used by a youth club.

And the pool was dug out on the site of the camp's football pitch.

After the war the camp housed people displaced by the war.

It is a sobering thought, on a day when refugees are being bundled out of Europe, that they once found a home among the green hills and ridge-and-furrow fields of High Leicestershire.

Tom Plumb: From wicket-keeper to the workhouse

I had lunch at the Queen's Head in Billesdon today a pleasant Marston's pub. The village trail leaflet tells an interesting story about it:

In the late 19th century, the landlord of the Queen’s Head was Tom Plumb, the famous All-England wicket-keeper of the 1860s, described by W.G. Grace as ‘about the best wicket-keeper of his time.’ 

He coached two Billesdon players who went on to play for Leicestershire: spin bowler William Finney and fast bowler Arthur Woodcock. Woodcock achieved a national reputation as the fastest bowler in England, and his Wisden obituary opined: ‘how much Leicestershire’s promotion to the first-class [in 1894] was due to his bowling is a matter of history.’

Grace wrote about him at some length:

Thomas Plumb was born at Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, 26th July, 1833. His height was 5 ft. 10 in.; weight, 12 St. As a wicket-keeper he was not considered quite up to Lockyer or Pooley's form, although I cannot account for it; possibly it was owing to his connection with Buckinghamshire, whose position as a county was not first-class. 

I am inclined to believe if he had had greater opportunities for displaying his powers, or if he had been connected with a crack county, he would have taken quite as high a position as either of the famous pair I have just mentioned. Anyhow, I am convinced that he was a great deal better than he was thought, and about the best wicket keeper of his time against fast bowling. 

His style was quick and neat, without the slightest show; and while as keen as anyone, he never kept knocking off the bails uselessly as I have seen others do.

And you can find Tom Plumb's career record on Cricket Archive.

But there is a sad story about him which did not make my trail leaflet. You will find it in his obituary in the 1905 Wisden:

The death took place on March 29th of the once-famous wicket-keeper Tom Plumb. For some years he had been in very poor circumstances, and he passed away in the workhouse at Northampton.

Lord Bonkers adds:

People moaned about Kerry Packer and Tony Greig, but the improvement they secured in the lot of cricketers means that it is many years since I have heard of a wicket-keeper (even one from an 'unfashionable' county) entering the workhouse. 

I did once see Bruce French selling matches in Worksop marketplace though.

84 per cent Yes vote in Billesdon

Church Street, Billesdon © Andrew Tatlow

No, Billesdon is not an enclave of Scottish Nationalism. It is a village in Leicestershire and it had its own referendum yesterday.

In it, local residents voted overwhelmingly in favour of the proposed neighbourhood plan. The 84 per cent Yes vote came from a turnout of 55 per cent.

I hope the plan will give them real control over the development and preservation of their village.

Another Harborough District councillor quits the Tory group

The Harborough Mail reports the resignation from the ruling Conservative group on Harborough District Council of Colin Golding. He is the member for Broughton Astley's Broughton ward.

The paper has his resignation statement:

“I wish to make public the fact that I have withdrawn with immediate effect from Harborough District Council Conservative Group and for the remainder of the current council term intend to sit as an independent member representing Broughton Astley (Broughton ward). 

“I regret that my personal standards and those of certain members of the current Conservative administration do not align and I cannot compromise my principles by continuing to be seen to support an organisation which operates with such individuals at the helm. 

“I have increasingly more issues outside my council role which demand my time and energy and it is my current intention to represent the residents of Broughton ward to the best of my ability for the remainder of the council term which expires in May 2015.”

Note too the splendidly pompous response by the Tory group leader.

Colin Golding is the second Harborough councillor to resign from the Tory group is recent weeks. Steve Charlish from Billesdon did so shortly before he was convicted of assaulting a woman by beating.

Billesdon Coplow

"Billesdon Coplow is a wooded knoll, 625 ft. high, and is a conspicuous landmark in east Leicestershire," says the Victoria County History. "To the south it is visible for 20 miles."

There is something the split in its centre that has always reminded me of a freshly baked loaf. And on Saturday, as I was trudging across the fields from Barkby to Beeby, it was certainly conspicuous to the South East, though not half as close as the zoom lens makes it appear.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: My new friends, the Conservatives

So what are our Conservative friends like? It has been what the young people call “a steep learning curve” for me as, until recently, I generally saw Tories from the saddle as we hunted them across the fields of Leicestershire and Rutland. I recall a good run a county councillor gave us until he went to earth near Billesdon Coplow...

Anyway, in the spirit of cross-party co-operation, I here offer pen portraits of a few of my new colleagues.

My older readers will recall that popular programme from the early days of the moving television, “Have a Go with Eric Pickles”. With his catchphrases “Are yer courting?” and “Give him the money, Barney”, Pickles soon became a household name. He disappeared from our screens amid persistent rumours that he had eaten one of the Dagenham Girl Pipers, but later resurfaced as MP for Brentwood and is now Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

George Osborne, a scion of the biscuit dynasty, made his first worker redundant at the age of 10. His parents must have been so proud.

A little bird told me that, had the Conservatives won an overall majority, then Nadine Dorries would have been prevailed upon to accept my Outer Space portfolio. I take it as a tribute to Nick Clegg’s skill as a negotiator that he was able to win the post for a Liberal Democrat.

Iain Duncan Smith is known as “the quiet man”. I am told that he intends to revolutionise the Social Security system in Britain, but am unable to hear a word he says.

In 1977, at the age of 8, William Hague brought the Conservative Conference to its feet with his peroration: “I hate Socialism and, besides, you lot will soon be dead anyway”. Thirty-three years later, now aged 87, he is Foreign Secretary. Isn’t it strange how things turn out?

“Do you know Theresa May?” a civil servant asked during one of my first visits to my new department. “No,” I replied, “but I am grateful for the tip.”

Earlier this week

Autumn has come to Rutland
At the first hint of an asteroid