Thursday, September 24, 2015

He wasn't the Messiah, but he may soon have a plaque in Market Harborough

Even as a youth Graham had been concerned with major philosophical questions. Not content to room the streets of Market Harborough abusing freemasons like normal children of his age, Graham wanted something more, something deeper, something that would last.
From the sleeve notes for the Monty Python's Meaning of Life soundtrack album.

Exciting news from the Harborough Mail:
A planning application has gone in to Harborough District Council asking for permission to put a plaque on a house where Graham Chapman lived as a teenager. 
The plaque would be on the wall of Caffe Nero in The Square, formerly a house where the Chapman family lived in the 1950s. 
Lovers of comedy should be delighted: it’s a little bit of Monty Python in the very centre of Market Harborough.
Graham Chapman has already been honoured with a plaque in Melton Mowbray, but I have heard it suggested that he once lived in Haborough. If it was as a teenager, it would be interesting to know where he went to school.

Anyway, my photo shows the building where the plaque may go up.

Later. It turns out this story is nonsense.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

This fascinating building is the Victorian-era Grade II-listed Catherwood House. It's a rather intriguing mock-gothic building which, I believe, was commissioned in the late 1800s by another of Harborough's favourite sons, Nobel Prize-winning physicist William Bragg.
More recently, of course, it was a branch of Lloyds Bank before becoming Caffe Nero in 2006. The real Harborough history boffins such as Bob Hakewill and Brian Johnson know plenty about Catherwood House but I don't think even they realised they was a Monty Python connection!
Keep up the good work Jonathan, your blog's always pleasant reading.
By Alex Blackwell, former Harborough Mail deputy editor