Leicester in the 1880s

Isaac Barradale was the most successful architect working in Leicester in the 1880s. Both Gimson and Bankart began their architectural careers in his office. He was designing commercial buildings such as Fenwicks on the corner of Belvoir Street and Market Street as well as domestic buildings in Leicester’s southern suburbs.

William Morris visited the city several times from January 1884 to talk to the Leicester Secular Society. One Sunday morning in the mid 1880s Sydney and Ernest Gimson took him Morris for a walk round the new suburban villas in Stoneygate. When asked what he thought of the houses, Morris replied, ‘Oh, architect-tooralooral’, suggesting that they were over-designed and too self-conscious for his taste. The German commentator Hermann Muthesius, also visited Leicester towards the end of the 19^th century. His opinion was that there was, ‘more good new architecture than one generally meets with in English towns of its size.’