Leicester

Introduction

Leicester is a city and unitary authority area in the East Midlands of England, and serves as the county town of Leicestershire. It is the largest city in the East Midlands, and the wider Leicester urban area is among the more populous in England and the United Kingdom.

The city has performed well in the annual Good Growth for Cities Index, which has ranked Leicester as the best place to live and work in the East Midlands for three years running. The most recent study, based on a range of economic factors, rated it the best performing city in the East Midlands.

Before you go

Leicester has been settled since the Iron Age, and the Romans expanded it into Ratae Corieltauvorum from 50 AD. Its Roman street plan survived into the medieval town of Ledecestre, and Richard III stayed here before the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. His burial site was forgotten for centuries and only rediscovered in 2012; it is now a major visitor attraction. Later, the canal from 1790 and the railway from 1832 turned a textile cottage industry into the smokestacks of the Industrial Revolution, and the city's heavy industry gave way to a service economy in the 20th century.

For a century Leicester has been one of Britain's most ethnically diverse cities, shaped by people displaced by turmoil in Europe and beyond. The Gujerati community is especially visible: after Idi Amin ordered Asians to leave Uganda in 1972, many Gujerati merchant families came here, bringing their connections, know-how and resources. The "Golden Mile" of Belgrave St shows what Uganda lost and Leicester gained. Before you go, note that Visit Leicester is an information point within the King Richard III Visitor Centre, Go Leicestershire covers attractions across the county, and Leicester City Council runs local services including recreation and parks.

Getting there

By air, Birmingham Airport (BHX) is usually your best choice for its global range of flights: take the train to Birmingham New Street and change for Leicester. East Midlands Airport (EMA) is slightly closer but only has flights from western Europe, with a bus running to Leicester. From the London airports you usually travel via central London, though from Stansted or Luton you can take the direct train.

By rail, trains from London St Pancras run every 30 minutes and take an hour, continuing to Derby, Chesterfield and Sheffield; a much slower route also leaves St Pancras every 30 minutes via Luton Airport, Kettering and Market Harborough, continuing to East Midlands Parkway and Nottingham. Trains from Birmingham New Street run every 30 minutes, taking an hour via Nuneaton and Hinckley, while services from Stansted Airport run hourly, taking 2 hr 20 min via Cambridge, Ely, Peterborough, Stamford, Oakham and Melton Mowbray. Leicester Station sits on London Rd, half a mile southeast of the city centre, with ticket offices and machines, toilets, a cafe and step-free access to all platforms. By road, the M1 passes west of the city from London towards Sheffield and Leeds, while the M69 starts west of the city and runs to Coventry, with an interchange with the M6 for Birmingham. National Express NX440 runs hourly from London Victoria, taking 3 hours, with alternate buses continuing to Loughborough and Derby, and Flixbus competes on this route; NX183 runs twice a day from Glasgow via Edinburgh, Newcastle, Middlesbrough, Leeds and Nottingham, continuing to Birmingham, and from Manchester you change at Birmingham. Arriva Midlands Bus X6 runs hourly from Coventry, taking 90 min via Hinckley, Bus X3 runs hourly from Market Harborough, Bus 5A runs every 30 min from Melton Mowbray via Syston, Bus 158 runs every 30 min from Nuneaton via Hinckley, and Centrebus 154 runs hourly from Loughborough. As Leicester is the county hub, buses also converge from towns such as East Goscote, Kibworth, Lutterworth, Narborough, Ratby, South Wigston, Swadlincote and Thurmaston. St Margaret's is the bus station, on Gravel St on the north side of the city centre.

Getting around

Most of Leicester's sights sit within walking distance of one another, so if you base yourself centrally you can cover the main attractions on foot and save the buses and taxis for the station or places further out. The railway station is on London Road, just southeast of the centre and easy to reach on foot, with step-free access to all platforms. St Margaret's bus station, on Gravel Street on the north side of the centre, is the hub for services from across Leicestershire and beyond. Within the city, First Bus Leicester runs a number of routes, while Arriva and Centrebus serve areas further out; most tickets are not interchangeable between these companies, so if you plan to switch operators you may need separate tickets. A day ticket covering all buses is available and can be bought on the bus itself.

Cycling in Leicester is mostly on-road rather than on dedicated paths. Two signed Sustrans routes pass through the area: Route 6 crosses the city north–south, and Route 63 heads northwest toward Charnwood Forest. A secure bike park operates daily next to the Town Hall on Horsefair Street, and free motorcycle parking is available on Abbey Street and behind the Town Hall. A dozen taxi firms operate in the city centre, which is useful for late evenings, luggage, or journeys that do not line up with bus routes. If you arrive by car, Park & Ride services run Monday to Saturday, west at Meynells Gorse off the A47, north at Birstall on the A6, and south at Enderby by the M1.

Where to stay

Most of Leicester's hotels cluster around the city centre and the railway station, so you can base yourself within easy walking distance of the shops and sights. The Grand Hotel on Granby Street is a historic building that was refurbished in 2026, while the Ramada Encore on Charles Street puts you about a seven-minute walk from the station. The Holiday Inn on St Nicholas Circle is described as smart and friendly, and does not accept pets. If you want to be right by the station, the Premier Inn Leicester City Centre sits just north of it and is a functional, inexpensive option, with the Ibis a short way further up St George's Way and the Belmont Hotel on De Montfort Street a couple of hundred yards south.

Two Travelodges serve the centre: one inside the Haymarket Centre shopping complex with large, clean rooms, and one on Vaughan Way that is clean and comfy but picks up some street noise, with parking at Highcross and a hotel discount on it. The Holiday Inn Express Leicester City is a comfortable place next to the football ground, though the area gets noisy and crowded when a game is on. Further out, you'll find other Premier Inns on the western edge of the city, two near the beltway and one on Hinckley Road, plus a Travelodge on St Matthew's Way that gets mixed reviews.

Food & drink

For a concentrated taste of the city's food scene, head to the Golden Mile, the stretch of Belgrave Road running into Melton Road, where inexpensive eateries — many of them Gujarati — sit between sari shops and jewellers. You'll find vegetarian kitchens, chaat houses, South Indian and Punjabi cooking, Persian and Sri Lankan places, and a Portuguese seafood restaurant, alongside dessert shops and cafés. The strip is dense enough that you can simply walk it and pick whatever appeals.

Elsewhere, the city centre covers most cravings. Near the cathedral you can find a vegetarian café, a tea-room, Thai food and an ice cream café, while the streets around Highcross and Granby Street add a steakhouse, pub grub, Japanese, Italian and British cooking, plus a vegetarian café and a bistro. For African cooking, look to Charles Street. Braunstone Gate, a short strip west of the river, has its own small cluster of places. When you want a drink, you're well served: bars, pubs and clubs are plentiful, including a Wetherspoon on High Street and a nightclub on Yeoman Street.

What to see and do

Leicester's historic core clusters around the cathedral quarter. Leicester Cathedral, the medieval church of St Martin substantially rebuilt in the 1860s, holds the tomb of King Richard III beneath a simple stone slab, along with the ceremonial pall used during his reburial. On the south side of the cathedral, the King Richard III Visitor Centre covers his life, his death in battle in 1485, and the 2012 discovery and genetic identification of his remains, with his original burial site at Greyfriars Priory viewed through a glass floor. To the west stands the Guildhall Museum, a timber-framed hall built around 1390 that served as town hall, performance venue and jail, and now displays the Medieval Leicester Galleries. Nearby are St Nicholas Church, built in the 9th century over a Roman shrine to Janus, and the Jewry Wall Museum, where a stretch of Roman temple and bath house masonry stands alongside displays on the city's early history. St Mary de Castro, once the chapel of the former castle, has its earliest parts dating from 1107, and scraps of castle masonry survive in the riverside gardens to its west.

Further out, the Newarke Houses Museum occupies two houses built in 1511 and covers Tudor times, the 1950s and regimental history, while Leicester Museum and Art Gallery on New Walk shows the area since prehistory. New Walk itself is a bosky walkway laid out in 1785, possibly following the Roman Via Devana, running from the centre to Victoria Park. North of the city you'll find the National Space Centre, with rockets and space technology, and the Abbey Pumping Station with its four working steam-powered beam engines. For days out, Bradgate House is the ruin of a mansion completed in 1520 and believed to be the birthplace of Lady Jane Grey, set within Bradgate Park, whose "Old John" is a hilltop folly shaped like a beer tankard. Kirby Muxloe Castle is a moated fortified manor begun in 1480 but never completed, and Bosworth Battlefield has a museum on Ambion Hill with a re-enactment near the anniversary of the 1485 battle. In the city, Abbey Park contains the remains of the 12th-century Leicester Abbey and Cavendish House among formal gardens, a boating lake and a miniature railway, and the River Soar offers walking routes north through Abbey Park or south towards Aylestone. For entertainment there's the Curve Theatre, the independent Phoenix Cinema, and the Great Central Railway heritage line running to Loughborough. Sport centres on Leicester City FC at the King Power Stadium, Leicester Tigers rugby at Welford Road, county cricket at Grace Road, and basketball with the Leicester Riders. The Caribbean Carnival and the free For the love of Jazz festival both take place in August.

When to go

Festivals & events

Leicester's festival calendar peaks in August, when two very different celebrations take over the city. For the love of Jazz fills the month with live jazz performances, drawing musicians and audiences for a programme built around the genre. The Caribbean Carnival also falls in August, bringing the city's Caribbean community's music, costume and street celebration to the fore.

Three days in Leicester

Day one: Start in Leicester itself, in the East Midlands of England, and get your bearings in a city whose roots run deep. Begin with the Roman layer of the story at Ratae Corieltauvorum, the settlement the Romans left behind, and trace how the place later appears as Ledecestre. Move on to the medieval and early modern chapter by visiting the King Richard III Visitor Centre, which covers the king, the Battle of Bosworth Field and his burial in the city. Round off the day on the Golden Mile along Belgrave St, where the Gujerati community that arrived after Idi Amin expelled Asians from Uganda shaped one of the city's most distinctive quarters.

• Ratae Corieltauvorum and the Roman story
• King Richard III Visitor Centre
• Golden Mile, Belgrave St

Day two: Look further back and further out. Spend the morning on the Iron Age and Roman threads that sit beneath Leicester's later history, then consider how the Industrial Revolution remade the city and its place in Britain and Europe. Use Visit Leicester and Go Leicestershire for ideas on what is on, and Leicester City Council for local information. If you want to understand the modern city's makeup, return to the Gujerati and wider Asian heritage you touched on the Golden Mile, and think about how migration from Uganda fed into the Leicester you see today.

• Iron Age and Roman heritage
• Industrial Revolution history
• Visit Leicester and Go Leicestershire for current listings

Day three: Give the day to the Leicestershire countryside around the city, following the Battle of Bosworth Field thread out from Leicester. Back in town, fill any remaining time with the city's museums and streets, and note that Birmingham Airport (BHX) is the practical gateway if you are flying out of the region. Keep the pace easy: Leicester rewards wandering between its old core and its neighbourhoods more than rushing a checklist.

• Bosworth Field and the surrounding Leicestershire landscape
• City museums and central streets
• Birmingham Airport (BHX) for onward travel