East Goscote, Leicestershire
East Goscote is a village and civil parish in the Charnwood district of Leicestershire, England, just north of Syston. It is a medium sized village with a population of approximately 3000.
The name East Goscote was taken from one of the old Hundreds (an area of land purported to be able to support 100 families) of Leicester. The Goscote Hundred (or Wapentake) is mentioned in the Domesday book, this was later split into the West and East Goscote Hundreds.
It was the first new village to be created in Leicestershire since Domesday and is unique in the County.
The village is built on the site of a former army supply depot.
According to Department of Defence files, the site was originally constructed in 1940 (finished Sept 1942) by Holloway Brothers, and was an Agency factory run by Lever Brothers/Unilever(No 10 ROF, Royal Ordnance Factory). At that time it was known as the Queniborough depot, since that was the closest village to it. It began production in March/April 1942. According to English Heritige's reference work "Dangerous Energy" it was operating Groups 8-10 of ROF filling types (High Explosives received, mixed, and put into bombs and warheads). By 1944 it was temporarily occupied by the War Office. A report of 1951 has it designated as 78 COSD (Command Ordnance Sub Depot). It was decommisioned in 1959 and subsequently bought for housing development by Jelsons. This development began in 1962. There were two enormous shell storage bunkers that could not be demolished, and these were earthed over and landscaped. They are now part of the playing fields. These were opened to the public as part of the Queens silver Jubilee celebrations in 1977, and there is a plaque near Long furrow noting this fact.
The village had it's own magazine "East Goscote Community News" which ceased publication in the mid 1980's after many issues.
The village school is "Broomfield County Primary School" for children aged 5-11. The village also has it's own church built in the mid 1970's and it own library which is adjacent to the school.
Adjacent to the village is Beadles Lake Golf Club.
External links
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