Things to do in Leicestershire

Ashby de la Zouch Castle achieved its greatest glory as the purpose-built status symbol of William, Lord Hastings. The same man also built Kirby Muxloe Castle. Lord Hastings added the impressive keep-like Hastings Tower – a luxurious self-contained residence, and a castle within a castle. A stubborn Royalist stronghold during the Civil War, Ashby fell to Parliament after a long siege in 1646. You can explore an atmospheric underground passage from the kitchen to the tower, probably created during the siege. Visit, and you’ll be following in the footsteps of the Regency visitors who flocked to the ruined castle after it starred in Walter Scott’s wildly popular historical novel, Ivanhoe.

Ashby-de-la-Zouch is a historic market town in Leicestershire whose name alone announces its Norman-French origins, the de la Zouch family who gave the town its distinctive suffix having been among the Anglo-Norman lords who established themselves in the English Midlands following the Conquest. The town is best known today for its impressive castle ruins, which represent one of the finest surviving examples of a late medieval fortified manor house in the East Midlands and tell the story of the most powerful magnate family in fifteenth-century England. Ashby Castle was developed into its grandest form by William Lord Hastings, who was created Baron Hastings by Edward IV and became one of the most important figures in the Yorkist political establishment. The great Hastings Tower, the most impressive surviving element of the castle, was built by William in the 1470s and rises to a considerable height despite the demolition ordered by Parliament following the Civil War in the seventeenth century. Hastings met his end in one of the most abrupt and dramatic moments of the Wars of the Roses when Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had him summarily executed in 1483 during the council meeting in which Richard seized effective power in England, his death dramatised by Shakespeare as a consequence of his loyalty to Edward IV's family. The castle is managed by English Heritage and allows visitors to explore the ruins including the tower, the great hall and the domestic buildings that survive in various states of preservation. The combination of architectural interest and the vivid historical associations of the Hastings family makes it one of the more compelling castle ruins in the Midlands. Walter Scott set scenes from his novel Ivanhoe at a tournament ground near Ashby, giving the town a further fictional dimension in the romantic tradition. The town itself is a pleasant Midlands market town with a good range of independent shops and the Queen's Head Hotel, a building with its own historic character. The surrounding Leicestershire countryside provides gentle walking and cycling.

Market Harborough in Leicestershire is an attractive market town on the River Welland whose combination of the medieval grammar school building with its remarkable open ground floor designed to shelter market traders, the handsome parish church of St Dionysius and the Georgian and Victorian commercial architecture creates one of the most rewarding and least visited market town experiences in the East Midlands. The town has strong associations with the Civil War, having been the staging point for Charles I's army before the decisive defeat at Naseby in 1645. The Old Grammar School of 1614, raised on timber pillars to allow the market to shelter beneath it, is one of the most unusual medieval educational buildings in England, its combination of educational and commercial functions in a single structure reflecting the medieval understanding that the two activities were complementary. The Canal Museum at Foxton Locks a few miles away provides an outstanding example of the narrowboat canal heritage of the East Midlands. The combination of the town heritage and the Foxton Locks visit creates a rewarding day in the Leicestershire countryside.

Oakham is the county town of Rutland, England's smallest historic county, a market town of considerable charm whose combination of medieval castle remains, historic church, attractive market square and the surrounding agricultural landscape of England's most rural county makes it a rewarding destination for those seeking uncrowded historic England at its most genuine. Rutland was absorbed into Leicestershire in the local government reorganisation of 1974 but recovered its county status in 1997, a restoration that reflected the strong attachment of the county's population to their distinctive identity. Oakham Castle, in the centre of the town, is one of the finest surviving examples of a Norman great hall in England. The hall, built in the late twelfth century by Walkelin de Ferrers, retains its complete Norman arcade of pillars and arches in a remarkable state of preservation, and the interior walls are hung with over two hundred decorative horseshoes donated by royalty and peers as a local tradition requiring every peer of the realm passing through Oakham to surrender a horseshoe. The collection, beginning with an example attributed to Edward IV and including shoes from every subsequent monarch and many noble visitors, constitutes one of the most unusual collections of royal and aristocratic memorabilia in England. The Church of All Saints in the market place is a fine medieval building with an excellent collection of Victorian stained glass and the market place itself, with its traditional butter cross and surrounding Georgian and earlier buildings, provides a handsome central space of the kind increasingly rare in English market towns. Rutland Water, a large reservoir created in the 1970s that is now one of the most important freshwater wildlife habitats in the Midlands and a centre for sailing and water sports, lies immediately east of the town and provides an additional natural and recreational dimension.

Rockingham Castle near Corby in Northamptonshire is a royal castle of Norman origins that has been developed into a private house of considerable historical interest over nine centuries, its position on a commanding ridge above the Welland Valley providing exceptional views across the valley into Leicestershire and the castle fabric reflecting the transformation from medieval fortification to comfortable country house that occurred progressively from the Tudor period onward. The castle has been occupied by the Watson family since the sixteenth century and is open to visitors during the summer season. The castle was built by William the Conqueror and subsequently used by the English kings, particularly John and the Edwards, as a hunting base for the royal forest of Rockingham that once covered much of this part of Northamptonshire. The great circular earthwork banks of the Norman fortification still define the outer perimeter of the castle, enclosing the courtyard and later buildings within the Norman defensive scheme. Henry VIII granted the castle to Edward Watson in 1530 and subsequent generations of the family transformed the military structure into the house visible today. Charles Dickens stayed at Rockingham Castle several times between 1847 and 1852 as the guest of the Watsons, and he used the castle as the model for Chesney Wold in Bleak House, giving the building a literary association of considerable prestige. The connection is celebrated in the castle's interpretive material and the rooms used by Dickens during his visits retain an association with the novelist's extraordinary imagination. The Welland Valley landscape visible from the castle ridge, the ancient ridge and furrow earthworks in the surrounding fields and the extensive estate woodland provide an excellent setting for the castle visit.

Uppingham is one of the finest and most complete small market towns in England's smallest county, a Rutland town of warm ironstone and limestone buildings set on a ridge above the Eye Brook Valley whose combination of the traditional market square, Uppingham School with its significant architectural presence, the excellent independent shops and the surrounding Rutland countryside creates a destination of considerable charm and cultural richness. Uppingham School, founded in 1584 and one of the older English public schools, contributes substantially to the character of the town through both its buildings and the cultural investment it has sustained over centuries. The school chapel and the school buildings clustered around the centre of the town give Uppingham an architectural confidence unusual in a small market town, and the tradition of educational excellence has attracted a population with cultural interests that sustain the quality of the town's independent businesses. The market square with its traditional buildings, the Church of St Peter and St Paul and the surrounding streets of stone buildings provide a townscape of considerable quality and consistency. The proximity of Rutland Water, the largest artificial lake in England by surface area, provides excellent birdwatching, sailing and cycling immediately north of the town and completes an experience of Rutland's distinctive combination of historic townscape and managed countryside.

Zouch Bridge carries the road across the River Soar between the Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire villages of Zouch and Normanton on Soar, a crossing of modest scale in the flat river valley landscape of the Soar floodplain that reflects the long history of settlement and movement in this productive agricultural corridor of the East Midlands. The bridge and the surrounding riverside landscape form part of the quiet, undervisited countryside characteristic of this section of the Soar valley, a landscape of water meadows, reed-fringed banks and gentle pastoral scenery that provides a rewarding contrast to the more dramatic upland landscapes for which the wider Midlands region is less well known. The River Soar in this area forms part of the Grand Union Canal navigation and the combination of the navigable river, the towpath walking and the cycling routes of the National Cycle Network through the valley create a network of accessible routes through this attractive lowland landscape. The river here is broad and slow-moving, its banks lined with willows and alders and the floodplain meadows supporting a range of wetland plants and the wading birds and wildfowl that favour these river valley habitats. Zouch village itself is a small settlement with the characteristic quiet charm of the Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire border country, its traditional brick and stone buildings set beside the river in a landscape that feels genuinely rural despite its proximity to the urban centres of the East Midlands. The riverside pub at Zouch is a popular destination for walkers and cyclists following the Soar valley routes. The combination of the river crossing, the towpath walking and the gentle pastoral landscape of the Soar valley makes this a rewarding quiet countryside destination for those seeking uncrowded waterside scenery within comfortable reach of the East Midlands cities.

Zouch Meadows lies along the flood plain of the River Soar near the village of Zouch on the Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire border, forming part of the wider mosaic of riverside grassland, wetland and woodland that characterises this section of the Soar valley. The meadows represent a type of traditional agricultural landscape that has become increasingly rare in the East Midlands as drainage improvement, agricultural intensification and urban development have progressively eliminated the seasonally flooded water meadows that once lined many English river valleys. The hydrology of the meadows is driven by the River Soar, which regularly overtops its banks during winter and spring rainfall events, depositing silt across the meadow surface and creating the waterlogged conditions that prevent agricultural improvement while supporting the plant communities characteristic of traditional water meadow habitats. These communities, which include yellow flag iris, meadowsweet, ragged robin, marsh marigold and a range of sedges and rushes, provide both ecological value and seasonal visual interest, particularly in late spring and early summer when the meadow flowers are at their peak. The riverside habitats associated with the meadows attract a good diversity of bird species throughout the year. Kingfishers hunt along the river margins, grey herons stalk the shallow margins of the flooded sections, and sedge and reed warblers breed in the taller emergent vegetation along the water's edge during the summer months. Winter flooding can attract wildfowl including teal, mallard and occasional wigeon that use the flooded meadow surface for feeding. The Soar valley provides a network of public footpaths that allow exploration of the meadow landscape and the broader river corridor on foot, connecting Zouch with neighbouring villages and providing a gentle, low-level walking experience through quintessential Midlands countryside. The towpath of the Soar Navigation, which parallels the river through this section, provides an additional off-road route suitable for both walking and cycling.

Zouch is a small historic village straddling the boundary between Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire on the banks of the River Soar, a settlement of quiet charm and considerable age that sits within the pastoral heart of the East Midlands countryside. The village is small enough to have escaped the suburban development that has absorbed many similar communities across this part of England and retains a character shaped by its long agricultural and river-crossing history. The River Soar at Zouch provides the defining feature of the village's setting and history. The river crossing here was significant as part of the historic route network connecting the Midlands towns of Loughborough, Nottingham and Leicester, and the ford and later bridge at Zouch served generations of travellers, traders and livestock drovers moving goods and animals between these settlements across the flat river meadows of the Soar valley. The current Zouch Bridge, a modest structure crossing the river near the village pub, is the latest in a succession of crossings that have occupied this point for many centuries. The countryside surrounding Zouch is characteristic of the Soar valley floodplain: flat, well-watered meadows that supported extensive cattle grazing in the historic farming economy of the Midlands. The river itself, now also used as part of the Grand Union Canal network, passes through a landscape of willows, water meadows and the occasional boatyard that gives this section of the Soar a pleasant navigational character. Narrowboats and leisure craft pass through the village during the warmer months, adding a gentle animation to the riverside. The village pub beside the river provides the social centre of the community and a comfortable stopping point for walkers, cyclists and boaters exploring the Soar valley, which offers pleasant low-level walking through some of the quieter and less-visited landscapes of central England. The network of public footpaths across the surrounding meadows and the towpath of the navigation provide several hours of easy walking in a setting that has been shaped over centuries by the rural economy of the English Midlands.