HOME OF LADY JANE GREY

Evening Star, Issue 20118, 7 March 1929, Page 14

HOME OF LADY JANE GREY

GIFT TO CITY OF LEICESTER LINK WITH OTHER CELEBRITIES,; Through the generosity of Mr Charles Bennion, of Thurnby Grange, Leicester, Bradgate Park, tho historic home of Lady Jane Grey, has been acquired and presented for the public use foi* ever to the County and City of Leif cester. Thus, through the public* spirited action of a private citizen, a, place of great natural beauty has been saved for all time. T 1 Bradgate Park consists of about 828 acres. It is about five miles from tbo city of Leicester, and is situated on. the southern boundary of the district known as Charnwood Forest, which was really the waste of the surround* ing manors. Lady Jane Grey is said to have beenborn at Bradgate in 1537. From Lord John Grey, younger brother of her, father, Henry Grey’s estate descended,through the Earls of Stamford, to the owner from whom the park has re* cently been purchased. Roger Ascham relates how he found Lady Jane Grey at Bradgate, reading the ‘ Phsedo ’ of Plato, while the rest of the household were hunting in tho park, in the summer of 1550; and how she then spoke to him of the harsh treatment she received at the hands of her parents, and of the relief she ex* perienced in the kindness of her tutor,John Aylmer, to whom she owed her introduction to the literary glories of the ancient world. Within a short distance of Newtowrt Linford, and just beyond the famous Groby Pool, is a remnant of the manor, house where Elizabeth Woodville (wife of Edward IV.) lived with her first husband, John Grey. A mile or so from the Hallgates entrance to the park is a village of Thurcaston, ini which Hugh Latimer was born of yeo* man stock, and from Thurcaston it ia an easy walk to Rothley Temple, the birthplace of Thomas Babington Macaulay. Charnwood was never, at any rate since the Norman Conquest, a Royal forest, as is popularly supposed, and as it is represented by Sir Walter Scott in ‘ Ivanhoe ’ to have been. It was, as stated above, simply the waste or the manors that surrounded it. The park will be managed in future by a body of trustees, with express in* junctions to maintain it in its present state as far as possible. There was opposition on the grounds of extravagant expenditure, at a Min* istry of Health inquiry at Leicester recently to the proposal of the City Council to spend nearly £50,000 on the conversion of Leicester Abbey grounds into a public park. The land was given to Leicester by Lord Desart, and includes the ruins of Leicester Abbey, where Cardinal Wolsey died.