Friday 13th February 2026  

Lily Allen - One Hundred Years in Quorn

This article about Lily Allen was written by Kate Hutchinson in 2006, the year of Lily’s 100th birthday

Lilian Ellen Allen (nee Ball) was born in Quorn on 10th November 1906.
The family then lived at 7 Leicester Road, one of a row of cottages demolished to make room for the building of The Mills Flats. When she was nine, she, with her parents, Lily and Arthur Ball and her brother Arthur moved to 19 School Lane. Her parents were joint caretakers of Quorn St Bartholomew's school for 25 years, conveniently opposite where they lived. Her brother continued the family tradition by later becoming caretaker at Humphrey Perkin's School at Barrow on Soar.

Lily went to school until the age of 14, she worked at Wright's Mills for 12 months and then moved to Drivers at Barrow on Soar where she worked for 10 years, walking there of course, because there were no buses until latterly when Howletts began their service connecting the villages. Eventually she moved back to Wrights where she wove webbing straps for uniforms for the three services. Much later she worked in the kitchen at Quorn Country Club.

Lily married Alfred Allen at St Bartholomew's Quorn in 1927 when she was nineteen, Dolly Newton was her bridesmaid.
When first married they lived on Leicester Road and later moved into 15, School Lane where they spent most of their 54 years together. They had 3 children, Lily, Arthur and Denice. Sadly Arthur died in March this year. She and Alf celebrated their Golden Wedding in 1977 and sadly Alf died in 1978.

Alf was a Loughborough lad and he and his two pals Jack Newton and George Burnham, all clarinettists in the Loughborough Band, married Quorn girls. Alf had an early motorbike and he and Lily enjoyed travelling around.

When asked about 'the Americans' in Quorn during the war Lily smiled and said `they livened things up a bit.' Her mother did washing for three of the paratroopers and one, who married a Leicester girl, made several visits to her in later years to reminisce.
After Alf died Lily moved to a flat in The Mills, built almost on the very spot where she was born.

She lived independently until the age of 93 when ill health forced a move. Lily lived with her daughter on Barrow Road until moving into Holloway House (Quorn's Abbeyfield House) on May 15` 2003. She had two parties to celebrate her birthday, one at Holloway House and a family party the following day at The Cedars.

The writer finds it remarkable that Lily has spent the past 100 years in our village of Quorn. She remarked that it is difficult to imagine where all the years have gone. She is still comparatively fit and very alert and loves visitors who can talk about the village and old times.

Postscript: Lily died on 30th March 2007, the year after the above narrative was written.

Submitted on: 2025-02-15 Submitted by: Kate Hutchinson Artefact ID: 2604 Artefact URL: www.quornmuseum.com/display.php?id=2604 Print: View artefact in printer-friendly page or just on its own (new browser tab).