Street Names from the 1950s/early 1960s to 2003 There are always on-going heritage projects in the village (see 'heritage group' in the community section). Alison Coates has set out to discover the explanations behind our Groby street names.

Exploring the village from the Leicester Road, roughly, in a clockwise direction:-

Marina Drive Named after Marina Castell who married Jonathon Marston

Castell Drive The Castell family still live in the village

Marston Drive Named after Johnathon Marston who married into the Castell family

Leicester Road See our photographs from the 1930s

The S-Bend - now Branting Hill The main road from Leicester originally went round the S-bend

The Rookery/Rookery Lane Rookeries were where the poorest inhabitants lived, possibly many people in one house like rooks in a tree. The old tightly-packed cottages have been pulled down but we have a photograph.

Ratby Road Brick terrace houses stood on both the right and left of the hill from the centre of the village

Brookvale (Cottages) The cottages lacked internal sanitation and still had outside privies

Chapel Hill (previously Zion Hill) Cobbled relatively recently when the Groby Conservation Area was set up, ?1970s

Martinshaw Lane Leading to Martinshaw or The Shaw. (Shaw means Wood so Shawood Close means Wood Wood Close!

Lawnwood Road preserving a field name I think. (As also does a cottage named Lawn Hill on the Markfield Road)

Woodbank Road/Forest RiseForest ? Close All lead to Martinshaw - the woodCouncil houses built in the late 1940s?Road through the "prefabs" near Martinshaw school. Prefabs were the prefabricated single-storey houses, each erected in a day after World War II (so late 1940s/early 1950s).

The Wharf the old mineral railway wharf

Markfield Road
Wallace Drive
Lena Drive
Bradgate Hill
Slate Pit Lane Leads to the area of Groby slate pits - see old rooves in the village and the gravestones in the churchyard. Swithland Slate (or Groby Slate as I like to call it) makes very thick slates, which are largest at the eaves)

Newtown Linford Lane Or Pool Lane

Origins of Newer Names:

From the late 1960s onwards to the present day, Groby Parish Council has recommended appropriate street names to house builders in Groby:-

a) preserving local names such as Pymms Lees and (Cowpen) Spinney Close

b) names reflecting the village's connections with England's royalty eg Tudor, Bedford, Beaumont, Lancaster, Windsor. (See also 2 of the primary schools Elizabeth Woodville [1st husband Sir John Grey, 2nd husband Edward IV] and Lady Jane Grey, Nine-Days Queen of England!)

c) local tree and flower names

Castle Rise about as far from Groby Castle mound (behind the Old Hall) as it could be!

Crane Ley On the site of Crane's farm, one of the remaining large farms in the village from the 1925 Estate Sale Map

Ferrers Rise The Ferrers family owned the village in the Middle Ages until the last survivor of that branch of the family married a Grey family bride

Flaxfield Close perhaps related to the post-enclosure field called the Hempyard, near Anstey Brook

Johnathon Close See Marston Drive

Laundon Way more Groby residents

Old Hall Close about as far from the Old Hall as it could be!

Sacheverell Way Sacheverell is the name of a Ratby and Groby charity, money from mowing a field for the poor of the 2 villages - see The Groby Book

Slate Brook Close The Slate Brook flows through the Grey Lodge area (site of Groby Slate Pits) under the A50 near Wallace Drive and into Groby Pool

Stamford Drive and Warrington Drive refer to the Grey family, Earls of Stamford and
Warrington, who owned Groby, Bradgate, Ratby etc from the late 1400s to 1925. This explains the name of the current pub in the village with the Grey coat of arms on the sign. A memorial hatchment (diamond-shaped) showing the full coat of arms of the 7th Earl of Stamford & Warrington who died in 1898, hangs in the church. Hence also streets including the name Grey.

Stephenson's Way commemorates Robert Stephenson (son of George Stephenson) who built Groby Railway
White House Close Named after the old cottage (previously known as Cowpen Cottage) that is probably several centuries old and still stands there

The origins of the following are not known by the author:- Dalby Drive, Ulverscroft Drive, Louise Drive, Garendon Way, Hilary Crescent, Carmen Crescent, Holmes Close, Lena Drive, Wallace Drive.

If anyone has more information, please e-mail Alison Coates.