engineering

Leicester Guildhall

Leicester Guildhall is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Leicester Guildhall rather than just read about it. In short: The Guildhall in Leicester, England, is a timber framed building, with the earliest part dating from c. 1390. The Guildhall acted as the town hall for the city until the current one was commissioned in 1876.

Key takeaways

Leicester Guildhall belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Leicester Guildhall to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Leicester Guildhall from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Guildhall in Leicester, England, is a timber framed building, with the earliest part dating from c. 1390. The Guildhall acted as the town hall for the city until the current one was commissioned in 1876. It is located in the old walled city, on a street now known as Guildhall Lane. It was used first as the meeting place for Leicester's Guild of Corpus Christi and then later for the more formal Corporation of Leicester. The hall was used for many purposes, including council meetings, feasts, as a courtroom, and for theatrical performances; the ultimatum given to the city during English Civil War was discussed here. It is a Grade I listed building, and the surrounding area, also including the Cathedral of St Martin's, is a conservation area, one of three in Leicester.

History

The Great Hall was built around 1390 as the meeting place of the Guild of Corpus Christi. The Guild was an association of merchants and gentry established in 1350 to protect trade in the town and for a variety ritual purposes. It was dedicated to the Eucharist, the bread and wine of Holy Communion believed by Catholic Christians to hold the divine presence of Christ's Body (or Corpus Christi in Latin). The Guildhall was used for banquets, festivals, and as the lodging of a priest who prayed for the souls of deceased Guild members in a chantry chapel in nearby St Martin's Church. The Corporation of Leicester was created in 1589 and came to use the Guildhall as its meeting place and administrative centre.

It is reputed that William Shakespeare appeared here in the late 16th century. In recognition of this, the television company, Maya Vision, brought the Royal Shakespeare Company to perform at the Guildhall as part of its 2003 series for the BBC, In Search of Shakespeare, written and narrated by the historian, Michael Wood. Part of the Shakespeare legend is that Shakespeare first came across the tale of King Leir whilst appearing at the Guildhall and this inspired him to write his own play King Lear. There is, however, no actual evidence to support this, although the legend of King Leir is associated with Leicester. During the English Civil War the Mayor and corporation received a demand from Prince Rupert for £2,000. The decision was made at the Guildhall to offer a loan of £500 and made an appeal to King Charles I. In May 1645 the King in attempt to divert attention away from Oxford positioned an army of 6,000 men outside the city walls on 29 May 1645. Again important decisions regarding the fate of the city were to be decided in the Guildhall. On 30 May 1645 the Royalist Army made demand after demand to the city, who played for time. In the end Prince Rupert attacked at 3:00 pm. The City walls were breached, and the last stand made by the defenders outside the Guildhall and St Martins. The Royalists then entered the Guildhall looting the town's archives, and mace and seal. The Royalist victory was reversed a couple of weeks later with the defeat at Naseby.

Records also show that entertainment expenses were paid for such items as wine, beer for Oliver Cromwell. Although this does not prove he stayed at the Guildhall, it is highly probable that he visited several times. The coat of arms of King Charles I can be seen today inside the Mayor's Parlour. The Guildhall library in England, which includes the New Testament in Greek from the 15th century, was established in 1632, when the town library was moved into the east wing of the building. Leicester's first police force had its station in the Guildhall from 1836. The Corporation moved to the new Leicester Town Hall in 1876. Apart from the police station, it was later used as a school. However, the building was becoming increasingly dilapidated, and by the 1920s there were plans to demolish it. After the intervention of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society, the council began restoration work on the building, finishing it in 1926, when the Guildhall was opened as a museum.

At a press conference in the Guildhall on 4 February 2013, it was confirmed that archaeologists had discovered Richard III's remain in the nearby Greyfriars 'Car Park'. The former Alderman Newton's Greencoat School building, close to the grave site, opened as a permanent Richard III museum, on 24 July 2014.

Present day The Guildhall is used as a performance venue as well as a museum.

Ghosts With five reported ghosts, the Guildhall is reputedly Leicester's most haunted building. Because of its reported hauntings, it has appeared on various TV programmes, including being investigated on the television show Most Haunted.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Leicester Guildhall

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Leicester Guildhall claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Leicester Guildhall before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Leicester Guildhall ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Leicester Guildhall

In research: Leicester Guildhall appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Leicester Guildhall in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Leicester Guildhall is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Buildings and structures completed in 1390, Buildings and structures in Leicester, City and town halls in Leicestershire, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Leicester Guildhall outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Leicester Guildhall in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Leicester Guildhall means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Leicester Guildhall out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Leicester Guildhall in simple terms?

Why does Leicester Guildhall matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Leicester Guildhall?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Leicester Guildhall.