Landmarks
Rosie likes visiting the Carillon tower in Queens Park, Loughborough. She took the opportunity to do some research into its history and why it was there. A fun fact about the Carillon Tower is that it has 47 separate bells, all of which were cast at the John Taylor Bell foundry in Loughborough.
She also drew a map of the park.
Treasures
Rosie did some research into the legend of the Mad Men of Gotham and found the story very funny. She drew a picture to show the villagers of Gotham dancing round the cuckoo bush to try and pretend they were crazy so King John would not build his hunting lodge there.
While walking past an estate agents in the village we noticed a house for sale in Alan Turing Road in Loughborough. This gave Rosie a chance to relearn about Alan Turning and the fantastic efforts he made during the second world war in decrypting enemy messages as well as the advances made in mathematics and computing. Rosie has visited Bletchley Park, where Turning and his team were based during the war to decrypt messages using the Bombe machine. Every year the Turing award is given out for outstanding contributions to computer science. Rosie has taken inspiration from this and designed and created her own Turing award medal.
On The Map
Following on from her research around the Carillon Tower, Rosie wanted to investigate more about the bell foundry and the person who founded it, John William Taylor. Although not from Loughborough he moved to the area in 1859 where he set up the foundry.
The bell foundry has cast more than 25,000 bells that are hung in more than 100 countries around the world. Peals of bells from the foundry ring out from towers all over the English-speaking world.
Bells made at the John Taylor foundry hang in nearly every cathedral in England and in thousands of parish churches. From the bells in East Leake Church, to London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral and York Minster
