Must take issue with ‘narrow gauge’
AS I’VE lived in Nanpantan all my life, I was very interested to see the object found in the old canal bed behind the Priory pub.
I’m afraid I don’t know what it is, but had the thought, it may be a button/ bollard for tying boats to, such as on a wharf perhaps. My other thought was a centre boss, of a cart, or wagon wheel or even a winch wheel of some sort.
I must take issue , with the other point, raised in the letter though. This was the mention of a narrow gauge railway, from Nanpantan to Loughborough.
I don’t know where this has come from, because the railway, which ran from the Charnwood Forest Canal, here, in Nanpantan, to the canal in Loughborough, was Standard gauge, ie 4 foot eight and a half inches!
I have an old book from my grand parents, dated 1907, entitled Leicester and Neighbourhood.
There is a section on ancient edge railways, and the Nanpantan-Loughborough canal line is mentioned. It clearly states 4’8 ½’’between the rails.
It also states it to be, one of the first of that gauge, and possibly one of the first to take flanged wheels.
The only narrow gauge railway near Nanpantan that I know of, was in the internal system, of Longcliffe and Shepshed quarries.
The canal has always interested me, as I have lots of memories, of walking along the old towpath, from our end, at Nanpantan, to the M1, and Shepshed, at the other. My earliest memories, was seeing the M1 being built, in about 1964/5.
There used to be an old canal bridge, near to where the motorway is now. I think it would have joined the fields of Hurst farm, to fields on the Longcliffe side, before the golf links were established many years later. It was demolished around the same time the motorway was built. I remember climbing and walking over it
Most of the canal is dry now days, except for a small bit near Snell’s Nook lane, but in wet winters, it used to fill up, for most of its length, right up to the motorway. Some times even on the other side of Snell.s Nook lane behind the Priory as well.
R. Stinchcombe