Leicester artist and local historian Roger Hutchinson has produced a lovely history of the artificial Victorian ruler-straight section of the River Soar through Leicester.
It's called The Mile Straight: The fate of the Soar in the centre of Leicester.
'Fate' is presumably used in its true meaning: meaning an outcome or history; not in any tragedic sense.
It's a 40-page illustrated A4 publication in magazine style, rather than a book, and thus can be dipped into at will rather than read in a single stretch. (I read my copy over the last couple of weeks on my narrow dog reading table, and really enjoyed it!)
I'm not sure whether to call it a book, or a magazine. Roger has produced something quite unusual, even remarkable, in local history terms.
It's packed with historic illustrations, photos. stories, vignettes and maps, has a sprinkling of more modern pictures, and several of Roger's own illustrations, including the one pictured below, based on an old Victorian photo of the long-vanished Swan Mill Lock and Toll House.
Swan Mill Lock was originally somewhere a few yards west of the Mile Straight, about a quarter-mile downstream from Freeman's Lock. (click to enlarge) Now it exists only in a couple of scant old postcards and Roger's new illustration.
The book/magazine is in monochrome, which lends it a slightly homespun old-fashioned look. But treasure that old-fashioned look because you'll be brought abruptly to the present by the text, which liberally uses (ouch) gas-meter measures:
A "terrible summer storm in 1880 inundated Braunstone Gate to the depth of a metre"...
... is something that would have mystified the locals, and even today, to me, sounds foreign and dangerous. For measuring depth, fathoms are fathomable but - as far as Granny is concerned - 'metres' are measureless.
Still, this book is a rare treat, and if you are cruising through Leicester, it's well worth reading before you go. And during too. Try reading it overnight when (like Granny - pictured right, click to enlarge) you are moored overnight at Castle Gardens in central Leicester. You'll look out on the Mile Straight in the morning with new eyes.
Roger says he has given copies to "all city libraries, all the city schools and colleges, relevant council officers and councillors and local PM's". [Does he mean 'MPs'?]
He says it's also on sale (at £6) at the Tourist Information Shop in Every Street, Tin Drum Books, Kings Lock Tea Rooms, and Leicester Museums.
Or you can buy by post, sending a cheque for £6.50 (inc p&p, payable to Mac Associates (Leicester) Ltd) to 39 Hazel Street, Leicester, LE2 7JN.
That's a fair bit for a magazine, but there's no advertising and he's produced it all himself, from the research, writing, illustration and picture reproduction through to the printing.
I think Roger should consider selling it as a PDF download, probably for a pound or so. I think he'd sell hundreds, or even thousands, for no production costs.
Last year he produced an accompanying book/magazine about the nearby Aylestone Meadows. He writes:
A third book later this year has the working title of 'Frog Island to Belgrave Boathouse'.
In the longer term I intend to unify the three books into a single volume in full colour, including all the new information that the books are already stimulating, entitled 'Navigation Leicester'.
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