On the corner of High Street and Highcross Street, J. D. Wetherspoon converted a retail lighting shop into one of its bar outlets in 1999.
The Red Lion seen here in Highcross Streeet was soon to close, the nearby Queen of Bradgate and Litten Tree followed in the next ten years, all suffering against the Witherspoon’s model of cheap beer in comfortable surroundings. They also did their homework in naming the Highcross after the cross in the middle of the road that once housed the Highcross market monument.
All that remains of the old Highcross structure is one pillar now situated in Cheapside in the Market.
The Highcross Market monument seen above. It once stood at the top of Highcross Streed and the Red Lion can be seen on the left of it. From a 16th century painting by Henry Reynolds Steer known as ‘Christmas Eve Christmas Market’, depicting the Highcross market, painting housed with Leicester Museums.
The circular structure had eight pillars with domed roof and was sold off in sections in 1773. Strangely, one pillar remained until 1836 and that is the one now in Cheapside. All that is left is a cross in the road outside part of the Wetherspoon’s in Highcross Street.
