New book on Fowke Street, Rothley is published

1 March 2015

Fowke Street, Rothley by Terry Shepherd is a new 216 page history of this special village street.

The book discusses where Fowke Street got its name and traces the 240 year story of The Grange, the big house around which Fowke Street bends.  It features the Industrial Co-operative Society which prospered and then had to be rescued, the 13th century cruck cottage which survived into the third millennium, the school which was created, enlarged and, in 2004, transformed into community rooms, and the story of the long-serving vicar who raised a fortune in 1877 to restore and reformat the medieval parish church.

Readers will learn about the farmyard, some cottages and a field which became a knitwear factory and then modern business units, as well as the ‘big house’ built over the site of an extensive Saxon cemetery and which has now been developed into apartments.

‘Fowke Street, Rothley’ costs £15 and is available from Terry Sheppard by email at sheppard7pj@btinternet.com or telephone on 0116 230 2931.