DMU at 150: A walk through the past

Description: Historian Colin Hyde takes us on a tour of the streets, factories, pubs and shops which once formed part of what is now De Montfort University Leicester (DMU)’s campus, Leicester Royal Infirmary and Freemans’ Common.
Explore Walnut Street, Bonners Lane and more, get a glimpse of Filbert Street the former home of LCFC, Leicester’s medieval wall, and discover the pub which boasted a glass piano.
Colin Hyde is part of the East Midlands Oral History Archive. This talk is based on his book Walnut Street Past, Present & Future (1995). He kindly gave this online talk as part of DMU’s celebrations marking its 150th anniversary in 2020.
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[@astone1798]

Really interesting - such a dramatic change in a little over a hundred years. Love watching the evolution of an area like this and imagining the lives lived in those tightly packed streets, long gone now.

[@SimonLeicester]

Fascinating. Thanks for putting this together

[@anmoalthethi6760]

Thanks for sharing. Such an interesting journey along streets and buildings that I have known while growing up in Leicester. Quite a humbling experience as your presentation shows what was there before and the sweeping changes that had to be made to accommodate the Leicester that we now see. I have learned so much that I had no idea about previously. Makes you think about what a similar presentation would look like in the future with the abundance of images and video available to document the here and now.

[@stuartwagstaff6287]

I was born in 1965 in Leicester. Many memories of a lot of the areas mentioned and their development. Did my Degree at DMU in the 90s. Not sure everything worked well for the city though. The old business model of cheap accommodation, local work and spend you money in local owned pubs and shops, might not have been so bad. Most probably why the redevelopment could occur. Now we pay money to franchises and the community gets nothing. And we are rapidly heading back to housing crisis due to having to do multiple occupancy in over priced, under sized accommodation. However, Leicester poly, the subject, was / is a great legacy from the industry that once thrived in Leicester. Shoe, hosiery engineering etc.

[@theshedtramways]

Excellent, I lived in St Andrews est in the 70s and early 80s. As a 11year old I worked as a paper boy for buntings on the corner of walnut and Burnmore St. My evening round was the liberty factory taking papers the the staff at the machines on each floor.

[@khanduraj]

Rekindled memories of the area over the decades. I did a newspaper round for a newagenst in 1960s on Walnut Street on the now demolished St Andrews estate. Run by a former Leicester City footballer. Does anyone recall his name?

[@msimms-lp5qw]

Queens building DMU, has to be one of the ugliest buildings in the country, looks like an old stasi HQ

[@susannorthedge8584]

Dump of a City now