Colin Crosby Heritage Tours

Lutterworth Young Farmers View Cemetery

I recently led a group from Lutterworth Young Farmers on a private Guided Walk around Welford Road Cemetery.

The Young Farmers are a thriving organisation in English rural areas, whose members are encouraged to learn many aspects of rural life.

I talked to the group about the fact that Leicester, one of the oldest towns in the country, expanded hugely at the time of the Industrial revolution, so that it was necessary to create a completely new cemetery, as the old churchyards could no longer cope.

Welford Road Cemetery, when opened in 1849, was in a rural spot outside the town, with only the asylum and the newly opened railway for company.

The group saw the graves of many well known people, including Thomas Cook, whose excursion from Leicester to Loughborough in 1841 heralded the start of modern tourism.

This walk, a very popular one indeed, is available to any group.