Photo above: John Flowers evocative painting of Highcross Street, with the Horse & Trumpet on the right of the Highcross, with pole jutting out.
According to Nichols ‘in 1558, the Horse & Trumpet, originally known as the Angel, was sold for £26-13/4d by John Cressey, glover to John Stanford butcher.’
In 1485, an Angel is recorded in Borough of Leicester records as being in Swinesmarket. No other information given.
1645, saw Leicester besieged during the civil war, when Prince Rupert sacked the town. Leicester, being a parliamentary town, was ordered to surrender to the Royalists by Prince Rupert whilst King Charles camped just outside near Aylestone. Rupert pounded the town by cannon, but Leicester continued to resist. Eventually a last stand was made at the Highcross and men fired on the Royalists from the windows and roof of the Horse & Trumpet.
The Royalists eventually attacked the building, breaking down the doors and making an example by killing all in the Horse & Trumpet. Leicester suffered with murder, pillage and rape by the royalist soldiers King Charles was purported to have ridden through the town in his bright armour declaring, ‘do not care if they cut them thrice for they are mine enemies.’ Charles did not savour victory for long as he was to suffer defeat shortly after at Naseby on his way back from Leicester.
In 1721 it was ordered that £2 be allowed to be drunk at the Horse & Trumpet by common soldiers quartered in the town to celebrate King George I’s birthday.
The Horse & Trumpet became owned by Gabriel Newton, and his father before him during the seventeenth century. Gabriel was a major benefactor of Leicester, founding the ‘Green Coat School’, later named Alderman Newtons. He was as devout and eccentric as he was generous: he once had a fight with the parish clerk at St Martins, hitting him over the head with his cane – Gabriel was kicked down the stairs for his trouble. It was said he then changed his allegiance to All Saints, where there is a monument and stained glass windows to his memory.
He died in 1762, leaving his fortune (after much wrangling of his will) for the education of children and the poor. He was immortalised as one of the four stature on the Clock Tower. By 1790, the Horse and Trumpet had become a private house.
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