Highcross Shopping Centre was opened in 2008 as a re-development / extension of the previous 'Shires Shopping Centre'. It is over 100,000m2 in size, contains 36 places to eat or drink, a 12 screen cinema, 2 public squares and a lot of shops.
However, the avarage geocacher may be more interested in the history of the area. The following text is taken from the shopping centres own website (which cant be linked to in this log) regarding the history of the area and the discoveries during the redevelopment.
Highcross is built on a site of great historical significance.
From the Roman and Medieval ages right through to the present day, new discoveries are rewriting the history of Leicester. Highcross is probably the largest single development within the line of walls of the historic core of the Roman and medieval town since the Roman forum was built in the second century AD. Its development provided a major opportunity to explore the site with a series of archaeological excavations which have revealed some startling discoveries. Under the guidance of a team from the University of Leicester Archaeological Services, with consultancy advice from PJO Archaeology, an extensive programme of trial trenching took place, excavating all the sites on which the new construction of Highcross was to stand. These revealed that the archaeology over a large proportion of the area could be left preserved beneath the new buildings. Four key sites were identified where excavation was necessary, and the resulting finds have added invaluable new information to Leicester’s recorded history. Important discoveries included:
Vaughan Way
The discovery of the ‘lost’ church of St Peter and a graveyard of over 1,300 burials, one of the largest medieval cemeteries excavated in the UK.
Vine Street
The discovery of a vast 1,600 m2 Roman house with a central courtyard, a possible Roman public building, and the graveyard of another ‘lost’ medieval church, St Michael, in one of the largest single excavations to have ever taken place within the city. Unusual Roman finds included two inscribed lead curse tablets. These small flat lead tablets usually carried an appeal to a Roman god for some injustice or crime to be put right, and sometimes listed the suspects. The curse tablet was either pinned up in a shrine or thrown into a holy well.
Highcross Street
The revelation of a series of medieval and post-medieval properties, together with evidence of the town’s existence during the Viking age, and the surprise discovery of the collapsed wall of what is likely to have been the Roman macellum or market hall. This is a particularly exciting discovery since it is rare to find intact evidence on this scale of a Roman public building. Typically, stone work from the Roman period was cannibalised and re-used for building structures during later ages. Finds from the medieval period included a triangular piece of riveted chain maille, a bread oven, and traces of timber buildings from the 5th and 6th centuries. To find out more, visit the University of Leicester Archaeology Services website. Highcross Leicester takes its name from The High Cross which stood at the very centre of the medieval town where the north-south route of Highcross Street intersected the now modern-day High Street.
For centuries, this was the economic heart of the town where the thriving Wednesday Market stood until 1884; and along the course of Highcross Street, or near to it, stood many of the most important buildings of the time including the Old Grammar School and the old Borough Gaol.
Records indicate that a market cross stood in this vicinity as early as 1278 when it was repaired. It was rebuilt again in 1314 and a new cross erected in 1577. The High Cross built in 1577 was a market shelter at the site of the Wednesday and Friday markets in Highcross Street and was a circular structure with eight pillars supporting a pointed roof. By 1733 the High Cross had fallen into disrepair, and was sold off in sections. One pillar remained in situ until 1836, when it was bought by James Rawson, owner of The Crescent in King Street. After being moved to various sites it was finally located in Cheapside in 1977, where it still remains.
The location of the original market cross is now marked by three paving stones set into the tarmac of the road carriageway, several metres to the north of the modern intersection of High Street, Highcross Street, and St Nicholas Place. Adjacent to this marker, on the wall of the Highcross pub which dominates the corner of High Street and Highcross Street, is a blue plaque erected by Leicester City Council.