September news from Coleorton Heritage Group

News from Coleorton Heritage Group

We've been pretty busy during the summer months:

Coleorton History Walks

The two walks during early September were a great success. 14 walkers joined us for the Sunday walk and on Thursday we had 15. Terry Ward kept us all enthralled with stories about the houses and people who lived, worked and played in Coleorton, including stories about his grandfather and various relatives. The rather racy stories about the poet Coleridge and his love-lorn drinking bouts at The Queens Head had us all chuckling, but the pictures of children and women working in the pre-Victorian coal-mines were shocking.
There was a former miner among the walkers who told us he used to walk from Whitwick to the Bug & Wink and then on to New Lount where they could have a shower before walking home again. Other walkers shared stories of their childhood in Coleorton. So we all learned a lot and had a great time too.

The walks were Coleorton Heritage Walkers after the walk

organised to be part of NW Leicestershire's "Hello Heritage" project which highlighted over 35 events and venues across NW Leicestershire and South Derbyshire. The wider publicity certainly drew people to the Coleorton walks. We will be holding further walks in the spring - so if you are interested keep a look-out on the website or the newsletter.

We also teamed up with St Mary's Church to publicise the Heritage event with St Mary's holding 3 open days for visitors to the church, which were well-attended. Elaine Oldham from the Heritage Group created a brochure for church visitors with highlights of the St Mary's history.

Parish Magazine articles

Each month we've provided a piece about some aspect of Coleorton history - a building, a family, a historic event. They have proved very popular. Recent topics include: history of local houses, Lucy & John Beckwith, who were schoolmaster and mistress for 37 years in 19th century and The Bakehouse.

Blue Plaque Launch event

Our next big event is the launch of the "Blue Plaque" project. This will be on Saturday 13th October, 2pm - 5pm at The Viscount Beaumont's School, Ashby Road, Coleorton. We will present the history of the first group of "Blue Plaque" candidates, including Viscount Beaumont's School, and the children from the school will be helping with the celebrations. We'll also be showing some of our other heritage projects. There will be light refreshments. Do come along.

Sharing our heritage

We're planning some events where we can share our interests and knowledge. These may be talks, possibly together with other local heritage groups, and/or informal get-togethers. Keep an eye on the website and on these newsletters. We also use Nextdoor to publicise events.

Group meetings

We have meetings roughly once a month which are really working group meetings. These are to plan events, publications and to coordinate research etc. If you would like to be involved with the Group in a hands-on way please come along. The meetings are publicised on the website: www.coleortonheritage.org.uk. The next one is on Tuesday 9th October, 2.30pm at 153 The Moor, Coleorton. Please email Sandra on heritagegroup@coleorton.org.uk to let us know you're coming.

We plan to send out newsletters by email every couple of months, and maybe more often if there is an imminent interesting item. Let us know what you think and if there are any items you would like us to cover. If you have friends who would like to be included please direct them to the sign-up form on www.coleortonheritage.org.uk.

If you have any questions, heritage/history-related stories or ideas please contact Sandra Dillon on heritagegroup@coleorton.org.uk

Copyright © 2018 Coleorton Heritage Group, All rights reserved.

If you would like to change how you receive these emails or stop them altogether please
update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.