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The audio clips were recorded by Dave Kitto in July 2005. To listen to them you will need Windows Media Player 9 or 10, or similar software such as Winamp or Real Player. Audio clips are accompanied by the  icon
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At one time Dennis Street was known as Lower Main Street. This view shows the street has changed little over time. We see the police station, milliner's, the toffee shop, the butchers and then the Castle Inn; the farmhouse where John Aldridge organised Baptist services
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| A view of the same building in 2005
This elaborate building on the left, the corner of Denis Street / Lower Main Street, was once Josh Brewin’s Grocery. It is now a Working Men’s Club |
Opposite stands a timber and brick cottage built in the 1567. It was once a shop
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Years ago Wren Cottage was the local police station. A cell at the bottom of the house was used to hold the non law abiding
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Next to the police house is Weston Croft, 1757. This was the milliner’s
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Further along is the old toffee shop
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 Grange Road graveyard had been neglected for fifty years, until Brian and others renovated it in the late 1990s. Brian has developed a history trail through the graveyard, recording the interesting lives of many of the people buried there.
These include, for example, Henry Dennis, from Ticknall, b1818, d 1887. A local farmer who composed fifty-four anthems and six hymns in his lifetime and contributed to the establishment of a Day School in Hugglescote.
James Smith (d.1907 aged 78), was a local grocer and provisions person as well as a farmer, as well as a Justice of the Peace at Coalville police station when it was built in 1894.
James Passand (d.1814, aged 77) was a Hugglescote farmer who sold an extra plot of land in 1796 for £40 in trust for the society of people commonly described as general Baptists. The land is now the graveyard.
 Renovating the graveyard...
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Renovations to the graveyard in 1999 / 2000 included clearing large amounts of rosebay willow herb and other vegetation from all the headstones
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Many of the headstones were moved to the side and the area cleared and reseeded
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“William Stenson’s grave before and after renovation. William Stenson, a native of Coleorton, was a mining engineer. In the 1820s he started to sink a coal mine on a farm alongside Long Lane, a track from Whitwick. His borings and shaft sinking proved the presence of coal, which soon began the growth of an industrial town called Coalville. He was born in 1771 and died in 1861 aged 90 years. Excerpt from the “Grange Road Graveyard History Trail”.
 William Stenson...
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In 2000 and 2001, the area is completely improved
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Our thanks to Brian Moore for highlighting just some of Hugglescote’s varied history. You can find out more about Hugglescote’s past in Brian Moore’s two local village trails “Rural Peace in Hugglescote of the Past” and the “Grange Road Graveyard History Trail”. |
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