Pest Cottage and a foundry?
REGULAR Looking Back contributor, Philip Thorpe, has identified one of our Echo archive photographs.
Despite the Echo’s production process somehow flipping the picture to give a reverse image (sorry everyone!) Philip saw through our ..ahem.. deliberate mistake and named the picturesque home as Woodhouse’s famous Pestilence (Pest) Cottage (below).
We’ve printed it the right way round this time.
Many know the legend of the property but it is worth repeating.
Apparently the home is so named because Thomas Rawlins found refuge there from the Great Plague in London of 1665.
Out of gratitude for being given such a haven, he founded a school for 22 poor boys of the village.
Eventually the school expanded to become the present day Rawlins Academy in Quorn.
Philip also added his thoughts on the mystery factory picture we featured last week (right) saying: “I am not certain, but the photograph, I think shows a new furnace for melting cast iron, being constructed at one of the foundries in town.
“I do not think it is Messengers down Cumberland Road, but could be John Jones which was off Meadow Lane adjacent to the canal. The date I suggest is early 1900’s or 1920’s.”
Thanks to everyone who have also included their thoughts on other mystery pics from recent Looking Back pages and we will be publishing these conclusions over the next few weeks.