Leicester ( , ) is a
city and
unitary authority area in the
East Midlands of England.
It is the county town of Leicestershire
. The city lies on the River Soar
and at the edge of the National Forest.
In 2006,
the population of the Leicester unitary authority was estimated at
289,700, the largest in the East Midlands, whilst 441,213 people
lived in the wider Leicester Urban Area
. Leicester is the 10th most
populous settlement in the United Kingdom using the 2001 census
definitions and the urban area is the fifteenth largest conurbation in
the UK, the second largest city in the region behind the Nottingham Urban
Area
.
Ancient
Roman pavements and baths remain in
Leicester from its early settlement as Ratae
Corieltauvorum
, a Roman military outpost in a region inhabited by
the Celtic Corieltauvi tribe.
Following
the demise of Roman society the early medieval Ratae Corieltauvorum
is shrouded in obscurity, but when the settlement was captured by
the Danes it became one of five fortified towns important to the
Danelaw
. The name "Leicester" is thought to derive
from the words
castra of the "Ligore",
meaning a camp on the River Legro, an early name for the River
Soar. Leicester appears in the
Domesday Book as "Ledecestre". Leicester
continued to grow throughout the
Early Modern period as a
market town, although it was the
Industrial Revolution that facilitated
an unparalleled process of unplanned urbanisation in the
area.
A newly constructed rail and canal network routed through the area
stimulated industrial growth in the 19th century, and Leicester
became a major economic centre with a variety of manufactories in
engineering, shoe making and
hosiery
production. The economic success of these industries, and
businesses ancillary to them resulted in significant urban
expansion into the surrounding countryside. The boundaries of
Leicester were extended throughout the 19th and 20th centuries,
becoming a
county borough in 1889,
and granted
city
status in 1919.
Today, Leicester is a thriving city, located on
Midland Main Line and close to the
M1 motorway. Leicester has a large
ethnic minority population, a
product of
immigration to the
United Kingdom since the
Second World
War. The city has a large
South
Asian community, and as such many
Hindu,
Sikh and
Muslim places of
worship.
Leicester is a centre for higher education by way of Leicester
University
, De Montfort University
, and Loughborough University
, all based in the region.
History
According to
Geoffrey of
Monmouth, a mythical king of the Britons
King Leir founded the city of Kaerleir
('Leir's chester' – i.e. fortified town). Even today the name of
the city in the
Welsh language is
Caerlŷr.
Leir was supposedly buried by Queen Cordelia in a chamber beneath the
River
Soar near the city dedicated to the Roman god Janus, and every year people celebrated his feast-day
near Leir's tomb. William
Shakespeare's King Lear is
loosely based on this story and there is a statue of Lear in
Watermead
Country Park
.
Roman
St Nicholas church and the Jewry
Wall
Leicester is one of the oldest cities in England, with a history
going back at least 2000 years.
The first known name of the city is the
Roman label Ratae Corieltauvorum. Before being settled by Romans it was
the capital of the
Celtic Corieltauvi tribe ruling over roughly the same
territory as what is now known as the
East
Midlands.
The
Roman city of Ratae
Corieltauvorum was founded around AD 50 as a military
settlement upon the Fosse Way Roman road. After the military departure,
Ratae Corieltauvorum grew into an important trading centre
and one of the largest towns in
Roman
Britain.
The remains of the baths of Roman Leicester can be seen at the Jewry Wall
and other Roman artefacts are displayed in the
Jewry Wall Museum adjacent to the site.
Anglo-Saxon and Viking
Knowledge of the town in the 5th century is very patchy. Certainly
there is some continuation of occupation of the town, though on a
much reduced scale in the 5th and 6th centuries.
The area was first
settled by the Middle Angles and was
subsequently included in the kingdom of Mercia
.
Leicester
was chosen as the centre of a bishopric (and
therefore a city) in 679/80 which survived until the 9th century,
when Leicester was captured by the Danes (Vikings) and became one of the five boroughs (fortified towns) of Danelaw, although
this position was short lived. The Saxon
Bishop of Leicester fled to
Dorchester-on-Thames and Leicester was not to become a bishopric
again until the 20th century.
It is
believed the name "Leicester" is derived from the words
castra (camp) of the Ligore, meaning dwellers on
the 'River Legro' (an early name for the River Soar). In the early 10th century it was recorded
as
Ligeraceaster = "the town of the Ligor people". The
Domesday Book later recorded it as
Ledecestre.
Medieval
Leicester became a town of considerable importance by
Medieval times It was mentioned in the
Domesday Book as 'civitas' (city), but
Leicester lost its
city status in the 11th
century owing to power struggles between the Church and the
aristocracy.
It was eventually re-made a city in 1919,
and the Church of St Martin became Leicester Cathedral
in 1927. The tomb of
King Richard III is located in the
central nave of the church although he is not actually buried
there.
He
was originally buried in the Greyfriars Church in Leicester, but there
is a legend that his corpse was exhumed under orders from Henry VII and cast into the River Soar, although there is no evidence for this and some
historians believe that his tomb and bones were destroyed with the
dissolution of the church.
Leicester
played a significant role in the history of England, when, in 1265,
Simon de
Montfort forced King Henry
III to hold the first Parliament of England at the
now-ruined Leicester
Castle
. This was not the only time parliament was
held in Leicester, see
Parliament of
Bats.
Tudor
Leicester Abbey ruins, now part of
Abbey Park.
On 4
November 1530, Cardinal Thomas
Wolsey was arrested on charges of treason and taken from
York
Place
. On his way south to face dubious justice at
the Tower of
London
, he fell ill. The group escorting him was
concerned enough to stop at Leicester.
There, Wolsey's
condition quickly worsened and he died on 29 November 1530 and was
buried at Leicester
Abbey
, now Abbey Park
.
Lady Jane Grey, (1536/7 — 12 February 1554),
a great-granddaughter of Henry VII
of England, reigned as uncrowned Queen
Regnant of the Kingdom of
England for nine days in July 1553, and for that reason is
called "The Nine Days Queen" was born at Bradgate Park
near Leicester.
Queen
Elizabeth I's personal favoured
courtier,
Robert
Dudley, who the Queen had one time thought of marrying, and who
has been named and known as her possible lover for centuries, was
given the earldom of Leicester.
Civil War
Plan of the siege of Leicester
Leicester was a Parliamentarian stronghold during the
English Civil War.In 1645,
Prince Rupert decided to attack the city to
draw the
New Model Army away from the
Royalist headquarters of Oxford.Royalist guns were set up on Raw
Dykes and after an unsatisfactory response to a demand for
surrender, the Newarke was stormed and the city was sacked on 30
May. Although hundreds of people were killed by Rupert's cavalry,
reports of the severity of the sacking were exaggerated by the
Parliamentary press in London.
18th and 19th centuries
The
construction of the Grand Union Canal
in the 1790s linked Leicester to London
and Birmingham
and by 1832 the railway had
arrived in Leicester; the new Leicester and Swannington
Railway providing a supply of coal to the
town from nearby collieries. By 1840 the Midland Counties Railway had linked
Leicester to the national railway network and by the 1860s,
Leicester had gained a direct rail link to London (St
Pancras
) with the completion of the Midland Main Line.
These developments in transport encouraged and accompanied a
process of
industrialisation which
intensified throughout the reign of
Queen
Victoria (1837-1901). Factories began to appear, particularly
along the canal and the River Soar. Between 1861 and 1901
Leicester's population increased from 68,000 to 212,000 and the
proportion employed in trade, commerce, building and the city's new
factories and workshops rose steadily.
Hosiery,
textiles and
footwear became major industrial employers
joined, in the latter part of the century, by
engineering. Years of consistent economic growth
meant that, for many, living standards increased. The second half
of the nineteenth-century also witnessed the creation of many
public institutions that we now take for granted such as the Town
Council, the Royal Infirmary and the Leicester Constabulary and the
acceptance that municipal organisations had a responsibility for
water supply, drainage and sanitation.
The
borough expanded throughout the 19th century, most notably in 1892
annexing Belgrave
, Aylestone
, North
Evington
, Knighton
and the rapidly expanding residential suburb of
Stoneygate
, home to many of the city's wealthier families and
some of its growing middle-class. Leicester became a
county borough in 1889, but, as with
all county boroughs, was abolished by the
Local Government Act 1972 in 1974,
becoming an ordinary
district of Leicestershire. It
regained its unitary status in 1997.
The Early 20th Century
Leicester was formally recognised as a city in 1919 and a cathedral
city on the consecration of St Martin's in 1927.
It obtained its
current boundaries in 1935, with the annexation of the remainder of
Evington
, Humberstone
, Beaumont
Leys
and part of Braunstone
. In 1900 an important new transport link,
the
Great Central Railway
provided a new goods and passenger route to London.
By the time of Queen Victoria's death in 1901 the rapid population
growth of the previous decades had already began to slow and the
Great War of 1914-18 and its aftermath had
a marked social and economic impact. Leicester's diversified
economic base and lack of dependence on primary industries meant
that it was much better placed than many other cities to weather
the severe economic challenges of the 1920s and 30s. The Bureau of
Statistics of the newly-formed
League
of Nations identified Leicester in 1936 as the second richest
city in Europe and it became an attractive destination for refugees
fleeing persecution and political turmoil in continental Europe.
These years witnessed the growth in the city of
trade unionism and -particularly- the
co-operative movement. The
Co-op became an important employer and landowner and when Leicester
played host to the
Jarrow March on its
way to London in 1936, the Co-op provided the marchers with a
change of boots (perhaps made at its `Wheatsheaf' works in Knighton
Fields?).
Post World War II
The Leicester War Memorial Arch in
Victoria Park
The years after
World War II,
particularly from the 1960s onwards, brought many social and
economic challenges. There was a steady and irreversible decline in
Leicester's traditional manufacturing industries and in the City
Centre working factories and light industrial premises have now
been almost entirely displaced by new businesses. The 1960s and 70s
saw the movement of passengers and freight by rail and barge
eclipsed by the growth of road transport. The
Great Central Railway and the
Leicester and Swannington
Railway both closed and the northward extension of the
M1 motorway linked Leicester into a growing
motorway network. By the 1990s Leicester's central position and its
good road transport links to the rest of the country had given it a
new strategic importance as a distribution centre and the south
western boundaries of the city have attracted many new businesses
in both service and manufacturing sectors.
Since the war Leicester has experienced large scale immigration
from across the world. Immigrant groups today make up around 40% of
Leicester's population, making Leicester one of the most ethnically
diverse cities in the United Kingdom. Many Polish servicemen were
prevented from returning to their homeland after the war by the
communist regime, and they established a small community in
Leicester. Economic migrants from Ireland continued to arrive
throughout the post war period.
Immigrants from the Indian sub-continent
began to arrive in the 1960s, their numbers boosted by Indians arriving from Kenya
and Uganda in the early 1970s. In the 1990s,
apparently drawn by the city's free and easy atmosphere and by the
number of
mosques, a group of Dutch citizens
of
Somali origin settled in the city.
Since the 2004
enlargement of the European
Union a significant number of eastern European migrants have
settled in the city. While some wards in the north-east of the city
are more than 70% Asian, wards in the west and south are all over
70% white. The
Commission
for Racial Equality (CRE) had estimated that by 2011 Leicester
would have approximately a 50% ethnic minority population, making
it the first city in Britain not to have a white British majority.
This prediction was based on the growth of the ethnic minority
populations between 1991 (Census 1991 28% ethnic minority) and 2001
(Census 2001 - 36% ethnic minority). However Professor Ludi Simpson
at the University of Manchester School of Social Sciences said in
September 2007 that the CRE had "made unsubstantiated claims and
ignored government statistics" and that Leicester's immigrant and
minority communities disperse to other places. The
Leicester Multicultural Advisory Group was a
forum set up in 2001 by the editor of the
Leicester Mercury to coordinate community
relations, with members representing the council, police, schools,
community and faith groups, and the media.
Geography
Snow in Leicester, taken in Spinney
Hill Park
Areas of Leicester
Areas in the Leicester unitary authority area:
- Aylestone
- Beaumont Leys, Abbey Ward, Bede Island
, Belgrave, Blackfriars, Braunstone Estate, Braunstone Frith
- City Centre
, Clarendon Park
, Crown
Hills
- Dane
Hills
- Eyres Monsell
, Evington, Evington
Valley
- Frog Island
- Gilmorton Estate, Goodwood
- Hamilton
- Highfields
- Horston Hill, Humberstone, Humberstone Garden City
- Knighton
- Mowmacre Hill
- Nether Hall, New Humberstone, New Parks
, Newfoundpool
, North
Evington, Northfields
- Rowlatts Hill (R.H.E.), Rowley Fields,
Rushey
Mead
- Saffron Lane Estate, Southfields
, South Knighton, Spinney Hills, St Peters, St
Matthew's, Stoneygate
- Thurnby Lodge
- Westcotes
, West End
, West Knighton
, Western Park
, Woodgate
The
Office for National
Statistics has defined a Leicester Urban Area, which consists of the conurbation of Leicester, although it has no
administrative status. The area contains the unitary
authority area and several towns, villages and suburbs outside the
city's administrative boundaries.
Governance
On April
1, 1997, Leicester
City Council
became a unitary
authority, local government up until then having been a
two-tier system with the city and county councils being responsible
for different aspects of local government services (a system which
is still in place in the rest of Leicestershire).
Leicestershire County Council
retained its headquarters at County Hall in Glenfield
, just outside the city boundary but within the
urban area. The administrative offices of Leicester City
Council are in the centre of the city at the New Walk Centre and
other office buildings near Welford Place. Some services
(particularly the police and the ambulance service) still cover the
whole of the city and county, but for the most part the two
councils are independent.
After a long period of Labour administration (since 1979), the city
council from May 2003 was run by a
Liberal Democrat/
Conservative coalition under
Roger Blackmore, which collapsed in
November 2004. The minority Labour group ran the city until May
2005, under Ross Willmott, when the Liberal Democrats and
Conservatives formed a new coalition, again under the leadership of
Roger Blackmore.
In the local government elections of May 3, 2007, Leicester’s
Labour Party once again took control of the council in what can be
described as a landslide victory. Gaining 18 new councillors,
Labour polled on the day 38 councillors, creating a governing
majority of +20. Significantly however, the Green Party gained its
first councillors in the Castle Ward, after losing on the drawing
of lots in 2003. The Conservative Party saw a decrease in their
representation, whilst the Liberal Democrat Party was the major
loser, dropping from 25 councillors in 2003 to only 6 in
2007.
Leicester
is divided into three Parliamentary constituencies, all won by
The Labour Party at the
2005 general
election: Leicester East
, represented by Keith Vaz,
Leicester West
represented by Patricia
Hewitt, and Leicester South
, represented by Sir Peter
Soulsby.
Coat of arms
The Corporation of Leicester's
coat of
arms was first granted to the city at the Heraldic Visitation
of 1619, and is based on the arms of the first
Earl of Leicester, Robert Beaumont. The
field is a white
cinquefoil on a red
background, and this emblem is used by the City Council.
After Leicester became a city again in 1919, the city council
applied to add to the arms, permission for which was granted in
1929, when the supporting lions, from the Lancastrian Earls of
Leicester, were added.
The motto "Semper Eadem" was the motto of Queen Elizabeth I, who
granted a royal charter to the city. It means "always the same" but
with positive overtones meaning unchanging, reliable or dependable.
The crest on top of the arms is a white or silver legless
wyvern with red and white wounds showing, on a wreath
of red and white.The legless wyvern distinguishes it as a Leicester
wyvern as opposed to other wyverns. The supporting lions are
wearing coronets in the form of collars, with the white cinquefoil
hanging from them.
Demography
| Leicester compared |
| UK Census
2001 |
Leicester |
East
Midlands |
England |
| Total population |
292,600 |
4,172,174 |
49,138,831 |
| Foreign born |
23.0% |
6.0% |
9.2% |
| White (2001) |
63.9% |
93.5% |
90.9% |
| White (2006) |
62.0% |
91.4% |
88.7% |
| South Asian (2001) |
29.9% |
4.0% |
4.6% |
| South Asian (2006) |
29.4% |
4.8% |
5.5% |
| Black (2001) |
3.1% |
0.9% |
2.3% |
| Black (2006) |
4.6% |
1.4% |
2.8% |
| Mixed (2001) |
2.3% |
1.0% |
1.3% |
| Mixed (2006) |
2.6% |
1.4% |
1.6% |
| East Asian and Other (2001) |
0.8% |
0.5% |
0.9% |
| East Asian and Other (2006) |
1.5% |
1.0% |
1.4% |
| Christian |
44.7% |
72.0% |
71.7% |
| No religion |
17.4% |
15.2% |
14.6% |
| Hindu |
14.7% |
1.6% |
1.1% |
| Muslim |
11.0% |
1.7% |
3.1% |
The
United Kingdom Census
2001 showed a total resident population for Leicester of
279,921, a 0.5% decrease from the 1991 census. Approximately 62,000
were aged under 16, 199,000 were aged 16–74, and 19,000 aged 75 and
over. 76.9% of Leicester's population claim they have been born in
the UK, according to the 2001 UK Census. Mid-year estimates for
2006 indicate that the population of the City of Leicester stood at
289,700 making Leicester the most populous city in
East Midlands.
The population density is and for every 100 females, there were
92.9 males. Of those aged 16–74 in Leicester, 38.5% had no
academic qualifications,
significantly higher than 28.9% in all of England. 23.0% of
Leicester’s residents were born outside of the United Kingdom,
higher than the English average of 9.2%.
In terms of
districts by
ethnic diversity, the City of Leicester is ranked 11th in
England. According to 2006 estimates, 58.3% of residents are
white British (just under 170,000
people), 3.7%
other
white (around 10,000 people), 29.4% Asian or
Asian British (some 84,000 people), 4.6% black
or
black British (some 9,000 people),
2.6% mixed race (approximately 6,000 individuals) and 1.5% Chinese
or other ethnic group (over 2,000 people). Amongst some of
Leicester's emerging ethnic groups are the
Poles who now number an estimates 30,000 in
the city.
Languages
Alongside English there are around 70 languages and/or dialects
spoken in the city. In addition to English, many other languages
are commonly spoken:
Gujarati is
the preferred language of 16% of the city’s residents,
Punjabi 3%,
Somali 3% and
Urdu 2%. Other smaller language groups include
Chinese (
Cantonese and
Mandarin),
Hindi,
Arabic,
Bengali,
Malayalam and
Polish.
With continuing migration into the city, new languages and or
dialects from Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe are also
being spoken in the city.
In primary schools in Leicester, English is not the ‘preferred’
language of 45% of pupils and the proportion of children whose
first language is known, or believed to be, other than English, is
significantly higher than other cities within the region, or within
the UK.
The people and
dialect of Leicester are
known as
Chisit[s].
Population change
Economy
Engineering
Engineering is an important part of the economy of Leicester.
Companies
include Jones & Shipman (machine tools and control systems),
Richards Engineering (foundry equipment), Transmon Engineering
(materials handling equipment) and Trelleborg
(suspension components for rail, marine, and
industrial applications). Local commitment to nurturing the
upcoming cadre of British engineers includes apprenticeship schemes
with local companies, and academic-industrial connections with the
engineering departments at Leicester University, De Montfort University, and Loughborough University.
Food and drink
Henry
Walker was a successful pork butcher who moved from Mansfield
to Leicester in the 1880s to take over an
established business in the high street. The first Walkers
production line was in the empty upper storey of Walker's Oxford
Street factory in Leicester. In the early days the potatoes were
sliced up by hand and cooked in an ordinary fish and chip fryer. In
1971 the
Walkers crisps business was sold to
Standard Brands, an American firm,
who sold on the company to
Frito-Lay.
Walkers crisps currently makes 10 million bags of
crisps per day at two factories in Beaumont Leys, and is the UK's largest grocery brand.
Meanwhile the sausage and pie business was bought out by Samworth
Brothers in 1986.
Production outgrew the Cobden Street site
and sausages and pork pies are now manufactured at a meat
processing factory and bakery in Beaumont Leys, coincidentally situated near the separately owned
crisp factories. Sold under the Walkers name and under UK
retailers own brands such as Tesco's Finest, over three million hot
and cold pies are made each week. Henry Walker's butcher shop at
4-6 Cheapside is still in business, selling Walkers sausages and
pork pies, and is currently trading under the ownership of Scottish
company Fife Fine Foods which bought up the Walkers butchers stores
chain from Dewhursts in 2006.
Leicester
Market
is the largest outdoor covered marketplace in
Europe and among the products on sale are fruit and vegetables sold
by enthusiastic market stallholders who shout out their prices, and
fresh fish and meat in the Indoor Market. Every year during
the summer the Leicester city council hold cultural festivals here.
In 2009 the Leicester Mela was held in the market area.
Financial and business services
Financial
and business service companies with operations in Leicestershire
include Alliance &
Leicester, Royal Bank of
Scotland, Barclays Bank, State Bank
of India
, Bank of
India
, ICICI Bank, Bank of Baroda, HSBC, and
KPMG. Companies that have their head
office based in the area include
Next Mattel UK and the British Gas
Business.
Statistics
This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Leicester
at current basic prices
published (pp. 240–253) by
Office for
National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds
Sterling.
| Year |
Regional Gross
Value Added |
Agriculture |
Industry |
Services |
| 1995 |
3,561
|
-
|
1,425
|
3,088
|
| 2003 |
5,087
|
1
|
1,289
|
3,797
|
Births, Deaths, and Marriages
The staff at the Leicester office registers 9,500 births and 5,700
deaths annually. In addition around 1,000 marriage ceremonies take
place within the building every year together with an increasing
number of civil partnership registrations. As part of the legal
preliminaries to their wedding the citizens of the City of
Leicester who wish to marry anywhere other than the Church of
England must give a legal notice of their intention to marry. In
the course of a year more than 2,000 notices are entered in the
records of this office.
The original records of all births, deaths and marriages which have
taken place in the City of Leicester since 1837 are kept at the
register office. Every year approximately 12,000 certified copies
are issued from these historic records.
Business awards
The Leicestershire Business Awards has categories including
Investing in Leicestershire, Contribution to the Community, and
Entrepreneur of the Year.
Recent Leicestershire winners of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise
are Guidance Ltd, listed on the Lord Lieutenant's
website. Guidance Monitoring Limited (GML)
specialises in the design and manufacture of sophisticated
electronic tagging/tracking systems for asset protection and
personnel monitoring including for security and criminal justice
applications.
[8205]
Landmarks
There are
ten Scheduled Monuments
in Leicester and thirteen Grade I listed
buildings: some sites, such as Leicester Castle and the Jewry Wall, appear on both lists.
20th Century Architecture: Leicester University
Engineering Building (James Stirling & James Gowan : Grd II
Listed), Kingstone Department Store, Belgrave Gate (Raymond McGrath
: Grd II Listed)
Older Architecture:
Tourist: Discover Leicester
Tour is an open top tour bus linking many of the Leicestershire tourist sites in and around the city. See
[8206].
Parks: Abbey
Park, Botanic Garden
, Victoria Park
, Gorse Hill City Farm
, Castle Gardens, Grand Union Canal
, River
Soar, Watermead Country Park.
Industry: Abbey
Pumping Station
, National Space Centre
, Great
Central Railway.
Places of Worship: Shree
Jalaram Prarthana Mandal
(Hindu temple)[8207],Jain Centre
[8208],
Leicester Cathedral, Masjid Umar (Mosque)
[8209] Guru Nanak Gurdwara (Sikh), Neve Shalom
Synagogue (Progressive Jewish).
Historic Buildings:
Town
Hall
, Leicester Guildhall
, Belgrave
Hall
, Jewry
Wall, Leicester Secular Hall
, Leicester Abbey, Leicester
Castle, St Mary de Castro
,The City Rooms
, Newarke Magazine Gateway
.
Shopping: Haymarket
Centre
, Highcross Leicester
, Leicester
Market, Golden Mile
, Fosse
Park
, St Martin's Square
, Silver
Arcade
.
Sport: Walkers
Stadium
– Leicester City
FC,Welford Road
– Leicester
Tigers,Grace
Road
– Leicestershire County Cricket
Club,John
Sanford Sports Centre – Leicester
Riders, Saffron Lane sports centre
- Leicester Coritanian Athletics
Club.
Transport
Railway
The rail
network is of growing importance in Leicester, and with the start
of Eurostar international services from
London St
Pancras International
in November 2007 giving Leicester
railway station
almost direct links to the continent, this growth
is sure to continue.
East Midlands Trains are the InterCity
operator running 'fast' and 'semi-fast' services to and from
London
to
northern England, and provide local services throughout the
East Midlands, regional services to
the West Midlands and
East
Anglia
are provided by Cross
Country.
Rail
routes run north–south through Leicester along the route known as
the Midland Main Line, going south
to Bedford
, Luton
and
London; and north to Lincoln
, Sheffield
, Leeds
and
York
.Junctions north and south of the station
link the east–west cross country route, going east to Cambridge
, Stansted Airport
and Norwich
; and west to Nuneaton
and Birmingham.Leicester is from London on the Midland Main
Line, the fastest trains taking 1 hour and 07 minutes.
Journeys to Sheffield take around 1 hour, Leeds and York are
approximately a 2 hour journey. Birmingham and Peterborough
are around 1 hour away.
Passengers using the railway station can include a
PlusBus ticket with their train ticket which gives
unlimited bus travel in a designated area.
Network Rail has plans afoot to
re-develop the station incorporating the city council's plans for
the surrounding area.
Great Central Railway
Leicester was also on a competing line from London to the North,
built by the
Great Central
Railway in the late 1890s.
Served by Leicester
Central railway station
, the Great
Central Main Line closed as a through route in the late
1960s. A preserved section remains, from the newly
opened Leicester North railway
station
(the original route through Leicester has now been
rebuilt on), to Loughborough
is now a heritage steam
railway.
Motorways
Leicester is close to the heart of the
M1
motorway at Junction 21, this section considered to be the
busiest part in the country .The
M69
motorway also starts near Leicester, and runs to the
M6 Motorway and is contiguous with Coventry's
eastern bypass.
Airport
East
Midlands Airport
is near Castle Donington
which is in North West Leicestershire. Served by low-cost international
airlines like
Ryanair,
EasyJet &
Bmibaby
and serves charter holidays like
Thomson Holidays. This makes Leicester
easily accessible from other parts of the world providing regular
services to many principal European destinations.
This includes
Amsterdam
, Berlin
& Paris
.
Also
there are internal flights to Belfast
, Edinburgh
& Glasgow
and limited services to trans-continental
destinations such as Barbados
, Mexico
& Orlando
.
Also
Birmingham Airport
is only about a 45 or 50 minute drive from
Leicester, and London Luton Airport
can be reached in an hour or just over.
Luton serves similar destinations to East Midlands though Luton
services are more regular.
Birmingham airport generally flies to places
like Amsterdam, Brussels
, Frankfurt
, Munich
& Paris with
airlines like Air France, KLM & Lufthansa
.
Leicester's other local airport is Leicester
Airport
at Stoughton, Leicestershire
.
Buses and coaches
St.
Margaret's bus station
is the main interchange for coach services in
Leicester, while local bus services are split between St.
Margaret's and the Haymarket bus station. Leicester
currently has one permanent
Park and
Ride site at Meynells Gorse with buses operating at least every
fifteen minutes, a site is also under construction at Enderby, and
there are also weekend services from County Hall, Glenfield
(service 101) and Oadby Racecourse (service 102).
Passengers using the railway station can include a
PlusBus ticket with their train ticket which gives
unlimited bus travel in a designated area.
- Skylink
buses link the city to Loughborough, East Midlands Airport &
Derby
- National Express operate long
distance services.
- Stagecoach Group operate a
mixture of mid to long distance bus and coach services including
Megabus.
- Skylink buses operate hourly during the day and two hourly at
night to East Midlands Airport.
- First Group are the parent company
of First Leicester who operate
mainly high frequency local bus routes.Most First routes are within
the city due to its former identity being Leicester City
Transport.
- Arriva Group are the
parent company of Arriva Midlands
who operate a mixture of local and rural bus services throughout
Leicestershire.It operates both in the city and county and it was
formerly known as Arriva Fox County,Urban(county)Fox,Midland Fox
and Midland Red (East).
- Centrebus operate local services
mainly between local authority estates.
- A number of coach operators run excursions from the station
including Woods Coaches of Wigston.Other operators include
Fleetline Buses,Ausden Clarke,Confidence,Hylton and Dawson and
Steve Akiens.
National Cycle Network
Many of the country's
National
Cycle Network pass through Leicestershire.
In Leicester City
Centre you will find the Leicester Bike Park
. The city is also home to Cyclemagic, the
UK's leading community cycling organisation with probably the
widest range of bikes and pedal powered machines in the
world.
Education
Leicester
is home to two universities, the University of Leicester
, which attained its Royal
Charter in 1957 and is one of Britain's leading universities
ranked 12th by the 2009 Complete University Guide, and the
De Montfort
University, which opened in 1969 as Leicester
Polytechnic
and achieved university status in
1992.
It is
also home to the National Space Centre off Abbey Lane, due in part to the University of
Leicester being one of the few universities in the UK to specialise
in space sciences.
Leicester City
Local Education
Authority initially had a troubled history when formed in 1997
as part of the local government reorganisation - a 1999
Ofsted inspection found "few strengths and many
weaknesses", although there has been considerable improvement since
then. While many state schools provide a good standard of
education, there have been problems with one or two of the large
community colleges, in particular New College on Glenfield Road.
However, recent changes of leadership at New College have seen a
turnaround in the school's prospects.
Current plans to improve the city's education system include the
opening of
The Samworth Enterprise Academy, an
academy whose catchment area will
draw in children from the Saffron and Eyres Monsell estates,
co-sponsored by the
Church of
England and David Samworth, chairman of Samworth Brothers.
State school status has been granted to the Leicester Islamic
Academy. The city's special schools are currently undergoing
reorganisation.
Under the "Building Schools for the Future" project, Leicester City
Council has contracted with developers Miller Consortium for
£315 million to rebuild Beaumont Leys School, Judgemeadow
Community College in Evington, and Soar Valley College in Rushey
Mead, and to refurbish Fullhurst Community College in
Braunstone.
Leicester City Council underwent a major reorganisation of
children's services in 2006, creating a new Children & Young
People's Services department.
Leicester was one of the last places in the UK where milk was
supplied to primary schools in third pint glass bottles. In 2007
the supplier changed to plastic bottles.
Culture
The city
hosts an annual Pride Parade (Leicester
Pride
), a Caribbean Carnival
(the largest in the UK outside London), the largest
Diwali celebrations outside of India and the
largest comedy festival in the UK Leicester Comedy Festival.One of
the renowed places within the city is Melton Road. Based
very near the city centre, this road contains many diverse retail
stores and restaurants for the locals and outside tourists. From
clothing to fine cuisines,specialist bridal/groom makeup and home
appliances, this road promotes and holds many authentic cultures
globally. Melton Road is regarded as the pin point of Leicester as
a multifaith city. For many residents of Leicester, Melton Road is
place with strong links to their roots and origins. From an ethnic
point of view, this is just of the many sites within the city that
enables every person to feel a sense of homeliness and strong pride
of cutlture.
The
Leicester
International Short Film Festival[8210] ran once a
year; it began life with humble beginnings in 1996 under the banner
title of "Seconds Out". It currently holds a place as one of the
most important of short film festivals in the U.K.
It usually ran in
early November, with venues including the Phoenix
Arts Centre
.
Arts venues in the city include:
Music
While Leicester has often been neglected as a centre for popular
music, it has had a vibrant history that has thrown up a large
number of notable, as well as forgettable, artists. Current venues
for music include:
One of
Leicester's main live music venues, The Charlotte
, closed in January 2009.
There are also a number of small jazz clubs such as the
'Copa'.
1960s
Leicester's main small venue for pop and rock was the Il Rondo on
Silver Street. The roll call of bands who played at the Il Rondo
runs like a who's Who of early–mid sixties pop and rock.
The Yardbirds and
The
Animals played there before passing into rock history along
with less well remembered groups like the Graham Bond Organisation.
It also played host to many visiting American blues musicians
including
Howlin' Wolf,
Freddie King,
Lowell
Fulson,
Otis Spann and
John Lee Hooker.
The
Beatles also came to De Montfort Hall.
Colin Hyde (East Midlands Oral History Archive) carried out a range
of interviews about growing up in Leicester in the 1950s and 1960s
and began to map where all of the venues of the day were. He
identified a number of clubs, pubs, and coffee bars like the
Chameleon, run by Pete Joseph, the El Casa, or the El Paso – cafes
which stayed open after the pubs closed. Among others, people also
remembered the Blue Beat club on Conduit Street, run by Alex
Barrows who later started the House of Happiness on Campbell
Street. Night clubs such as the Burlesque or the Night Owl became
more popular as the 1960s progressed, and they opened up the
opportunity to dance all night.
A local beat band called The Foresights were signed to EMI. They
were notable for all members wearing glasses.
Also emerging during this period was the band
Family, fronted by Leicester man
Roger Chapman.
1970s
The seventies saw the emergence of the well known cabaret band
Showaddywaddy from the city with lead
singer Dave Bartram and their 1950s-themed songs.The De Montfort
Hall held the first of its annual One-World festivals, with the aim
of celebrating the cultural diversity of the city and breaking down
the barriers of hostility and suspicion that had a potential to
foment racial conflict. Adult and children's groups performed
traditional dances and music from the many communities settled here
- British, Irish, East European, Asian, African and Caribbean.
These festivals continued until the 1980s.
1980s
The early 1980s saw Leicester punk band
Rabid have two minor indie hits, and there were
greater successes later in the decade for
Yeah Yeah Noh. The mid-1980s saw the emergence
of bands such as
Gaye Bykers on
Acid,
Crazyhead,
The Bomb Party, and
The Hunters Club, who were all associated
with the
Grebo scene.
The Deep Freeze Mice had formed in 1979
and went on to release ten albums in total.
Diesel Park West had their first top 75
hits in the late 1980s. Other notable Leicester bands from this
decade included
Po! and
Blab Happy.
1990s
The early nineties were marked in the city's music scene by a
period of muted reflection. The band
Prolapse, was formed by a group of Leicester
University and Polytechnic students in 1992. The band rose in
popularity, and quickly gained a record deal with Cherry Red
Records, recorded a number of John Peel sessions for Radio 1, and
toured with Sonic Youth, Stereolab and Pulp. 1992 also saw the
formation in Leicester of
Cornershop, an
Anglo-Asian agit pop band, who became most famous for the 1998
Number 1 single "Brimful of Asha".
Perfume and
Delicatessen both also rose to critical
acclaim. Leicester is home of the influential Rave – Drum &
Bass
Formation Records label and
associated 5HQ Record Shop.
Post-2000
Since 2000 the city has once more seen a notable upsurge in the
success of the local music scene. Several Leicester musicians
and/or acts have received considerable media attention in their
fields since 2003-2004.
Kasabian, followed
by
The Displacements, The Dirty
Backbeats,
Kyte,
Pacific Ocean Fire, and Don's Mobile
Barbers all rose from the city to national attention.
The Go! Team were
first signed to local label
Pickled
Egg Records, other Leicester musicians such as
Frank Benbini,
Kav
Sandhu & Mikey Shine along with others feature in such
bands as
Fun Lovin' Criminals,
The Happy Mondays,
The Holloways,
Envy & Other Sins, and
A Hawk and a Hacksaw.
The
development of the award-winning music festival Summer
Sundae
with connecting Summer
Sundae Fringe Festival
(run by the local arts collective Pineapster) as well as other music festivals
focused on blues and folk music may well provide the city with more
of a focus for its local bands to break out nationally. 2006
saw the closure of The Attik, a venue that for over 20 years had
played host to hundreds of bands.
Leicester is also popular for underground music genres such as
grime and UK hip hop, leading artists are Kaution, Loose Talent and
3D Camp
Sport
The Sports Statue on Gallowtree
Gate
Professional & semi professional sports teams include:
Leicester Riders (basketball),
Leicester Tigers (rugby union),
Leicester City F.C. (football), ,
Leicester Coritanian A.C. (Athletics),
Leicester
Phoenix (Rugby League) and the
Leicestershire County Cricket
Club.
Sports clubs include:
Leicester Penguins Swimming
Club who were awarded Sports Club of the Year by the
Leicester Mercury at their annual sports
awards for 2007 & 2008.
Leicester
Racecourse
is located to the south of the city in
Oadby.
After a period of success for the football, cricket and rugby teams
around the turn of the millennium, Leicester was for some time
dubbed (by the local press and local inhabitants at least) the
sporting capital of the UK, and a statue commemorating this period
was erected in the town centre.
Leicester
Tigers on Welford
Road
are one of the most successful rugby union teams in Europe, having won the
European cup twice, the first tier of English rugby eight
times, and the Anglo-Welsh cup six
times. Notable former players include Englands Rugby world
cup winning captain
Martin
Johnson,
Neil Back,
Dean Richards and
Austin Healey.
Leicester City have also enjoyed a fair degree of success. They
have championed the second tier of the English league system on no
less than six occasions, competed in the top flight regularly
during their history, won three
Football League Cups and reached the
FA Cup Final four times despite never
winning the trophy. In the 2008/09 season they competed in and won
League One (third tier), to
which they were relegated for the first time.
Their current
stadium is the Walkers
Stadium, situated south of the city centre and near to
the site Filbert
Street
from which they relocated in 2002 after 111
years. Notable former managers include
Jimmy Bloomfield,
David Pleat,
Brian Little,
Martin O'Neill and
Peter Taylor. Notable former players
include
Gordon Banks,
Peter Shilton,
Frank Worthington,
Gary Lineker,
Alan Smith,
Emile Heskey,
Neil
Lennon,
Simon Grayson and
Matt Elliott.
Motorcycle
speedway racing was staged in
Leicester. In the pioneer days speedway was staged at a track known
as Leicester Super situated in Melton Road and at 'The Stadium' in
Blackbird Road. Post war the
Leicester
Hunters joined the National League Division Three in 1949 and
operated at various levels until closure at the end of 1962. The
sport was revived for a spell from 1968 before the sale and
subsequent redevelopment of the site ended the
Leicester Lions era. The history
of Leicester's Speedways is well documented in three books by Allan
Jones.
However, planning permission was granted in October 2009 for a
brand-new speedway track, to be built at Beaumont Park, and it is
hoped that
Leicester
Lions will return to action in 2010 in the British Premier
League.
Leicester
Phoenix are a
rugby league club
based in the centre of the city. The club was founded in 1986.
After playing in different
BARLA leagues
(namely the Midlands and South West Amateur Rugby League and the
East Midlands Amateur Rugby League) the Phoenix were one of the 10
founder members of the
Rugby
League Conference (then the Southern Conference League) in 1997
reaching the grand final in the inaugural season. Since then they
have been one of the league's most consistent performers. Their 1st
Grade Team currently compete in the
Midlands Premier
division of the
Rugby League
Conference.
The city
also hosted British and World track
cycling and Road Racing championships at its Saffron
Lane velodrome in August
1970. The cycle track was improved specially for the event
which was televised all over the world. Another first meant that
sponsors were allowed to buy sections of the track to utilise for
advertising purposes. This was also the first time that a public
road - the A46 - was closed in the UK to allow the Road Race to
take place:- See The Benny Foster Story published by Fretwell
1971.
In 1989, the city hosted the
British Special Olympics, and
will do so again in 2009. This is the adopted charity for the Lord
Mayor of Leicester 2008-2009,Councillor Manjula Sood.
Until
its demolition in 1999 Granby Halls
was a popular live music, exhibition and sports
arena in the city. It was also notable as the long serving
home of professional
basketball team, the
Leicester Riders, from 1980 until
1999.
Leicester was also the
2008 European City of
Sport.
Public services
In the public sector,
University Hospitals
Leicester NHS Trust is one of the larger employers in the city,
with over 12,000 employees working for the Trust.
Leicester City
Primary Care Trust employs over 1,000 full and part time staff
providing healthcare services in the city.
Leicestershire
Partnership NHS Trust employs 3,000 staff providing mental
health and learning disability services in the city and
county.
In the private sector are Nuffield Hospital Leicester and the Bupa
Hospital Leicester.
Notable people
Local media
Leicester is home to the
Leicester
Mercury newspaper, and the
Midlands Asian Television channel
known as MATV Channel 6.
BBC Radio Leicester was the
first
BBC Local Radio station.
Otheranalogue FM radio stations are
Leicester Sound,
Takeover Radio and
Hindu Sanskar Radio, which only
broadcasts during Hindu religious festivals.
BBC Asian Network and
Sabras Radio broadcast on AM.
The local
DAB multiplex
has the following stations:
The local
Hospital Radio stations is
Hospital Radio Fox. The first
children's radio station, Takeover Radio broadcasts in
Leicester.
Sister cities
Leicester has one
sister city.
Leicester RajkotTwinning Association is going to build Leicester
House with collaboration of RMC in Rajkot.
References
Further reading
- Hoskins, W. G. (1957) Leicestershire: an illustrated essay on
the history of the landscape. London: Hodder & Stoughton
External links
: New purpose-designed performing arts centre,
designed by Rafael Vinoly, opened in
Autumn 2008, replaced the Haymarket Theatre
, one of the region's leading contemporary art
galleries
when it opens in 2009.
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