Leicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority area in the East Midlands of England, the county town of Leicestershire. The city close to the eastern end of the National Forest; the 2016 mid year estimate of the population of the City of Leicester unitary authority was 348,300, an increase of 18,500 from the 2011 census figure of 329,839, making it the most populous municipality in the East Midlands region. The associated urban area is the 11th most populous in England and the 13th most populous in the United Kingdom. Leicester is at the intersection of two major railway lines—the north/south Midland Main Line and the east/west Birmingham to London Stansted CrossCountry line. Leicester is the home to football club Leicester City and rugby club Leicester Tigers; the name of Leicester is recorded in the 9th-century History of the Britons as Cair Lerion, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as Ligora-ceastre. In the Domesday Book of 1086, it is recorded as Ledecestre; the first element of the name, Ligora or Legora, is explained as a Brittonic river name, in a suggestion going back to William Somner an earlier name of the River Soar, cognate with the name of the Loire.
The second element of the name comes from the Latin castrum, reflected in both Welsh cair and Anglo-Saxon ceastre. Based on the Welsh name, Geoffrey of Monmouth proposes a king Leir of Britain as an eponymous founder in his Historia Regum Britanniae. Leicester is one of the oldest cities in England, with a history going back at least two millennia; the native Iron Age settlement encountered by the Romans at the site seems to have developed in the 2nd or 1st centuries BC. Little is known about this settlement or the condition of the River Soar at this time, although roundhouses from this era have been excavated and seem to have clustered along 8 hectares of the east bank of the Soar above its confluence with the Trent; this area of the Soar was split into two channels: a main stream to the east and a narrower channel on the west, with a marshy island between. The settlement seems to have controlled a ford across the larger channel; the Roman name was a latinate form of the Brittonic word for "ramparts", suggesting the site was an oppidum.
The plural form of the name suggests it was composed of several villages. The Celtic tribe holding the area was recorded as the "Coritanians" but an inscription recovered in 1983 showed this to have been a corruption of the original "Corieltauvians"; the Corieltauvians are believed to have ruled over the area of the East Midlands. It is believed that the Romans arrived in the Leicester area around AD 47, during their conquest of southern Britain; the Corieltauvian settlement lay near a bridge on the Fosse Way, a Roman road between the legionary camps at Isca and Lindum. It remains unclear whether the Romans fortified and garrisoned the location, but it developed from around the year 50 onwards as the tribal capital of the Corieltauvians under the name Ratae Corieltauvorum. In the 2nd century, it received a bathhouse. In 2013, the discovery of a Roman cemetery found just outside the old city walls and dating back to AD 300 was announced; the remains of the baths of Roman Leicester can be seen at the Jewry Wall.
Knowledge of the town following the Roman withdrawal from Britain is limited. There is some continuation of occupation of the town, though on a much reduced scale in the 5th and 6th centuries, its memory was preserved as the Cair Lerion of the History of the Britons. Following the Saxon invasion of Britain, Leicester was occupied by the Middle Angles and subsequently administered by the kingdom of Mercia, it was elevated to a bishopric in either 679 or 680. Their settlement became one of the Five Burghs of the Danelaw, although this position was short-lived; the Saxon bishop, fled to Dorchester-on-Thames and Leicester did not become a bishopric again until the Church of St Martin became Leicester Cathedral in 1927. The settlement was recorded under the name Ligeraceaster in the early 10th century. Following the Norman conquest, Leicester was recorded by William's Domesday Book as Ledecestre, it was noted as a city but lost this status in the 11th century owing to power struggles between the Church and the aristocracy and did not become a legal city again until 1919.
Geoffrey of Monmouth composed his History of the Kings of Britain around the year 1136, naming a King Leir as an eponymous founder figure. According to Geoffrey's narrative, Cordelia had buried her father beneath the river in a chamber dedicated to Janus and his feast day was an annual celebration; when Simon de Montfort became Lord of Leicester in 1231, he gave the city a grant to expel the Jewish population "in my time or in the time of any of my heirs to the end of the world". He justified his action as being "for the good of my soul, for the souls of my ancestors and successors". Leicester's Jews were allowed to move to the eastern suburbs, which were controlled by de Montfort's great-aunt and rival, Countess of Winchester, after she took advice from the scholar and cleric Robert Grosseteste. There is evidence that Jews remained there until 1253, enforcement of the banishment within the city was not rigorously enforced. De Montfort however issued a second edict for the expulsion of Leicester's Jews in 1253, after Grosseteste's death.
De Montfort's m
Syston
Syston is a town and civil parish in the district of Charnwood in Leicestershire, England. The population was 11,508 at the 2001 census. There has been a settlement on the site for over 1,000 years, the earliest records being in the Domesday Book as Sitestone; the Roman road known as the Fosse Way passes through Syston, now a commuter town for the city of Leicester. Only the village of Thurmaston to the south separates it from Leicester; the large and impressive Church of St Peter and St Paul is the most ancient building in Syston, built in pink granite and white limestone with a proud west tower topped by a lozenge frieze and pinnacles. The church dates from the 15th century but there is a 13th-century sedilia in the chancel and a tomb recess in the south aisle of the early 14th century; the stone arcading inside the nave has striking Perpendicular Gothic panelling, seen on the tower arch and in the clerestory. The nave roof of timber is 15th century; the local architect Frederick Webster Ordish extensively restored the church in 1871-72 and in 1881 he extended the nave by one bay and rebuilt the chancel.
Ordish lived at Queniborough Old Hall. In 1855 he had added the upper storey, with its tower and bridge staircase, to the Corn Exchange in Leicester Market Place, he died as a result of an accident near the old Syston railway station in September 1885. The Midland Main Line runs through the town. Syston railway station has one platform on what remains of the former goods line, served by local Leicester to Lincoln via Nottingham and Newark services on the Ivanhoe Line. Motorcycle speedway and greyhound racing was staged at the Syston Sports Stadium on Mostyn Avenue. The'Syston white plum' is well known in the Syston locality and has been grown there for well over 100 years, it is oval in shape, thin skinned and a good sized dessert plum. It crops in September and is emblazoned on the Syston Town welcoming signs. Syston is the location of the headquarters of Pukka Pies, one of the largest employers in the town, employing 250 people; the River Soar runs past the western edge of the town, shortly after passing under the A46 road which underwent significant improvements early in 2006 at the Hobby Horse roundabout, a popular meeting place on the Leicester Western Bypass.
Syston is home to two monthly, village publications: the Syston Directory. Actress Terri Dwyer Singer Dave Bartram from Showaddywaddy Speedway racer Fred Wilkinson raced for England v.s Australia, ran the Lansdowne Garage in Syston Megan Lowe, Test cricketer Mahalia Burkmar, neosoul/R'n'B artist Déville-lès-Rouen, Upper Normandy, France The Air Training Corps is a military based youth organisation for 13- to 20-year-olds and the local squadron is based in the grounds of Wreake Valley Academy. The Syston Allotment Society works for the benefit of plot holders and the wider community at the allotment site on Upper Church Street, Syston. Pevsner, Nikolaus. Leicestershire and Rutland; the Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Pp. 402–403. ISBN 0140710183. Brodie, Antonia. Directory of British Architects 1834-1914, Vol.2, L-Z. London & New York: Continuum. P. 289. ISBN 082645514X. Syston Town Council Leicestershire Villages Syston Syston Town News 1181 Syston Squadron ATC Syston Allotment Society
Fox
Foxes are small-to-medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. Foxes have a flattened skull, upright triangular ears, a pointed upturned snout, a long bushy tail. Twelve species belong to the monophyletic "true foxes" group of genus Vulpes. Another 25 current or extinct species are always or sometimes called foxes. Foxes live on every continent except Antarctica. By far the most common and widespread species of fox is the red fox with about 47 recognized subspecies; the global distribution of foxes, together with their widespread reputation for cunning, has contributed to their prominence in popular culture and folklore in many societies around the world. The hunting of foxes with packs of hounds, long an established pursuit in Europe in the British Isles, was exported by European settlers to various parts of the New World; the word fox comes from Old English. This in turn derives from Proto-Indo-European *puḱ-, meaning ’thick-haired. Male foxes are known as dogs, tods or reynards, females as vixens, young as cubs, pups, or kits, though the latter name is not to be confused with a distinct species called kit foxes.
Vixen is one of few words in modern English that retains the Middle English southern dialect "v" pronunciation instead of "f". A group of foxes is referred to leash, or earth. Within the Canidae, the results of DNA analysis shows several phylogenetic divisions: The fox-like canids, which include the kit fox, red fox, Cape fox, Arctic fox, fennec fox; the wolf-like canids, including the dog, gray wolf, red wolf, eastern wolf, golden jackal, Ethiopian wolf, black-backed jackal, side-striped jackal and African wild dog. The South American canids, including hoary fox, crab-eating fox and maned wolf. Various monotypic taxa, including the bat-eared fox, gray fox, raccoon dog. Foxes are smaller than some other members of the family Canidae such as wolves and jackals, while they may be larger than some within the family, such as Raccoon dogs. In the largest species, the red fox, males weigh on average between 4.1 and 8.7 kg, while the smallest species, the fennec fox, weighs just 0.7 to 1.6 kg. Fox-like features include a triangular face, pointed ears, an elongated rostrum, a bushy tail.
Foxes are digitigrade, thus, walk on their toes. Unlike most members of the family Canidae, foxes have retractable claws. Fox vibrissae, or whiskers, are black; the whiskers on the muzzle, mystaciae vibrissae, average 100–110 mm long, while the whiskers everywhere else on the head average to be shorter in length. Whiskers are on the forelimbs and average 40 mm long, pointing downward and backward. Other physical characteristics vary according to adaptive significance. Fox species differ in fur color and density. Coat colors range from pearly white to black and white to black flecked with white or grey on the underside. Fennec foxes, for example, have short fur to aid in keeping the body cool. Arctic foxes, on the other hand, have tiny ears and short limbs as well as thick, insulating fur, which aid in keeping the body warm. Red foxes, by contrast, have a typical auburn pelt, the tail ending with white marking. A fox's coat color and texture may vary due to the change in seasons. To get rid of the dense winter coat, foxes moult once a year around April.
Coat color may change as the individual ages. A fox's dentition, like all other canids, is I 3/3, C 1/1, PM 4/4, M 3/2 = 42. Foxes have pronounced carnassial pairs, characteristic of a carnivore; these pairs consist of the upper premolar and the lower first molar, work together to shear tough material like flesh. Foxes' canines are pronounced characteristic of a carnivore, are excellent in gripping prey. In the wild, the typical lifespan of a fox is one to three years, although individuals may live up to ten years. Unlike many canids, foxes are not always pack animals, they live in small family groups, but some are known to be solitary. Foxes are omnivores; the diet of foxes is made up of invertebrates such as insects, small vertebrates such as reptiles and birds, can include eggs and plants. Many species are generalist predators. Most species of fox consume around 1 kg of food every day. Foxes cache excess food, burying it for consumption under leaves, snow, or soil. Foxes tend to use a pouncing technique where they crouch down to camouflage themselves in the terrain using their hind legs, leap up with great force to land on top of their targeted prey.
Using their pronounced canine te
Nicky Morgan
Nicola Ann Morgan is a British Conservative Party politician and former lawyer, the Member of Parliament for Loughborough since 2010 and was the Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities from July 2014 to July 2016. She was removed from these positions on 14 July 2016 by Theresa May, she served as Economic Secretary to the Treasury from October 2013 to April 2014 and as Financial Secretary to the Treasury from April to July 2014. In July 2017, Morgan was elected Chair of the Treasury Select Committee following the 2017 General Election. Morgan was born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey on 1 October 1972, she grew up in Surbiton and was educated at Surbiton High School before reading jurisprudence at St Hugh's College, Oxford. She twice stood unsuccessfully for president of the Oxford University Conservative Association, on the second occasion being defeated by Daniel Hannan a prominent Conservative Member of the European Parliament, she was involved in the Oxford Union society.
She failed in her bid for its presidency. She qualified as a solicitor in 1994 and worked as a corporate lawyer at Travers Smith specialising in mergers and acquisitions before taking on an in-house counsel role advising on corporate law matters. Morgan joined the Conservative Party as a teenager in 1989 and was the chairman of Wessex Young Conservatives from 1995 to 1997 and vice-chairman of Battersea Conservatives from 1997 to 1999, she unsuccessfully contested the Islington South and Finsbury constituency in the 2001 general election. Morgan was selected as the Conservative Party candidate for the Loughborough parliamentary seat in 2004 but was defeated by the Labour incumbent in the 2005 general election, although she achieved a 5% Labour to Conservative swing compared to a national average of 3.1%. This made Loughborough the most marginal seat in the East Midlands. Morgan was reselected for the Loughborough seat in 2006. In the 2010 general election, Morgan was elected as the MP for Loughborough on a swing of 5.5% with a majority of 3,744 votes.
She made her maiden speech in a debate on Economic Affairs and Work and Pensions on 8 June 2010. She was re-elected in 2015 and 2017. In June 2010, she was selected as a Conservative member of the Business and Skills Committee but was replaced following promotion in September to Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Universities and Science Minister, David Willetts, she was appointed assistant whip in September 2012, Economic Secretary to the Treasury on 7 October 2013. In 2013, Morgan voted against the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales, arguing that marriage could only be between a man and a woman. Following the resignation of Maria Miller from the Cabinet, she became Minister for Women on 9 April 2014 and was appointed a Privy Councillor. However, the equalities brief went to the culture secretary; the separation of the equalities portfolio was seen by some as a response to Morgan's vote against the government's proposal to introduce legislation allowing same-sex marriages.
This led to accusations that Morgan was "minister for straight women". On her promotion, she retained her post as Minister for Women and added the equalities brief to it, thus becoming Minister for Women and Equalities. However, Downing Street announced that responsibility for implementing the rest of the changes to same-sex marriage would be driven by Nick Boles, a new education minister, himself gay and is in a civil partnership. In October 2014, she clarified her views saying she had voted against gay marriage as she believed her constituents were opposed to it; however she would now support it and she wished "supporters of same-sex marriage had been more vocal about their position before the vote in July last year." She expressed support for Ireland's'yes' vote on same-sex marriage in May 2015. Morgan was appointed Secretary of State for Education in Prime Minister David Cameron's reshuffle in July 2014, replacing Michael Gove. In September 2014, Morgan was questioned by Parliament's Education Select Committee following a report by London University's Institute of Education on conflicts of interest between academies and their financial backers.
The report failed to find evidence that academies were undertaking competitive tendering or that they were being properly monitored by the Education Funding Agency. It said that previous reports had questioned the capability of the EFA to fund and finance academies. Graham Stuart, chairman of the committee, acknowledged that there were loopholes but said the public needed to be sure that sponsors acted in the interests of their school. Following concerns from business leaders that children were leaving school without good teamwork skills, Morgan stated that character development is as important as academic achievement. In December 2014, she announced £3.5 million of funding to promote the building of "grit" and "resilience". Some schemes were to involve ex-servicemen teaching pupils – those with behaviour problems – the importance of discipline; the Daily Telegraph reported potential concerns about maths and science being downgraded. Morgan was removed from her position of Education Secretary on 14 July 2016 under the new Prime Minister Theresa May.
In December 2014, Morgan was advised by Sir Andrew Dilnot, chair of the UK Statistics Authority, that she should "reconsider her comments" and "take advice" about misleading information given to parliament. Morgan had claimed that one third of children under the previous Labour government had left primary school unable to read or write. In fact 91% of 11-year-old pupil
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom. The governing party since 2010, it is the largest in the House of Commons, with 313 Members of Parliament, has 249 members of the House of Lords, 18 members of the European Parliament, 31 Members of the Scottish Parliament, 12 members of the Welsh Assembly, eight members of the London Assembly and 8,916 local councillors; the Conservative Party was founded in 1834 from the Tory Party—the Conservatives' colloquial name is "Tories"—and was one of two dominant political parties in the nineteenth century, along with the Liberal Party. Under Benjamin Disraeli it played a preeminent role in politics at the height of the British Empire. In 1912, the Liberal Unionist Party merged with the party to form the Conservative and Unionist Party. In the 1920s, the Labour Party surpassed the Liberals as the Conservatives' main rivals. Conservative Prime Ministers — notably Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher — led governments for 57 years of the twentieth century.
Positioned on the centre-right of British politics, the Conservative Party is ideologically conservative. Different factions have dominated the party at different times, including One Nation Conservatives and liberal conservatives, while its views and policies have changed throughout its history; the party has adopted liberal economic policies—favouring free market economics, limiting state regulation, pursuing privatisation—although in the past has supported protectionism. The party is British unionist, opposing both Irish reunification and Welsh and Scottish independence, supported the maintenance of the British Empire; the party includes those with differing views on the European Union, with Eurosceptic and pro-European wings. In foreign policy, it is for a strong national defence; the Conservatives are a member of the International Democrat Union and the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe and sit with the European Conservatives and Reformists parliamentary group. The Scottish, Northern Irish and Gibraltan branches of the party are semi-autonomous.
Its support base consists of middle-class voters in rural areas of England, its domination of British politics throughout the twentieth century has led to it being referred to as one of the most successful political parties in the Western world. The Conservative Party was founded in the 1830s. However, some writers trace its origins to the reign of Charles II in the 1670s Exclusion Crisis. Other historians point to a faction, rooted in the 18th century Whig Party, that coalesced around William Pitt the Younger in the 1780s, they were known as "Independent Whigs", "Friends of Mr Pitt", or "Pittites" and never used terms such as "Tory" or "Conservative". Pitt died in 1806. From about 1812 on the name "Tory" was used for a new party that, according to historian Robert Blake, "are the ancestors of Conservatism". Blake adds that Pitt's successors after 1812 "were not in any sense standard-bearer's of true Toryism"; the term "Conservative" was suggested as a title for the party by a magazine article by J. Wilson Croker in the Quarterly Review in 1830.
The name caught on and was adopted under the aegis of Sir Robert Peel around 1834. Peel is acknowledged as the founder of the Conservative Party, which he created with the announcement of the Tamworth Manifesto; the term "Conservative Party" rather than Tory was the dominant usage by 1845. The widening of the electoral franchise in the nineteenth century forced the Conservative Party to popularise its approach under Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby and Benjamin Disraeli, who carried through their own expansion of the franchise with the Reform Act of 1867. In 1886, the party formed an alliance with Spencer Compton Cavendish, Lord Hartington and Joseph Chamberlain's new Liberal Unionist Party and, under the statesmen Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Lord Salisbury and Arthur Balfour, held power for all but three of the following twenty years before suffering a heavy defeat in 1906 when it split over the issue of free trade. Young Winston Churchill denounced Chamberlain's attack on free trade, helped organize the opposition inside the Unionist/Conservative Party.
Balfour, as party leader, followed Chamberlain's policy introduced protectionist legislation. The high tariff element called itself "Tariff Reformers" and in a major speech in Manchester on May 13, 1904, Churchill warned their takeover of the Unionist/Conservative party would permanently brand it as: A party of great vested interests, banded together in a formidable confederation. Two weeks Churchill crossed the floor and formally joined the Liberal Party. )He rejoined the Conservatives in 1925.) In December, Balfour lost control of his party, as the defections multiplied. He was replaced by Liberal Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman who called an election in January 1906, which produced a massive Liberal victory with a gain of 214 seats. Liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith enacted a great deal of reform legislation, but the Unionists worked hard at grassroots organizing. Two general elections were held in one in January and one in December; the two main parties were now dead equal in seats.
The Unionists had more popular votes but the Liberals kept control with a coalition with the Irish Parliamentary Party. In 1912, the Liberal Unionis
Birstall, Leicestershire
Birstall is a large village and civil parish within the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England. It is part of the wider Leicester Urban Area, it is the largest village in Charnwood, with a population only marginally lower than the neighbouring town of Syston at the 2001 census. Birstall lies on the A6 and is the last major settlement before Leicester when arriving from the north. Birstall thus forms part of the Leicester Urban Area; the village centre lies just along Sibson Road. The village contains a garden centre and a variety of other shops. There are a number of schools, including Highcliffe Primary School, Riverside Primary School and The Cedars Academy; the village contains the Anglican church of St. James the Great, the St Teresa Roman Catholic church and Birstall Methodist Church. There is a large housing estate in the north-west of the village, leading off Greengate Lane; the Grand Union Canal runs through the bottom end of the village, separating it from Watermead Country Park, a series of lakes in the bottom of the Soar Valley, which have been set aside as a recreational area and country park.
The Great Central Railway steam railway has its southern terminus near the village, where the A6 meets the Leicester outer ringroad at Red Hill Circle. Just north of Red Hill Circle, west of the A6, is Red Hill filling station, which became a Grade II listed building in 2012; the railway forms the boundary of the southern end of Birstall Golf Club. To the north of the village, the A6 meets the A46 Leicester Western Bypass and continues on towards Loughborough along the Soar Valley; the symbol of Birstall is a Cedar tree. The original tree stands in Roman Road, it was once in the grounds of the now demolished Birstall Hall. The local Air Training Corps unit is 1947 Squadron; the area of the Parish is 791 acres. The name Birstall comes from the Old English for "old disused fort" - Burhsteall. Saxon remnants have been found in surrounding area; the village was called Burstalle in the Domesday Book. Willard held these lands for Hugh and the 16 acres of meadow and a mill were said to be worth three ounces of gold.
The village was a small one until the arrival of the Great Central Railway in 1899. From onwards development has continued and still continues to-day. Between 1901 and the 2001 the population grew from 611 to over 11,000. A new housing development called'Hallam Fields' commenced construction in 2006 and was well advanced by 2008, it occupies land to the west of the A6, between the'Gates' estate and the A46. The development will take ten years to complete, consisting of up to 900 properties including schools, offices, industrial units and a fire station, it has been described as a mini Poundbury. By April 2010 it had 11 streets; these are Archdale Close, Bridge Green, Dale Close, Far Pastures Road, Halfpenny Close, Hallam Fields Road, Little Connery Lees, Pinfold Close, Brook Furlong Drive, Palmer Square and Lady Augusta Road. North of the development, on the roundabout connecting the A46 and A6 is a new service area with a KFC, a Shell petrol station and an Etap Hotel. Schools: Highcliffe primary school Riverside primary school Hallam fields primary school The Cedars AcademyNote: Longslade Community College and Stonehill high school will soon merge to become Cedars Academy Shops: One main supermarket One garden centre Various shops along Sibson roadCommunity facilities: Library on Wanlip Lane Parish Council officesParks: Watermead Country Park School Lane recreational park Harrogate parkGolf club: Birstall Golf Club - founded in 1901 - one of the first golf clubs in Leicestershire The village is served by Kinchbus, Arriva Fox County and Centrebus.
Birstall park and ride is operated by Roberts Tours. The closest village to Birstall is Wanlip, a smaller village, with the village of Rothley being the next closest; the villages of Thurmaston and Syston are nearby. Birstall shares its southern border with the City of Leicester. Rixensart, Walloon Brabant, Belgium
Sileby
Sileby is a former industrial village and civil parish in the Soar Valley in Leicestershire, between Leicester and Loughborough. Nearby villages include Barrow upon Soar, Ratcliffe-on-the-Wreake and Cossington; the population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 7,835. The origins of the village date back to around 840 AD when the area was settled by the Danes - Leicestershire forming part of the Danelaw along with other counties in the vicinity; the name Sileby may in fact come from the Danish name'Sighulf'. The village lies at the bottom of an ancient valley created by the nearby River Soar, meaning that surrounding farmland is prone to flooding during persistent or heavy rain. Traditionally, Sileby was split into two wards, separated by the brook that flows through the middle of the village; these are St Gregory's to the south. However, due to Boundary Commission changes, a third ward of ‘Barrow West’ was added albeit as an arbitrary boundary for electoral purposes; this division was resented at the time owing to local rivalries and the idea of a portion of the village being annexed was not popular.
In practice however this division is ignored. The idea of the two traditional wards is becoming somewhat lost as the village grows and new people move in unaware of the significance of the historical division. One of Sileby's most distinguishing features is the Anglican church of St. Mary founded around 1152, it is a Grade II* listed building, only 4% of listed buildings in the country are Grade II* status, which means it is of significant interest. The Gothic tower now houses a fine ring of 10 bells, which attract ringers from wide; the church has an active congregation and hosts Ladies Fellowship on Tuesday afternoons and squeels for tots on a Thursday morning. There is an active youth ministry and children's work led by Leonie Poole the Children and Families Worker; the church is open from 2pm on a Wednesday for coffee. The Rector is the Revd Duncan Beet; the service on a Sunday is at 11.00am and there are both children and youth groups in the state of the art St Mary's Centre. There is a Crèche in the main church building.
In more recent history Sileby was much an industrial place. Like most towns/villages in the local area it had several hosiery and shoe factories until as as the 1980s, as well as a wallpaper manufacturer and several engineering companies. Nearly all of these have now disappeared and most of the factory premises have long since been demolished and replaced by new housing estates making it a modern commuter town for people who work throughout the East Midlands and beyond with easy access to London and the North; the village has a railway station on the Ivanhoe Line, trains run hourly to Leicester, Loughborough and Lincoln. There are two bus links to various neighbouring villages, as well as to Leicester; this network includes links to the "Skylink" to East Midlands Airport, about 15 miles away. The village has excellent links to major road transport networks via the nearby A6 and A46 linking directly to the M1 which lies to the west; the A46 will take you to Lincoln in the north and provides a link to the east coast of England.
The local area is prone to flooding from the River Soar and its tributaries, meaning that access and egress can be limited in persistently wet weather with some local roads becoming impassable for days or weeks at a time during autumn/winter/spring. The proximity to the River Soar means that Sileby has an active marina where some residents live on narrowboats and others store their pleasurecraft at the permanent moorings available. Boats can be hired as well as minor repair work undertaken and boat supplies purchased at the small chandlery. Current facilities/amenities in the village include: Two doctors surgeries Two pharmacies One Opticians Two primary schools Several places of worship for the various Christian denominations Several pre-school/nursery establishments Two smaller-size supermarkets One dentist Numerous takeaway food establishments Various shops, "beauty salons" and cafes Two vehicle maintenance garages offering MOT tests/servicing etc. One private members-only gym Several sports pitches/facilities and community park areasNotably there are no Police/Fire/Ambulance stations or hospitals in or around Sileby.
The nearest Police station is at Loughborough. The nearest Fire station is at Birstall. Ambulances and paramedic vehicles patrol the local area but the nearest Accident & Emergency facilities are at Leicester Royal Infirmary. For less serious/urgent incidents treatment can be obtained at Loughborough Urgent Care Centre. Other absent facilities include swimming pool or refuse/recycling facility. Pubs include The Horse & Trumpet, The Free Trade Inn, The White Swan; these pubs cater for all tastes. The Horse and Trumpet, located at the top of Mountsorrel Lane opposite St Mary's Church is a popular village drinking house offering frequent entertainment and open fires with a large well-appointed function room, free to hire. Further towards the middle of the village on Swan Street is The White Swan, which offers excellent food in a restaurant style setting; the Free Trade Inn stands at the junction of Manor Drive. This is one of the ol
