Vanished Leicester: King Richards Road

Copyright © Dennis Calow

Alan Craxford remembers King Richards Road in the Fifties

King Richards Road was a busy thoroughfare and bus route and it was also the main centre for shopping and our community life. In an age before the supermarket there were enterprises of all trades, shapes and sizes.

And then describes its demise:

There had been waves of slum clearance programmes in various areas of the city from the years after the first World War. Major demolition and redevelopment schemes were drawn up in the 1950s and by the middle of the 1970s some 12,500 slum houses had been removed. Improvement to road links were also in demand. 

In the West End, structurally sound housing was compulsorily purchased by the Council in 1970 to enable 'outworn terraces' to be cleared and King Richards Road to be redeveloped into the A47 western approach road.

More photographs of vanished Leicester in the University of Leicester Special Collections.