Qualla: Loughborough

Loughborough: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Uksignpix, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 5 July 1841, Thomas Cook chartered a train from Leicester to Loughborough for a temperance group at a shilling a head. They were going to a rally to denounce drink. The trip ran on time, the price was fair, and Cook realised he had invented something. The first package tour in the world finished at Loughborough station. Almost everything Loughborough has done since has had that same quietly consequential quality - small Leicestershire town, large global footprint.

Read more: Loughborough on Qualla

Image: Uksignpix | CC BY-SA 3.0

Loughborough: Bells Heard in Three Continents

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The original uploader was Soloist at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0. John Taylor & Co has cast bells in Loughborough since the 1850s, and the foundry is the world's largest. From its furnace came Great Paul - cast in 1881 for St Paul's Cathedral in London, at sixteen and three-quarter tons the largest bell in the United Kingdom - and Great Peter a...

Read more: Loughborough on Qualla

Image: The original uploader was Soloist at English Wikipedia. | CC BY-SA 3.0

Loughborough: Lace, Riots, and a Move South

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. Industrialisation came to Loughborough through John Heathcoat, a Derbyshire-born inventor who patented an improvement to the warp loom in 1809 and made it possible to produce machine-woven net that looked like handmade lace. He set up his bobbinet works at Hathern, just outside t...

Read more: Loughborough on Qualla

Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Loughborough: Sport as a Vocation

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mat Fascione, CC BY-SA 2.0. Loughborough University was named Sunday Times University of the Year in 2008 and consistently ranks at the top of British higher education for sport. The university hosts the largest concentration of elite athletes anywhere in UK universities - over 250 international athletes tr...

Read more: Loughborough on Qualla

Image: Mat Fascione | CC BY-SA 2.0

Loughborough: Old Streets, Two Stations

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Heartcondition129, CC0. The market in the Market Place was first recorded in 1221, and is still held every Thursday and Saturday. Loughborough Grammar School was founded in 1495 with money left by Thomas Burton, a wool merchant, making it one of the oldest schools in the country. The town has two railwa...

Read more: Loughborough on Qualla

Image: Heartcondition129 | CC0

Loughborough: What Charnwood Looks Like From Above

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. The town sits at the foot of Charnwood Forest, a low upland of ancient volcanic rock that pushes through the Leicestershire plain west of the M1. The River Soar - made navigable to Loughborough by the Loughborough Navigation of 1778, joining the Trent system to the north - passes...

Read more: Loughborough on Qualla

Image: Chris Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0