Within the very first week of my arrival in London two years ago, I had learnt my first lessons in pronouncing English names. The “w” in Southwark is silent. Such too is the case with Keswick and Warwick. When I wished to get to Leicester Square or order a sandwich with Leicester cheese, Londoners understood me with difficulty. This name is pronounced as “Lester”. Such a shortened pronunciation is also true of Gloucester and Worcester. Last night I stayed at a B&B on Belvoir Drive. This is pronounced locally as “Beaver Drive”.
Getting to Leicester from Luton is quite a breeze. There is a National Express service at about half-seven on a Saturday morning. The traffic on the M1 is sparse. Best of all, there are no intermediate stops. The result is that the coach arrives in Leicester 10-15 minutes before its scheduled time. The coach driver stops to have a nice breakfast at the St Margaret’s Bus Station. “Lovely Leicester” he says, as he pulls into the station. But this is yesterday’s account before I took a connecting bus to Coventry.
Leicester is neither ancient nor a town. It is more a modern city to which much regeneration has happened in recent years and continues to happen. However, it is still ancient in its history. In its lively market, it retains much of the charm and significance of an English market town. Traditionally, a market town was established in medieval times for the trading of goods. Some of these would have been imported from neighbouring counties or even from the Continent. Many others would have been the local produce of surrounding farms and lands. In all cases, a market town needed good means transportation by sea, land, river or canal navigation. River Soar at Leicester was one such advantage. By about 1300 AD, Leicester was a busy market town. It was lucrative to start such market towns for the town’s local administrative bodies, such as the major, the town council or even a representative of the king. Tolls for goods could be collected. Rents could be charged for setting up stalls. Market towns were also granted extra privileges as deemed necessary to facilitate business and trade.
Markets could be located in a central area, in a covered hall, such as in modern Leicester or as in Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds. Markets could be set up just for a day of the week in a central square and dismantled at the end of the day. Such is the case with many towns all across England. I have seen this recently in Bury St Edmunds and in Leighton Buzzard. In other cases, they could be a permanent fixture such as in Leicester. Leicester’s market is open Monday to Saturday. This is an obvious evolution to compete against the rising trend in large shopping malls and supermarket chains. Many market towns organise a “Farmer’s Market” once in a while. These offer local produce of excellent quality. These are fresh and wholesome. In Hampshire, for instance, there is the Hampshire Farmers’ Markets. The market is open on most Saturdays of the year and travels from town to town. I have seen such an event in Farnborough.
Being Sunday, the market at Leicester was closed today. But I had had a glimpse of it two weeks ago. It is a vibrant place with produce that’s more international than local. Besides fresh flowers, fruits, vegetables, fish and meat, the market has clothes, cosmetics, books, footwear… The market has come a long way from its origins. It represents the diversity of the city as well as the world.
The history of Leicester starts with the Roman town of Ratae Corieltauvorum. Nothing of this town remains except for the Jewry Wall, a wall of the Roman civic baths built in the second century. This is an impressive wall. The theory is that this wall once formed part of an older Saxon church of St Nicholas. Therefore it survived while the rest of the Roman town was demolished.
The wall, or what is left of it, is perhaps 25 feet high. The holes in the wall are putlog holes to hold scaffolding. These would have been plugged after construction but today the holes are clearly visible. The wall is a mix of stones and bricks held together with mortar. The wall would be hardly interesting without its striking arch. The arch is well-defined by thin slabs of Roman reddish-brown bricks. These slabs are stacked together to follow the curve of the arch. There are two layers of bricks spanning the arch in this manner. These are glued together with mortar and a thin layer of the same bricks placed transversally. Seeing the wall in such bare elements enables us to appreciate the genius of Roman engineering.
In front of this wall are the remains of the baths. With some assistance from the signs and information boards one can make sense of the foundations – the cold rooms (frigidaria), the warm rooms (tepidaria), the hot rooms (caldaria), the sweat rooms (sudatoria), wash basins (labra), latrines and drains. There’s nothing new in these baths from what I had already seen at Bath. In fact, since my visit to Bath, I have found out that the source of the springs there is in the Mendip Hills. It takes about 10,000 years for waters to seep through limestone rocks until they hit an impermeable layer of clay. It gets heated up geothermally and pushed up the fault lines, many of which open up at Bath.
Coming back to Leicester, today a museum stands on parts of this ancient Roman site. The museum is an important place in the education of school children. I am told that many school visits are planned all through the year. I also overheard a middle-aged lady, on a brief visit to Leicester, chatting with the curator. Apparently she had visited the museum housed in an older building on such a school visit. Some exhibits have changed since then but she vividly remembered seeing Roman mosaics at the museum. These mosaics are still to be found. Among the best is the “Peacock mosaic”. Peacock is the symbol of Roman goddess Juno. There is also a peacock recipe!
Roman frescoes can also be seen here. These are basically of plaster to which paint is applied when damp. The paint gets absorbed by the damp plaster and become an integral part of it. The result is that it lasts long and no repainting is needed. The images, colours and patterns on these frescoes can be seen clearly and admired even today, after nearly a thousand years.
Locally, one of the best archaeological finds is near the River Soar which flows by Leicester. It is the “Glen Parva Lady”, Glen Parva being a suburban area of Leicester. The skeleton of this lady is displayed in a glass case. She is believed to have died around 500 AD. Archaeologists are great analysts. They are able to tell so much from her skeleton or from a single bone. Where the bone has suffered discoloration, they can tell what she wore or what metal her ring was made of. They can analyze the bones to tell what sort of food she ate.
But if we presume to think that everything of the past has been discovered and deciphered, we are wrong. Even in the 21st century new finds are being made all the time. A local newspaper, Leicester Mercury, confirms this on January 24th 2006, with the following heading:
HUGE
GRAVE
SITE IS
FOUND
Apparently, an estimated 1300 burials have been found at a site in St Peter’s Lane. The largest find of a similar nature, we are told, was at Bishopsgate in London where 10,500 burials were recorded.
Leicester has two universities. Near one of them, there are some small lanes and pleasant walks. The Castle Gardens are good for a morning stroll. I wandered in town till 1 pm, when the Guildhall opened for visitors on a Sunday. What I had failed to see or appreciate in Lavenham, was remedied today at this superb timber-framed building that stands right next to Leicester Cathedral. It was built in 1390, extended in 1450, dissolved in 1548, and restored in 1926. It began as a meeting place for the Guild of Corpus Christi.
The two most impressive rooms are the Great Hall and the Library. There is very little furniture in either of these rooms. This enables a visitor to walk freely. The focus of attention is always the building and nothing else. One can study the wooden beams in almost every part of the Great Hall. There are primary and secondary timbers forming the walls. Then there are arched beams rising up to the sloping roof. Some of these arches reach the roof. Others terminate at a horizontal beam that spans the width of the hall. This horizontal beam is linked to the roof by a vertical beam at the centre and smaller arching beams on either side. The horizontal and vertical are further joined by smaller arches. The vertical is joined to the main beam on the roof with further arches. At every possible point of stress such links are made to distribute the weight. There are also horizontal reinforcing beams along the walls, such as under the windows. Some of these link with arches along the wall. Sections of the underbelly of the roof have been exposed and we can admire the timbers that make up the roof.
The Great Hall at the GuildHall
We can analyze the forces on each of these beams and their relationships. The weight of the roof is transferred by many beams and secondary supports. The bulk of the weight falls on the walls and the main timber posts lining these walls. In some places, iron brackets are used to strengthen the construction but this may be a modern conservation rather than restoration. Beams are joined together with wooden pegs. One beam links into a slot of another. In some cases unfilled slots are visible clearly. In one instance, an arch rises from the wall towards the ceiling. A small timber section attempts to join this arch with the same wall in a slot higher up. But this section has come off the slot. Timber-framed buildings have a way of their own. The timbers bend, twist and stretch as time goes by. The “expansion and growth” of this building is visible on the outside where walls do not conform to the plumb line.
The Great Hall was in some period used as a courtroom and jury room. Four interesting quotes are to be found on the walls:
The kings wrath
is as the roaring of a lyon
but his favour is as
dew upon the grasse
A false witness
shall not be unpunished
and he that speaketh
lies shall perish
Righteous lips
are the delight of kings
and the king loveth him
that speakth right
The steps of a
good man are ordered
by the Lord . and he
delighteth in his way
Coming into the Library, we find yet more interesting beams and relationships. This room is on the first floor and therefore we get a closer perspective of the beams. The beams along the walls are built vertical as expected, but those making up the gable follow its sloping lines. A vertical rises at the centre of the gable. This is linked to the roof by an arch. Then we find interesting intersections at the edges of the building where the walls join. The verticals which usually span the length of a wall, terminate at arches which are the main supports. One particular beam from the library projects into an adjacent room. This indicates that not all beams are aligned, not all rooms are built to the same height. There is no precision in this construction but it still exhibits the genius of medieval builders.
Some of these details can be observed on the outside as well, but on the inside we are able to study them in an intimate atmosphere. The spirit of the building, its ancient ardour, its natural character and its mature beauty sink into us. The library, in particular, can be experienced only on the inside. It has the fame of being the third oldest in the country with about 800 rare books. These include Codex Leicestrenis (a New Testament in Greek) and William Harvey’s 1639 classic on the circulation of blood. The smell of books is the first taste a visitor gets of ancient thought, wisdom and expression. Smells of vellum, leather, ink, paper and wood mingle with the ideas that they hold. We feel the power of the printed word, the history of thought and the progress of civilisation as a whole. In here, we are in touch with the human quest for understanding ourselves, the world in which we live and the worlds yet unknown.
Discovery of a town and its people is best done in a natural way. A natural way is one which is not planned. It is one in which no guided tour is required. It is one in which the town itself is a living guide that leads your from lane to lane and building to building. In its natural way, it leads without design and agenda. Who knows what you may discover? Who knows what secrets will be revealed and what will remain? What will be your next step? Every step and every thought is a personal response that is your own. Standing at the crossroads, you may turn right to enter a church or turn left to browse in a shop. It is a journey in which no explanation is needed. Words are redundant so far as the town is concerned. They exist only to articulate your experience. In this natural way, in this way of the open mind, the discovery is equally of town and of yourself.
Children carrying lanterns to the Cathedral
Thus it turned out this morning that even before I reached the Jewry Wall, I came across the Jain Centre. I entered it. I joined them in their prayers and remained in the centre for nearly two hours. Likewise, after leaving the Guildhall, I had no plan to visit the Cathedral. I met some children in the Guildhall and learned from them that today they had a special service to wrap up a year of celebrations. This was the 80th year of the Diocese of Leicester. Members of the diocese from all around Leicester had walked from their churches to gather for this service. So I joined them in the Cathedral which was so packed beyond capacity that many stood or sat on the floor. Having attended these two religious gatherings on the same day, it is a natural response to compare them, look at the obvious differences and see the underlying similarities.
Jain Centre at Leicester
I did not understand most of the proceedings at the Jain Centre. I think the language was Gujarati and although I do not understand it, it shares many similar words with Sanskrit and Hindi. There were many elaborate rituals and prayers. Unlike what happens in most Hindu temples, the priest did not perform any of the rituals. He guided devotees to perform them. Rituals were explained so that people who performed them understood the significance. This was supplemented with quotations from the sacred texts. The priest touched upon themes of spiritual cleansing, suffering and deliverance. Everyone was involved in an active way. Live music was played by some seated on woven cloths. Next to them, a woman and a man took turns in leading the singing. Everyone joined in these devotional songs of which many printed copies were available for reference.
The service at the Cathedral had more or less the same elements: a combination of prayer, singing and sermon. Ideas of suffering, sin and penitence were conveyed. Messages of hope, faith, love were shared with relevance to the modern world and to the city of Leicester. While at the Jain Centre the focus had been on their faith and community, at the Cathedral it was no different. Any difference that is perceived, it’s only because at the Cathedral, the community that is represented is larger, it is the society’s majority and embraces the city as a whole. The element of music and songs was a common way approaching God and spirituality. At the Cathedral, youths were involved in sharing their views and experiences. At the Jain Centre, adults guided their children in various rituals. If rituals were missing at the Cathedral in this particular service, there form a certain part of any Eucharistic service.
