Follow The Fox - A Leicester City Trail

There’s nothing like a good exploratory walking project to keep the joints well-oiled and the vintage cameras clicking smoothly (or indeed ‘clunking’ smoothly in the case of the FED). As exploratory projects go this is a really good one too, combining as it does my casual interests in Architecture, Urban Exploration, perhaps a Pub or two along the way, and of course the (mostly) male obsession with collecting things. It's also a good day when a mystery that's been bugging me for the best part of a decade is finally resolved...

A few years ago, toward the tail-end of Twitter being a useable social space, I posted a photo of something quite mundane and yet inexplicable in the hope that someone might recognise it. An urban artefact that I’d spotted on a stroll around my old home town of Leicester, one of those 'hidden in clear view' things that I'd come across previously but not given too much thought to. The post stirred a modicum of interest online but the mystery remained, and perhaps more surprisingly, a Google search revealed even less. Advance several years to the present day and my interest has been thoroughly re-sparked after spotting yet another example, one of many dotted around the city it would later transpire...

What got me thoroughly foxed back then was a small Terracotta Plaque (below) mounted quite high on a wall, decorated with a Running Fox and impressed with the words ‘City Trail LRSA’. It also had a date, an individual number, and the name of the local brickmakers who manufactured the plaque, Ibstock Brick.

My interest was so thoroughly piqued by this most recent discovery that I decided right there and then that I needed to seek out, and perhaps record a few of these urban curiosities. On this occasion the internet would prove to be much more helpful.

By a stroke of luck the Leicestershire and Rutland Society of Architects (LRSA) had also been pondering these plaques following numerous queries from folk like me, and in 2024 had undertaken a relaunch of the trail by tracking down all the remaining plaques, and in some cases creating new ones where the 1984 originals had been obscured or destroyed. Best of all they also produced a booklet which includes a map showing the location of all 37 plaques, as well as some interesting background to the original trail, a pdf of which can be downloaded here: [City Trail LRSA 2024]

The trail was originally envisioned as much more than a mere 'ticking' opportunity though, the plaques themselves are positioned to indicate 'vantage points', often mounted on walls and buildings of no particular architectural interest. From these waymarked positions we’re encouraged to observe our surroundings, with a particular emphasis on structures of architectural significance.

Of course this is very freeing for the photographer. Despite being in the same place we're free to focus on whatever catches our eye, whatever the subject, although it would perhaps be negligent to ignore the architecture entirely! So more a themed framework for our own creativity than a rigid guide to any specific building or structure.

Whilst it's perfectly possible for a fit person to complete the whole trail in a single day, I intend to stretch it out over four days, using a different Vintage Camera on each day and at least one refreshment break in a pub of note, natch'. I'll be starting with a test roll in the new Cosmic 35, so fingers crossed it (and I) deliver something useable.