18 March 2025
In March we were pleased to be visited by Jane Cole from our neighbours at Anstey Local History Society. She took on the task of explaining 16 centuries of the history of Anstey in under an hour!
The first written record of the village was in Saxon times, when it was called Hanstige, meaning a narrow forest path. The name went through several variants before settling on Ansty – until the 20th century, when the Post Office added an “e” to avoid confusion with another village near Coventry. Old Anstey had two centres, around the Top Green and St. Mary’s Church. Among the oldest surviving structures are the stump of a Saxon cross in the churchyard, the Norman church tower, the mill and the two packhorse bridges.
Until about 1800, the village was mainly agricultural and there were several substantial farms. From then on, families increasingly earned a living from framework knitting. The Luddites, who campaigned against that work being moved into factories, were named after local lad Ned Ludlam, who had broken a frame many years before in a fit of temper. Boot and shoe manufacture followed framework knitting as the major source of employment because parts of the process could similarly be carried on in people’s homes. By 1900, Anstey was a major centre of shoe production, having 23 factories along with supporting industries such as tanning and box manufacture. The population grew rapidly and the manufacturers built terraced housing for their workers. Other local residents joined one of the three Land Societies (“Lannies”) and paid a weekly subscription until they could afford to purchase a plot of land and build their own house on it. All the shoe factories have now closed but one unusual business that does continue is Ulverscroft Large Print Books, which is the world’s leading publisher in that field.
Most of Jane’s talk was about the last 150 years to showcase the Society’s enviable collection of historic photographs. We saw the Nook when it had thatched cottages, no roundabout and no cars; the succession of schools that never quite kept up with the growing number of children; and the Methodist Church that used to stand on Cropston Road where the Chinese restaurant is now. (The building opposite, where services are held today, was originally the church’s schoolroom.) For recreation there were many pubs and two cinemas: the Regent (“Up Top”) on Ellis Street and the Savoy (“Down Bottom”), which is now Broughtons. The two main rooms in the recently extended Jubilee Hall have been named after them.
The photographic collection was begun by Brian Kibble, who sadly died last year, but Jane and other volunteers continue to collect old photos and take new ones to document changes in the village, on the principle that “today’s photograph is tomorrow’s history!” Consistently with that, the last picture that Jane showed us had been taken only 24 hours earlier.