Year 5 and 6 pupils from Belvoirdale Primary School undertook a two-week project to learn about the history of Coalville’s Clock Tower and Memorial Square in June. The project involved visiting the site accompanied by local historians, Steve Warburton and Stuart Duckworth, from Coalville Heritage Society.
The pupils compared old pictures of the Square with how it looks today and learnt about some of the long-gone traditions, such as skating on the pond, which used to exist where the seating is now, when it iced over in the winter.
In this guest blog, Jaden, 10, describes what he learnt from the trip…
We travelled to the Coalville clock tower and we learnt about the past and present of Coalville. The famous 50 (who travelled from Hugglescote) fought for our town. In 1925, the clock tower was built for a memorial of the fighters that fought in WWI (the great war.) In 1945, the clock tower added fighters who fought in WWII as well.
Before 1925, the clock tower was not invented. Bruce and Bruce built the clock tower on 31st October, 1925. Before the clock tower was invented, there was a round about. Now in the present, it is a 3 way road. A few years after the clock tower was built, the road was changed to as it is now (3 way road.) They celebrated WWI in 1925, Also, we took pictures of what we saw and what is different about the clock tower and what is near it. If the clock tower wasn’t anywhere in Coalville, there would be no signs of who took part in the war and who died. There are lots of different places near the Coalville clock tower e.g. the post office, shops. The clock tower has lasted for 93 years up to today, Wednesday June 6th 2018.