Braunstone Town Heritage Warden's Report - October 2006

Firstly what is a Heritage Warden?
Heritage Wardens are volunteers that have the approval of their respective Parish or Town Councils and are co-ordinated by the Community Heritage Initiative of Leicestershire County Council, based at Holy Hayes in Birstall. They have a very informative web site at www.leics.gov.uk/celebrating_wildlife
The warden’s role is to protect and promote the various aspects of their local heritage, in all its forms, natural, historical, ecological, built and social. They report at least annually to their Parish or Town Councils and in return they will refer items of a heritage nature, in the committee agendas, for comment by the warden.
As a Heritage Warden I can act as a focal point for both distributing and receiving information regarding the environment and local heritage,

Secondly, what am I doing now?
The biggest “feature” of our area is the houses we live in, but what was there before?
I’ve been looking at the old Ordnance Survey maps dated 1888 to 1906 which show all our area to be fields, except for a few farms, Braunstone Lane, the Roman Road Fosse Way, Watergate Lane and Lubbesthorpe Bridle Road. So what remains today of these old features?
Superimposing the old maps with an up to date Ordnance Survey shows some very interesting details still there. The most significant is the line of the old parish boundary of Braunstone, this “disappeared” in the 1920’s when the City of Leicester boundary was moved to the line of Braunstone Lane. Most of the original boundary can still be identified in the rear gardens of the properties on: Brockenhurst Drive (south side); North side of Millfield school playing field; Edenhurst Avenue (south side); Monica Road (north side); Francis Avenue (south side); Through the footpath to the service road and then along the line of The Poplars. Quite amazing that, despite all the house building, the old parish boundary is still there.
I’m sure that when the opportunity arises we could re-instate the line of the boundary as it crosses over the grass reservation on Kingsway.
Other old hedge lines that I have so far identified are: The southern side of the car park at the Civic Centre, several remnants in Mossdale and Franklin parks and part of the south east boundary of Ravenhurst School, which incidentally stands on the site of the former “Twelve Hades Spinney”.
The next part of my project will look at the derivation of the road names in Braunstone Town and offers of any details will be most welcome.

I would like to thank Braunstone Town Council for allowing me access to their archive and Holly Hayes for the “wad” of initial documentation which goes with this job, plenty of night time reading there.

John Dodd
19th October 2006