Sileby History
Its people and places. A community through time.
57-63 Barrow Road
On the site of these cottages was once a parish workhouse.
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A property deed from 1902 recites that these cottages were built on the site of earlier cottages here. Those cottages were said to have been made out of one building and that building was "many years since made use of as a workhouse for the poor."
This is not as far fetched as you may think. In 1838 Sileby sold its 'parish property', i.e., a cottage, for £90 to William Palmer. It was disposed of in response to the establishment of the Barrow upon Soar Union, of which Sileby was a member. The Union had its own arrangements for dealing with the poor including having its own workhouse, making Sileby's provision redundant.
The property here may be the same premises that the parish used to house homeless and pauper villagers in the 1630s.