Place Name
This was the road leading to Loughborough House home of Henry Hastings 1st Baron of Loughborough. Following the outbreak of the English Civil War, Hastings declared his support for Charles I against the Parliamentarians and became a Royalist army commander in the Midlands. His family home, Ashby-de-la-Zouch castle, became a vital link between the Royalist south-west and the north. After losing an eye to a pistol shot after an exchange near Bagworth, in 1643 he was mocked as Blind Henry Hastings by the Parliamentarians. Later that year, his forces captured and lost the town of Burton upon Trent. Later he joined with Prince Rupert in the siege and the storming of Leicester which they lost a short while later when he was forced to surrender it. He joined the Royalist cause again during the Second English Civil War and was forced to flee to Holland after being captured. Following the restoration he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire although he only ever lived in London, in a Manor House in Lambeth Wick he renamed Loughborough House. He died in 1667. The house became a finishing school or “superior academy for young gentlemen”; a collection of elocution lessons published in 1787 was dedicated To the Young Noblemen and Gentlemen receiving their education at Loughborough House School. It still had 30 resident pupils at the time of the 1841 census. The house was knocked down in 1854 and replaced by houses on Evandale Road, Claribel Road, with some of Akerman Road, and Loughborough Roads.
