Newfoundpool is an area of
Leicester
Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area, and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest city in the East Midlands with a popula ...
lying south of the former
Leicester and Swannington Railway
The Leicester and Swannington Railway (L&SR) was one of England's first railways, built to bring coal from West Leicestershire collieries to Leicester, where there was great industrial demand for coal. The line opened in 1832, and included a tun ...
.
The land was purchased by market gardener Isaac Harrison in around 1830.
[McKinley, R. A. (1958) ]
A History of the County of Leicester: volume 4: The City of Leicester
', Victoria County History, , reproduced at http://www.british-history.ac.uk, retrieved 27 August 2012 Harrison intended to develop the area as a
spa
A spa is a location where mineral-rich spring water (sometimes seawater) is used to give medicinal baths. Spa health treatments are known as balneotherapy. The belief in the curative powers of mineral waters and hot springs goes back to pre ...
, using a
spring as the source of water for a
Hydrotherapy
Hydrotherapy, formerly called hydropathy and also called water cure, is a branch of alternative medicine (particularly naturopathy), occupational therapy, and Physical therapy, physiotherapy, that involves the use of water for pain relief and ...
and bathing establishment, but the venture failed after a few years.
Later the building was converted into a residence, Newfoundpool House, in which successive members of the Harrison family lived until 1885, with the land passing to Harrison's nephew, also named Isaac, and then his daughter Beatrice.
The house became the Empire Hotel on Fosse Road North.
The area's connection with the Harrison family is commemorated by an
acrostic
An acrostic is a poem or other word composition in which the ''first'' letter (or syllable, or word) of each new line (or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text) spells out a word, message or the alphabet. The term comes from the Fre ...
, "IHARRISON", formed by the initial letters of the street names between Pool Road and Beatrice Road.
A Leicester builder, Orson Wright, purchased the land in 1885.
Wright laid out roads across the area and sold off the land as building plots. The majority of houses built were of the two-storey terraced type, brick-built, with the corner sites constructed as shops. Along Fosse Road North a number of three- and four-storey red-brick villas were built. Until 1891 Newfoundpool was outside the Borough of Leicester, the border running along Fosse Road North. On the same road the iron-framed
parish church
A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...
of
St. Augustine was built in 1888 at a cost of £1,000, and enlarged in 1896 at a cost of £250. The church itself has been abandoned since 2000 and was severely damaged by an arson attack in 2004.
The Newfoundpool School Board was established in 1889 to address the shortage of school places in the area. It estimated that there were 500 children of school age living in Newfoundpool in 1889 and supervised the construction of the Ingle Street Board School (now the building of Inglehurst Junior School) on land purchased on favourable terms from Orson Wright. The Newfoundpool School Board was dissolved in 1891 and incorporated into the Leicester School Board when the Borough boundaries were extended.
The Fosse Cinema on Fosse Road North later became a bingo hall but was demolished to make way for a Tesco Express shop and filling station. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Fossecinema/
Newfoundpool is a part of Fosse Ward and the Leicester West parliamentary constituency.
References
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Areas of Leicester