The Nelson Arms was at the Humberstone Road tollgate approximately where today’s Forest Road junction is with Humberstone Road.
First record I can find is of 1828 when John Eagle was licensee. Auctions of Timber were held here the following year.
Quite a few accidents happened on the turnpike road including March 1830, when John Bruce was fatally injured when knocked down by a cart. His body was taken to the Nelson Arms.
April 1830, a Pigeon shooting match was held at Mr Eagles Nelson Arms, prizes were a silver cup and a handsome gun.
HIGHWAY ROBBERY
March 1835: Two men, one Peter Norman robbed Thomas Humphrey who had just left the Nelsons Arms at the turnpike, they pulled him from his horse beat him about the head robbed him of his purse which held 4 sovereigns plus 3/6d, they also riffled his pockets of another 7 or 8 shillings. Peter Norman who was known in the area was recognised eventually to be found guilty at court.
Norman was given the death sentence at the Assizes later commuted to transportation for life.
Norman was taken from Leicester Goal to Chatham to await deportation;, on 15th April 1836, he boarded the Lord Lyndock bound for life in Van Diemans Land (Tasmania).
1836, Mr Freeman of the Nelsons Arms Humberstone Toll Gate placed an ad in the Leicester Journal: LOST A BLACK SETTER DOG With a bowed hind leg answers to the name BASTO reward offered.
That same year Wm Jones an old sailor and John Fleming of the East Indies were both found guilty of vagrancy and D&D at the Nelson, 14 days hard labour each.
January 1839, Joseph Stafford 17m was killed when he was taken a wagon of hay along the turnpike when his horses were startled by huntsman blowing his horn, the frightened horses bolted Joseph fell between the horses was trampled under his cart, his body was taken to the Nelson on a cart. The inquest was held at the Nelson, accidental death.
1846, more auctions held here, Bobbin wood etc.
1849, Thomas Cooper landlord of the Nelsons Arms charged with open during divine service 8 people drinking in the house with others in the garden. Cooper pleaded that as there was no service that particular Sunday he was ok, never the less he was still fined £1.
Thomas Cooper died at the Nelson aged 59 in 1859. His wife carried on the business as can be seen by her holding auctions of hay at the Nelson in November of 1862.
A few more snippets about the NELSON INN on Humberstone Road – all the references to it that I’ve seen refer to it as the NELSON or NELSON INN, not come across NELSON ARMS. Apparently “ the old public house was named the NELSON, but called the “Needless Inn” according to a newspaper piece from 1887, without explanation. In the 1830s the inn was the site of the Martinmas, Candlemas and Belgrave Great Statutes which were fairs held for the hiring of servants and agricultural labourers. A report from 1840 relates how the NELSON INN “was feloniously entered and several fowls and a pair of steelyards were stolen … the footmarks of three persons and a quantity of feathers were traced as far as the Willow Bridge …” In the 1850s, the NELSON provided luncheon for those church dignitaries and congregation involved in the ancient custom of “beating the boundary” of St Margaret’s parish.
In September 1862, it was put up for auction; the “old-licensed and well-accustomed public house” consisted of the the pub ”with three rooms on the ground floor, besides kitchen & cellarage and five bedrooms together with yards, garden, brewhouse, stable with loft…. piggeries….and bowling alley…… and two closes of Land with a frontage on Humberstone Road; the auction lot went for £2060. Though no longer a pub, the building itself may have survived as the “Nelson Cottage” shown on this map of 1885 (see below).
Chris Pyrah
