78 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 
north and south. It was not intended to do otherwise than take parlia- 
mentary powers to acquire the requisite properties compulsorily, and the 
scheme would have been put in hand in sections as and when time 
proved practicable. 
The proposal, however, met with severe opposition. ‘There appeared 
to be a general impression that the huge expenditure involved would be 
incurred immediately, and was beyond the financial capabilities of the 
city. Without expressing any view as to whether this objection could 
have been sustained, it undoubtedly would have made Leicester, in days 
to come, a vastly different town from what it is at the present time. How- 
ever, the proposal was not approved, and in consequence, in the year 
1924, the Corporation submitted a modified scheme which involved the 
construction of a new street passing from the London road immediately 
below the present Midland Station and going straight across the Humber- 
stone Gate to the Old Cross, Belgrave, and by the widening of Belgrave 
to the Great Northern Station, achieving a wide and direct thoroughfare 
north and south. Certain connecting approaches were also embraced. 
The proposal was submitted to Parliament and duly sanctioned. The 
estimated expenditure for the execution of the necessary street works and 
the acquisition of the lands was £1,111,000. 
Parliament considered the work so essential for traffic purposes, that 
the Corporation were placed under an obligation not only to acquire the 
lands, but to construct the works within ten years from the passing of the 
Act. The actual street construction has been carried out, and through 
communication has been effected, the new road being 85 ft. wide. 
This internal improvement, the largest ever undertaken by the city of 
Leicester, and one of the largest undertaken by any of the great towns, is 
undoubtedly proving an immense traffic convenience. 
JupiciaL Courts. 
The city of Leicester has long had its separate Commission of Assize, 
and although prior to the Reformed Corporations Act, Leicester had long 
possessed a Recorder, it was granted a separate Court of Quarter Sessions 
in 1836 and a separate Commission of the Peace in the same year. 
Tue DIOCESE OF LEICESTER. 
Leicester was a diocese in the year 680, consequent upon the division 
of the diocese of Mercia, but ceased to be a diocese in 870, following the 
Danish Invasion. In 1072 it became part of the then newly established 
diocese of Lincoln, and in that diocese it remained for more than 750 years, 
until it was transferred to the diocese of Peterborough in 1839. It was 
separated from the diocese of Peterborough in 1927, and now forms the 
centre of the diocese of Leicester. ’ 
Civic STATUS AND City ARMs. 
Leicester, as we have seen, was a city so far back as 200 years before 
the Norman Conquest, but lost its civic status in the manner already 
related. 
