Heaps of history ….. and the Market Harborough challenge

 I must confess I had never come across that 17th century timber building in Market Harborough which once served as the towns grammar school and covered in market.

2024

According to one source “the former Grammar School of 1614  is a small scale timber framed building with an open ground floor designed to "keepe the market people drye in tyme of fowle weather" and having above it the former school room. This building represents the close of the timber framed tradition of buildings in the area”.*

It is in the heart of a conservation area which includes the former sheep market. 

"The middle section of the original market space now comprises the lower High Street, Church Street, Church Square and Adam & Eve Street. This is the traditional retail hub of the town. It is an area of small-scale buildings of varying ages. ….. 

2024

The centre of this area is Church Square dominated by three buildings, the first two on island sites rising from the pavement. First is the great Church of St. Dionysius with its soaring spire of white limestone. The Church rises directly from the pavement without a churchyard, as it was until 1901 a chapel of the Parish Church at Great Bowden 2 miles away. Secondly, alongside the church is the former Grammar School of 1614,  [and] the third building overlooking the Church and Square is the Council offices, Library and Museum. It is a 4-storeyed former corset factory of 1889”.

We washed up there on a hot day last week on the way to the small village of Kibworth Harcourt. And as you do we stopped to explore and find somewhere to eat.

The restaurant turned out a good choice, more so because the tables spilled out across the square under the shade of a tree.

2024

And from there we watched as the townspeople went about their business or like us enjoyed a drink, and a meal.

After which we sauntered across the square and while the others  “did the shops” I did the conservation area, but despite all my best attempts I couldn’t get a decent picture of the  grammar school and was left with falling back on a 1905 picture postcard from the company of Tuck and Sons.

1905

To be fair when our commercial photographer did his picture the space in front of the hall would have been less busy and I doubt he would have to have dodged the traffic and snapped away before the traffic lights turned colour.

So that's the challenge .... better the 1905 image.

Location Market Harborough

Pictures; The grammar school, 2024 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and in 1905 from Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdbpostcards.org/ 

*Conservation Areas in Harborough district - Market Harborough Conservation Area, Market Harborough District Council, https://www.harborough.gov.uk/directory_record/1276/market_harborough_conservation_area