Heart of England
On a Monday morning in early July 1841, 500 people gathered in high spirits on the concourse at Leicester’s recently opened Campbell Street Station to embark on a very special outing. They were accompanied on their chartered train by a band and greeted by waving onlookers as they steamed the 10 miles to nearby Loughborough where they found their destination festooned with flags.
The day trip at a shilling a head had been organised by a local printer and Baptist missionary called Thomas Cook. And although he didn’t know it at the time, that short journey through the Leicestershire countryside – a journey you can still enjoy today on the Great Central Railway heritage line – was the start of modern package tourism. Cook went on to forge a global travel empire. But he may have been astonished at the treasures to be found much closer to home.
