A NEW exhibition at Leicester Museum & Art Gallery will tell the story of the city's Saffron Lane in the words of the people who live and work in the area.
Opening on Saturday (22 March), Popping to the Shops: Saffron Lane looks at the development of the Saffron Lane estate in the 1920s, the working men’s clubs that provided entertainment for the new community, and the enterprising locals who converted their front rooms into mini convenience stores and hair salons, before purpose-built shops arrived in the area.
Oral histories, recorded with past tenants, capture residents’ first impressions of their new homes on the estate – which welcomed its first residents in 1925 and was the first large-scale housing development to be built in Leicester after the First World War.
One tenant, who moved into her new home on ‘The Saff’ in the 1930s, likened it to ‘paradise’, having running water, a bath and a separate bedroom for the children. Visitors to the exhibition will be able to see how she may have decorated her brand new home, thanks to a display of early 20th century furniture and household items from the museum’s collection.
Another resident, who moved to The Fairway in 1926, remembers the downside of moving onto a brand new estate, with churned-up mud surrounding the houses until the road was constructed, and the Midland Red bus stop a long walk away at the top of Saffron Lane.
There were very few local amenities on the estate when the first residents moved in, but oral histories featured in the exhibition recall the milkman who would come from Countesthorpe, the dairy that sold milk on Cyprus Road, the mobile greengrocer with an open-backed van, the baker with his basket of hot cross buns, and Tommy Newby’s, the grocer, where the boxes were piled high and the cat sat on the bacon slicer!
Tommy Newby’s may be long gone, but the Saffron Lane businesses that serve the community today are at the heart of the new exhibition.
These include a locksmith at number 575 that’s been trading in Leicester since 1717 and on Saffron Lane since 1990, an optician at number 441 where the mannequins in the attic provided a clue to the building’s previous incarnation as a haberdashery, and a copy shop at 196B that started life selling furniture, until demand for its photocopying and printing services changed the focus of the business completely.
In total, eight current Saffron Lane businesses feature in the exhibition, with each of them generously giving up their time to be photographed by exhibition photographer Leila Houston and supporting the project by sharing their stories.
Assistant city mayor Cllr Vi Dempster said: “This brilliant new exhibition shines a light on the people and businesses that help to give Saffron Lane its strong sense of identity and community.
“It’s 100 years this year since the first residents moved onto the Saffron Lane estate, giving us the perfect opportunity to listen to their stories and look back at the estate’s history, while meeting some of the people who live and work in the area today.
“I’m very grateful to everyone who has donated items to the exhibition and given their support to this project. Thanks to their generosity, our museum staff have been able to bring the story of ‘The Saff’ to life in an exhibition that I’m sure will be popular with visitors.”
Popping to the Shops: Saffron Lane opens at Leicester Museum & Art Gallery on Saturday (22 March) and runs until 31 August. Admission is free.
Much of the historical information in the exhibition has been drawn from ‘The Story of the Saff’, edited by local historian Cynthia Brown, published in 1998 and featuring the memories of the Saffron Past & Present Group.
The new exhibition follows on from the success of Popping to the Shops: Narborough Road, which launched in January 2024 and is currently on display at Newarke Houses Museum until 27 April.
Both exhibitions are supported using public funding from Arts Council England
Popping to the Shops: Saffron Lane is dedicated to the memory of Philip French, the museum’s former social history curator, who died in November 2024.
Picture caption: Shops on Saffron Lane in 1980
Note to editors:
The eight Saffron Lane businesses that have given their support to the project and are featured in Popping to the Shops are:
- Fix My Bike (FMB), 210 Saffron Lane
- Bettinson Ltd Kitchen Design, 212 Saffron Lane
- The Bread Basket, 581 Saffron Lane
- Morgan’s Locksmith, 575 Saffron Lane
- Saffron Eyecare, 441 Saffron Lane
- Brush & Blade Barbers, 447 Saffron Lane
- TFG Copyprint, 196B Saffron Lane
- Millennium Fish Bar, 553 Saffron Lane