Ashby Road runs long the 'top' of the village, from the Hill Lane and Altar Stones Lane junction to Main Street. It then becomes Leicester Road, leading to the Field Head roundabout and beyond. It was the old turnpike road from Leicester to Ashby and then the A50 before the current A50 bypass was built. The maps are from 1884, before houses were built in any number.
This is the Ashby Road part, from the left of the junction with Main St. Near to the junction with Hill Lane, it boasts reputedly the first Council houses built in Leicestershire (1914 - so not on this map). As piped water was not laid on to the village until the 1920s, the supply to these houses was a well, or wells.
This is the Leicester Road part, from the right of the Main St junction and continuing to Field Head. The village cemetery is located further along, see the Cemetery page for more details.
The road was part of the Leicester to Ashby Turnpike, which came into being in 1753. On the Copt Oak Road corner is Raunscliffe, which was a blacksmith’s shop/smithy when horses were common transport. A tollgate to collect charges stood here, which later moved to Field Head. The first weekly stagecoach service to London started in 1764. It took a full day and cost about £1.25 for a seat inside, or about half that to sit on the top – that would be hundreds of pounds in today’s money. The Turnpike Trust was never profitable and was disbanded around the end of the 19th century, when county councils took responsibility for roads. The section from Field Head to Bardon Station was the first local road to be tarmaced, in 1924. This made it much more suitable for the new motor vehicles and more usable in the winter.
The road continues straight on and it is hard to recall that this was formerly the main A50. It became very busy once the M1 came through Leicestershire in the 1960s, and the Markfield Bypass opened in 1970.
The newly tarred road would have seen steam engines carrying beer from Burton upon Trent to the village pubs and steam lorries laden with stone from the quarries - which in turn were replaced by diesel and petrol engined vehicles. Such vehicles changed the way of village life, as goods could be delivered from further afield and villagers could travel further, so villages became less self-sufficient.
No. 35 Ashby Road looks like just one more house, but it is part of our history. Laurie Brown lived here. He was a haulage contractor who delivered coal in the 1920s using a Chevrolet truck. The truck could be converted to a bus with wooden slatted seats and a portable top, and was called “The Nancy” after his sister.
The garage here used to have much taller doors to accommodate the bus. Eventually he built up a big fleet of buses known as Browns Blue (as the buses were painted blue). He took over the other local firm, Warners, in 1948. Browns Blue was sold to Midland Red in 1963 after Laurie’s death.
Widdowson's haulage also had a site, the pair of houses at 45/47 Ashby Road. There was a fuel filling station between the houses and the first Council house. It was a Jet station in the 1960s and 1970s.
The postcard below dates from around the 1940s or 1950s. Ashby Road is in the foreground, with Leicester Road stretching into the distance. The Queen's Head public house (previously the Queen Adelaide) is the last building visible on the right, ahead of the junction with the top of Main Street. The taking of the photograph was a special occasion, judging by the adults and children who have turned out!
This is a close-up of the Queen's Head sign, with a Midland Red bus stop plate also visible.
Proceeding away from the main village, the name of the road changes to Altar Stones Lane at the Hill Lane/Copt Oak Rd junction. This is a reference to a vanished landmark, referred to in a 14th century document as “le auterstone”. It may have been a Roman altar stone, a boundary stone or a milestone, stood in a field somewhere round here and was covered in strange writing. It was removed in 1769 and probably broken up for road repairs. A very old man called Jarvis, living in Markfield in 1842 is reported to have well remembered the stone and its strange markings.
Further down Altar Stones Lane near the M1 roundabout, used to be the The Duke of Wellington pub. It started as the Crown, then the New Inn, then the Pied Bull and possibly later the Stamford Arms. It is now a private house.
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