ILC 1950

The Illustrated Leicester Chronicle, August 19 1950

OLD AND NEW AT HARBY

HARBY is the meeting place of the ancient and the modern. A thriving little community with its inns, Stilton cheese factory, church, and village store-cum-post office, it has many points of unusual interest.

The cottages are probably originally 15th century, still retaining an amount of the mud facing which was used at that time. Recently they have been strengthened with brick and concrete in some places, and the original thatch has been replaced by tiles or corrugated iron. Inside they are surprisingly small. The door itself can hardly be more than five feet four inches in height and the largest room— the sitting room and dining room incorporated—no bigger than 12 feet by ten. The structure of the interior is made even more cramped by its construction. Wooden beams run from wall to wall at the height of a man.

Reconstruction inside the cottages has replaced the ladder which ran to the bedroom above the ground floor, by a flight of wooden stairs. They are steeper than normal and emerge in the bedroom through a hole in the floor. The bedrooms themselves are even more cramped than the ground floor rooms because of the angle of the roof.

Electricity has been installed in most of the cottages in Dickman's Lane, Harby, and on one a television aerial rears itself incongruously. Piped water has also been added, but any visitor to Harby may still think that life in the "golden age" of the 15th century was slightly cramped.

At the Nag's Head, Mr. Field-Richards, once a test pilot with A. V. Roe, the aircraft makers at Langar, nearby, has found that the inn had many interesting features. An old building which has been repaired many times, but still contains a large proportion of original beams and walls, it was probably at one time a small monastery. Later, because it was on the main highway it developed a tradition of highwaymen. An interesting point is the level of the floors which can be altered by successive builders. In some cases the great floor beams are now almost half way up the wall.

Illustrations to this article, click on the thumbnail picture to go to the full size with caption.