Belgrave Liberal Club, Leicester

The original club was opened on June 17th 1886 in premises at the corner of Loughborough Road and Shirley Street. In 1929 a new club was built on Melton Road. It was a fine looking building very much in the Art Deco style of the period.

The facilities were amazing – a huge concert hall with resident orchestra, a games room, billiard room and in case of an accident, an ambulance room. There were also numerous clubs and societies for the very large membership which must have been in four figures. On Wednesday nights there was ballroom dancing with whist on Thursdays. It closed in 2004.

This fine memorial has had an interesting history. In the winter of 2008, Fred Stevens Metals Ltd received a visit from a man selling it as scrap. Fred and his son David were immediately suspicious, particularly as efforts had been made to bend it double and memorials are not just something anyone has about their person. To secure it they paid £80 but had recorded the whole scene and vehicle registration number on camera. Fred and his son even tried to straighten it using a fork lift truck! They handed it to the police who thanked them and they in due course handed it to Chris Stephens, a War Memorials Trust Regional Volunteer for safe keeping. Efforts were made by him to have it placed in another Liberal Club but to no avail. This story was told to us by Fred Stevens himself in 2017. Unfortunately the lamps were lost but the thieves were successfully prosecuted.