14 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 
running to the Soar and to the south-west by the Knighton brook, another 
tributary of the Soar. To northward and southward along the east bank, 
and to a lesser extent along the west bank of the river, working-class and 
manufacturing areas have sprung up. Many of the older manufacturing 
establishments are along the river and near the centre of the city on the 
low ground. Newer industrial areas have developed in the tributary 
valley to the east and in the Belgrave area to the north. On the higher 
ground of the Dane Hills to west of the city a better type of residential 
area has recently grown up at Western Park. Near the centre of the city 
are grouped the chief retail shopping areas, the offices of wholesalers and 
of the chief professional firms, such as lawyers, accountants, architects, 
auctioneers, insurance agents, and the head offices of banks. Here also 
are the retail and wholesale markets, the municipal offices, the headquarters 
of the omnibus services, the Colleges of Art and Technology, and, just 
outside the centre, the main stations of the railways serving the city. 
The retail market-place and the motor-bus headquarters are of par- 
ticular interest, because they typify an increasing link between the city and 
the surrounding countryside. Leicester, in addition to her manufacturing 
activities, is a great market and distributing centre for the whole of the 
region we have discussed above. Markets are held three times a week in 
the market-place. ‘To that held on Wednesday the country people flock 
both to buy in the market and in the adjacent shopping centres. The 
added transport facilities offered by the motor bus have tended in the last 
few years to increase this side of Leicester’s activities. ‘The importance 
of the pastoral activities of the surrounding countryside is emphasised 
by the size of her periodical cattle and sheep fairs. 
In the foregoing paragraphs we have only been able to glance briefly 
at the city. No account, however brief, would be adequate without some 
reference to its manufacturing activities. As these are fully discussed in 
a later section of the survey, we will here only touch briefly on them. The 
two staple industries of the city are the manufacture of hosiery and boots 
and shoes. Coupled to these major industries are a series of others, some 
of which are independent and others are subsidiary. Two of these are 
wool-spinning and engineering. ‘The former is the oldest of the Leicester 
industries. As far back as the thirteenth century, Leicester wool had 
established a reputation among English wools. This reputation was 
enhanced in the eighteenth century by Robert Bakewell, who, on his farm 
near Loughborough, developed the new Leicester breed of sheep, and 
artificially irrigated his land to improve the herbage. Wool was spun and 
woven in the district by hand, and from these small beginnings sprang the 
wool-spinning industry of the city. 
Three hundred years later the hosiery industry developed out of this 
wool-spinning industry in a series of villages to west of the river, and 
especially in Leicester, Loughborough, Hinckley and Castle Donnington. 
With the coming of the Industrial Revolution concentration took place 
in the larger centres, though the industry is still carried on under factory 
conditions in a number of villages, chiefly to south of the Charnwood, no 
doubt helped by the lower county rates and the labour supply available. 
‘To-day Leicester is by far the biggest centre in the country for the manu- 
