- Discover hidden stories on the street of Leicester
- Travel back in time and look through a window to the past
- Download the augmented reality app to your phone to get started
Discover Hidden Stories - Download the App
Travel back in time and discover stories about Leicester’s history using your own compatible smart phone or tablet!
Download the Picturing the Past App and look through a window into the past using augmented reality to explore three historic stories relating to Green Dragon Square and Leicester Market.
Simply find the Picturing the Past panels in Green Dragon Square and scan the panels using the app to discover the site's hidden stories.
The videos below show you stories that can be seen in the app. They are best experienced in person on the streets of the city, download the app and travel to Green Dragon Square to get involved.
Picturing the Past - Alice Hawkins
In the early 20th century the market was the largest public space in the city and naturally became a place where people gathered for parades, celebrations, speeches and protests.
Many important political rallies took place here, led by the likes of famous suffragettes Alice Hawkins and Sylvia Pankhurst as well as civic figure and unemployment rights activist Amos Sheriff. Both Hawkins and Sheriff are credited with playing major roles in the 100-mile march to London which raised awareness for the plight of the unemployed in 1905.
Alice Hawkins was a heroine of modern democracy who spoke out for what she believed in and was a true campaigner for women’s rights.
Picturing the Past - Green Dragon Inn
A market has existed in this area of Leicester for at least 700 years, although it’s possible the market is centuries older; the Domesday Book, published in 1086, names the market place as ‘Cheapside’. Cheapside is derived from the Danish word ‘chepe’, meaning sell: a legacy of language left over from the Norse occupants of Leicester.
The Green Dragon Inn was one of five medieval Inns built for the purpose of serving the large amount of tradesmen and market sellers that would descend on the area daily. It was at the Green Dragon Inn that a story unfolded of a gun duel over a game of billiards. This would end in the death of a local man and a royal pardon for the accused.
Picturing the Past - Cherry Orchard Mosaic
Walking through Leicester, it is difficult to imagine today that the city has been continuously occupied for more than 2,000 years, but beneath the streets, 2-3 metres below the ground, are the buried remains of Ratae, the Roman name for what we know as Leicester.
The main shopping centre in Roman Leicester was the Forum, but the town’s growing prosperity in the early 3rd century necessitated construction of a new market hall, or macellum, on land to the north. First discovered in 1958, today it lies opposite the old Free Grammar School on Highcross Street.