This former railway goods yard was built by the Great Central Railway in 1897. It lay beside the former GCR route through Leicester and between Upperton Road and Western Boulevard. After the final part of the Great Central closed in 1969 a man called Vic Berry set up a scrap business on the site in 1973. He developed the business to include not only scrapping redundant railway wagons, coaches and locomotives but began providing a repair and painting business, including the removal of asbestos from vehicles before returning them for further use. The number of locomotives and coaches began to accumulate as the speed of withdrawls increased. The yard bacame famous for the stacks of stock 3 or 4 vehicles high. All this activity came to an abrupt end when on Sunday 10th March 1991 a serious fire broke out in the yard and burned for several hours sending airborne asbestos particles accross the city. After months of difficulties the company ceased trading in June 1991. The site was re-developed as part of the Leicester City Challenge project in 1996/97 as Bede Island. I took the following pictures there on 6th October 1990.
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