Hinckley

The ancient name of this town apparently means something like "Hinck's meadow". I've long assumed that it was the origin of my own surname, of which there are (were) many examples in the local Leicestershire telephone directory, as opposed to about three in the whole of Greater London. Some years ago I came through here on a train and, having seen the part of the town shown to passengers in transit, never felt any inclination to make a further visit.

But here we are. And Hinckley has a district museum. Since it had a flourishing hosiery business from centuries ago, that sounded promising, so we moored up and caught the bus into town. The driver dropped us outside the door.

It was in a building like this that they had installed the hosiery machine that kickstarted the factory phase of the industry and we were looking forward to seeing the exhibits. I'd checked the website before we went, but I should have checked it better. It's only open on Saturdays!

I can confirm what I had always suspected – walking round the middle of Hinckley on a hot day holds few delights. Mind you, if it's a Saturday when we come back through, we might just make the journey again.