The History of Brookfield
Brookfield, a modest gentleman’s house on the southern edge of Leicester, was bought c1875 by industrialist Thomas Fielding Johnson. He immediately commissioned the firm of Goddard and Paget to make substantial extensions. It became one of the foremost fashionable houses, and one of the first instances of the Tudor revival in Leicester in the Victorian era. It was later home to the first Bishop of Leicester since the 9th Century, then becoming the UK’s largest Red Cross packaging site for POWs, After the war it became a nursing school, and lastly – coming full circle – after extensive restoration, it became the University of Leicester’s School of Business.
Join us to learn about Brookfield’s last 150 years as the home to Thomas Fielding Johnson (one of the University’s most prominent founders and benefactors) and its long legacy after his death.
Brookfield, London Road, Leicester. Photo: Peter Ellis