Urban Impressions: Leicester City

Sod the Clock Tower - this is Leicester

Leicester has a bit of an image problem – it hasn't really got one. Located somewhere between the Home Counties and The North in that most ill defined region, the east midlands, it is probably the least known of our big cities. And it is a big city – with a population of about 500,000 in the conurbation it is the 10th largest in England. But in both its character and its scale the city centre is disconcertingly uncertain if it is that of a big city or not.


Salisbury Road, the Leicester approach to history

Leicester has not always had a good press. Even W.G. Hoskins, the famous historical geographer long associated with the county, starts his description in the Shell Guide: 'Leicester is at first sight a totally uninteresting Midland city… It is indeed a desert of hundreds of acres of little red brick terrace houses put up in the last decades of the C19th (and) estates put up in the 30s and after that more modern sprawl for miles around.'

However it is actually a very interesting place, quite distinct from its rather anonymous hinterland. With its long history, very evident, at least if you look for it, its late expansion, clean industries and relative prosperity right through the C20th Leicester is very different from the big northern industrial cities. The nearest comparison is to Nottingham although without its Drama Queen of the Midlands stuff – Leicester's character is more subtle.


Festival of Britain detail, St Matthew's Estate - now a home for people from Somalia

Writing in the 60s Ian Nairn found Leicester's character difficult to define but he appreciated the quiet understatement of the city and praised its broad minded tolerance – a characteristic which has been important in its relatively successful transition to what will soon be the first majority non white city in the country.

Edge-city sprawl

It was the sprawl of Leicester and its impact on the countryside around which disturbed Hoskins. Although one of England's most historic cities it does its best to hide this. Your approach from the M1 is particularly depressing. Around Junction 21 is the huge edge-city of Fosse Park, a dark counterpart to the city centre and predictably just outside the City boundary. It takes its name from the Roman Fosse Way with the park bit presumably referring to the sea of car parking and token shrubbery around the boring out of town shopping complex and dreary offices which have done much to weaken the city centre economy.


Elevated concrete walkway between the bleeding stumps


The bleeding stumps of Leicester's history

The dual carriageway along the old Fosse Way leads you into the city centre at St Nicholas Circle, a huge roundabout and underpass constructed in the early 1960s. In the middle of the roundabout is the Holiday Inn looking almost Californian and suitably accessible only by car. This was the centre of medieval Leicester which until then had been a remarkable survival. It was wiped out quite casually as was the custom at that 'brave new world' time - a massive tragedy, bitterly recorded by the eminent local historian Jack Simmons.


Brutalism amid the ruins, cf. London Wall and Southampton

The slender elevated concrete walkway across St Nicholas Circle is now a period piece – an interesting memory of how the future was meant to be. It links the bleeding stumps of Old Leicester. To the north are extensive Roman remains and many artefacts in the excellent Jewry Wall museum. This is housed in a thoughtful building of the 1960s, cloister like with recessed arcade, which embraces the Roman remains with Jewry Wall itself and St Nicholas (Anglo-Saxon nave and Norman tower) to the east. It is a pity the long view is spoilt by naff new flats with curly blue roofs.


The historic enclave of The Newarke

To the south is St Mary de Castro founded 1107 with a wonderfully picturesque (rebuilt) tower together with the historic enclave of The Newarke. This is picture postcard stuff as long as you screen out the hideous cheaply built student flats nearby. The view of St Nicholas with Jewry Wall and the Holiday Inn may in time achieve iconic status.



Suburban delight

The old A6 road from London gives a much better introduction to the city. You approach through leafy Stoneygate, surely one of the pleasantest suburbs in England with many Arts and Crafts inspired villas including houses by Ernest Gimson, a Leicester man and one of the leading figures of the movement. Closer in is the slightly bohemian suburb of Clarendon Park. Past Victoria Park, London Road leading down to the Station is quite a grand street, although a bit scrappy in places. Leicester University is to the west. New Walk, a unique promenade laid out in 1785 and lined with (mostly) very handsome buildings, links the University area with the city centre – a masterstroke of planning.


One of many unique terraces along New Walk


A multicultural city

The route into Leicester from the north along the old Fosse Way is also interesting. Belgrave Road is a lively high street full of Asian shops and restaurants and unlike so many high streets not ruined by traffic and the dominance of highway engineering. It works really well and there are fantastic lights for Diwali. Sadly it is severed from the city centre by not one but two inner ring roads with flyovers.


Leicester arrival


An inviting port-cochere, but the road engineering is less than welcoming

The initial impression on arriving by train at Leicester is disappointing. The station was rebuilt by British Rail at its nadir and is lacking in presence, that is until you step out into the amazingly grand and long porte-cochere fronting London Road – 1892 by Trubshaw for the Midland Railway, with fine brickwork, faience lettering and a domed turret. This is used for taxis and 'executive parking' which is I suppose appropriate but passengers have to pick their way though the cars or scuttle down a little ramp to reach the street. Surely this impressive space should be renovated and converted to provide a stunning foyer for a big city station, as has happened in Trubshaw's Sheffield station.

The grand façade of Leicester station flanks no civic space but a massively over engineered junction of the inner ring road. Opposite are blank and apologetic 1980s offices (brick with turrets) that look as though they ought to be in Leeds. At least the hateful subway under the ring road has recently been replaced with a decent pedestrian crossing.


No Mean City


Leicester, Marylebone

Once you reach Granby Street it is immediately apparent that you are in a city of very impressive late Victorian and Edwardian buildings. The finest is the worryingly vacant former Midland Bank designed by Joseph Goddard (1870) in C13th Gothic style. Goddard was one of the big names who shaped Leicester's architecture. He also designed the fairly absurd Clock Tower at what was the epicentre of the city (at least until the Highcross shopping centre opened recently). Nearby and off the main street facing a modest square (a very typical Leicester understatement) is the delightful Town Hall (1875 by local architect Francis Hames) in a vaguely Queen Anne style.


Turkey Cafe 1901 by Wakerley

Leicester clearly flourished at the turn of the C20th and there are some fabulous art nouveau buildings including the Turkey Café on Granby Street (1901 by Wakerley), a riot of glazed terracotta. Coronation Buildings on High Street is a baroque Edwardian extravaganza by the same architect. Nearby is a domed former chemist shop with faience advertisements still in situ. As you investigate the streets to the west and then the north of the Town Hall the Georgian, medieval and finally Roman origins of the city are clearly revealed.


Fantastic Leicester Market


Market Place South

Streets like Friar Lane retain a coherent feel of the pre industrial townscape and in Silver Street or Cank Street you could be in a market town like Newark. The outdoor market is magnificent and huge, like something in Flanders. The permanent market structures limit your appreciation of the Market Place as a space but this is a price worth paying for the vibrancy of the market, surely amongst the best in the country. There is also a big indoor market built in the early 1970s looking remarkably like the Haymarket Centre (see later). The internal levels are a bit complex as at Sheffield Castle Market, which does not help it to function well.


Industrial zenith


Little Germany in Leicester

Leicester's industries were clean, unspectacular and diverse – its factories fitted comfortably into the town alongside the terrace houses, very different from cities with heavy industry. Many are modest, even utilitarian, structures but satisfying in their proportions and simplicity. Often they have terracotta flourishes at entrances. There are much grander factory buildings including the stunning Corah works at St John Street. A very fine cluster is found between De Montfort University and the Royal Infirmary (the distinctive iron frame Luke Turner factory of 1893 and the beautiful 1913 cream brick Harrison and Hayes building). Rutland Street is the nearest Leicester has to a commercial quarter like Little Germany in Bradford. It is now the Cultural Quarter (of which more later). Note particularly the extraordinary 78-80 Rutland Street (1923) with strong American influence.


Restored  former warehouse with Philadelphian origins


Alexandra House, "one of the finest [warehouses] in the country" - Pevsner


Sustainable town to Environment City

With few natural features to constrain it other than the River Soar (partly canalised as the Grand Union), Leicester developed as a very compact town. Its distinctive red brick terraced streets, often dominated by grand Board schools, churches and factories, are a very impressive urban morphology, although this has not always been appreciated. Harold Nicholson who was a local MP recorded 'We passed through Leicester and I gazed out on that ugly, featureless city, thinking how strange it was that I had for so long been identified with those brick houses with their iron railings and their clean little steps'. Even at the time this was a patronising view. The 'desert' of red brick terraces was in fact highly successful and has proved very adaptable. In our terms a very sustainable town and Leicester became Britain's first 'Environment City'.


Planning vision and bitter reality 

Leicester's heyday was the 1870s to the 1930s and this is very evident from the extraordinary flowering of the architecture of these years. With the outstanding exception of Stirling's Engineering Building at the University - one of the most thrilling structures in Britain - the architecture of post war Leicester has been a disappointment.


The rear of the Engineering Building embracing the former Lunatic Asylum

This was not for want of plans. Leicester was one of the first cities in the country to set up a Planning Department in 1962 under Konrad Smigielski. He put forward visionary plans for rebuilding the city centre with high level walkways and a monorail but little came of them. The City Engineer and Surveyor got there first with his plans for three ring roads and as we have seen the most destructive parts were then already under construction.


Ring road disaster scything through the historic fabric

The British Association 1972 publication on Leicester comments 'A walk in the central area … would give the impression that the city had undergone a recent bombardment by enemy action'. Leicester had actually escaped significant wartime damage. In the 60s Leicester seemed a go-ahead place and the Lee Circle multi storey car park, formerly with a Tesco and bowling alley beneath, is a reminder that there was some innovation and drama in the planning and design of that era. However the quality of most of the many 60s buildings is beyond banal.


Sculptural drama of the Haymarket Centre

The most impressive structure of the 1970s is the powerful office tower next to the Station, now a hotel but rendered ridiculous by painting the concrete blue and Lenny Henry purple. The two curved blocks of the New Walk Centre, one of 14 stories, are an impressive statement. The Haymarket Centre, clad in strident red brick, was for long reviled but now with hindsight looks quite impressive, especially in the sculptural drama of the main entrance. The integral theatre reached by the grand flight of steps is now closed, replaced by the Curve.


How to survive Mrs Thatcher

Corah & Sons former hosiery works - still impressive despite the decline

Leicester, a manufacturing city, was clobbered by Mrs Thatcher. The first major regeneration initiative was at Bede Island (between the Grand Union and the Soar). This had been the Great Central Railway (destroyed by Beeching - it would have provided a ready made HSR line to the north). The new offices and accommodation for De Montfort University are pretty bland and the new housing is particularly disappointing, as is the central open space – you couldn't call it a park.


Work, rest and sigh - Bede Island


Highcross and high living


John Lewis, as viewed from All Saints churchyard

Under Blair the Leicester Regeneration Company was set up which commissioned a more ambitious master plan for the city centre, inevitably involving themed 'quarters'. Quite a lot of this has been successful, especially the Highcross Centre. This extended the dingy Shires Centre with a whopping John Lewis store - an enormous shiny box designed by Foreign Office Architects and linked by a bridge across the ring road to another huge box - a car park dressed with some flats. Viewed from the churchyard of the Norman All Saints (marooned in the Waterside area and desperately waiting to be regenerated) the new store looks stunning. It is not quite so wonderful from the hostile ring road. There is a clever open square with posh shops and restaurants between the new store and the Shires which has added a cosmopolitan buzz to the city.


Reclaiming the streets


Pedestrianisation has been successfully extended

The awful ring road at least allows much of the centre to be pedestrianised and the City should be commended for its recent very excellent repaving designs with high quality materials and street furniture, which really lift the place. The planners are also grappling with the ring road legacy, although the recent Magazine Gateway scheme is a bit half hearted. This medieval gateway was surreally left in the middle of the ring road but this outrage has partly been redeemed by closing one carriageway to enable a new square to be created which re-unites the Magazine with the Newarke. It also provides a new focus for the formless De Montfort University campus but the layout and design is disappointing, still too deferential to highway demands and sadly not actually using the Magazine as a pedestrian gateway. Also the new Business and Law building is very blue and very dominant.


Tempering the ring road but failing to make use of the Magazine


Smooth Curve


Curves

The Cultural Quarter around Rutland Street is quite a success with its centre piece the Curve Theatre by Rafael Vinoly fitted cleverly onto a tight site and making a virtue of its constraints. The Phoenix Film Theatre on Midland Street by Marsh Grochowski suffers from being subsumed within a block of flats beyond the coherent townscape in the wasteland towards the ring road. The Office Quarter nearer to the Station shows some signs of success with the quite elegant Colton Square development. However the office market in Leicester is now mostly (and most unsustainably) out at the motorway junctions – thanks to Mr Pickles' predecessor and soul mate Nicholas Ridley.


Dragging the man of commerce out of the business park and back into the city


The curse of Unite

Plans for city centre housing have not fared so well. Although there are plenty of new apartments these are mostly the usual mean, standard designs piled far too high and without any place-making or quality public space. Even worse are the many hideous blocks of Lego-like student flats with their horrible cladding and gormless small windows. Many are strung out along the ring road reinforcing its dislocation and anomie - as bad as anything put up in the 1960s and a very bad call for Leicester.

Freeman's Meadow - the best new housing scheme in Leicester

As in most cities the market has not cracked how to deliver high density family housing in the centre. The best and really quite creditable scheme is Freeman's Meadow, next to Bede Island. This is an attempt at modernism, although arguably pastiche modernism, but provides a humane environment, with some quite good landscaped areas. Other schemes along the Waterside have not materialised, despite the temptation of the location - Reiss and Carluccio's just across the ring road in Highcross.


Contrasts and contradictions


Opposites attract at the bottom of New Walk

Leicester is a place of surprising contrasts especially between the market town scale of much of the city centre, the big city fin de siècle buildings and the monstrous insouciance about scale and context that characterises most of the new building around the ring road. Similarly there is a telling contrast between the confidence and exuberance of the early C20th buildings and the shoddiness of so much post war stuff and between the exceptional coherence of the streetscape in the core (south of High Street) and complete lack of any attempt at urban structure and design around the ring road.


So much interesting stuff to see


The refurbished cultural quarter

Many people dismiss Leicester as boring but it is a fascinating city although one that does not reveal itself easily. The place is stuffed with interesting buildings and I have only been able to highlight a few in this short blog. Although this does not do justice to the diversity and interest of architecture and planning in Leicester I hope I have illustrated some of the more important aspects of the urban character and context of an under-appreciated city which is well worth exploring.

Further blogs are planned looking at Leicester's universities and the Leicestershire hinterland 50 years after Ian Nairn's famous journey along the A5.

N.B.
A dazzling selection of beers and good food were served at The Pub, New Walk.

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References:

N. Pevsner – Buildings of England: Leicestershire
W.G. Hoskins – Shell Guide: Leicstershire
W.G. Hoskins – The Making of the English Landscape
G. Brandwood and M. Cherry – Men of Property (The Goddards)
B. Beazley – Postwar Leicester
N. Pye – Leicester and its region
Leicester City – The Quality of Leicester