Newfoundpool is an area of
Leicester 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 (and sometimes seawater) is used to give medicinal baths. Spa towns or spa resorts (including hot springs resorts) typically offer various health treatments, which are also known as balneothe ...
, using a
spring
Spring(s) may refer to:
Common uses
* Spring (season), a season of the year
* Spring (device), a mechanical device that stores energy
* Spring (hydrology), a natural source of water
* Spring (mathematics), a geometric surface in the shape of a h ...
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 physiotherapy, that involves the use of water for pain relief and treatment. The te ...
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.
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
parish church
A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the 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 community activitie ...
of
St. Augustine
Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Af ...
was built over the period 1900 to 1912. 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/
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 Fr ...
, "IHARRISON", formed by the initial letters of the street names between Pool Road and Beatrice Road.
[Jordan, Christine. ''The Illustrated History of Leicester's Suburbs''. Derby: Breedon Books Publishing Company, 2003 pages 123–125. ]
Newfoundpool is part of Fosse Ward and the Leicester West parliamentary constituency.
References
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Areas of Leicester