A gate ….. a lost spire …… and the bit we missed

 When you are a Leicester tourist you will miss something.

St Mary's Gateway, 1926

And we did, which was St Mary’s Gate, Castle View and the Church.

That said we had packed a lot into the Saturday morning, and it was raining.

I don’t think we had even clocked that there had been a castle or that there was a gate we could walk through to access St Mary’s Church.

St Mary's Gateway, 2020

Although we did happen by accident on a stretch of Castle View, saw a bit of the church but alas moved on.

All of which was only revealed when I dipped back into my collection of Leicester Tuck picture postcards which date from the 1920s.

I raid them on occasion for scenes of the city long before now, and so here is St Mary’s Gate perhaps 20 or so and bit years before I was born.

I could at this point slide into the history of the gate, the church and the castle, but that would be arrogant.

After all I am but a tourist and those that live in the city will be well aware of their past, but I will quote the description from the back of the postcard which includes the Romans, King Lear and the stocking frame.

Castle View and the church, 2019

“St Mary’s Gateway. A fine view of the battered and time worn gateway with the noble spire of St. Mary’s beyond.  

The old walls and gateways carry us back to the ancient history of Leicester.  

The traditional residence of King Lear and his daughters, it was a fortified town under the Romans.  

Its modern prosperity dates from the introduction of the stocking frame (1686) and is now the centre of the hosiery trade”.

‘Nuff said.

Other than to observe St Mary's spire was taken down for safety reasons but everyone in Leicester will know that.

St Mary's Church, 1926

Location, Leicester

Pictures; St Mary’s Gateway (Roman), Leicester, From the collection of Tuck and Son, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdbpostcards.org/  and the scene in 2020, courtesy of Google Maps