Leicester sits smack bang in the centre of the county of Leicestershire , which is the honorary heart of England, given its geographical location. Leicester is also the county seat of Leicestershire and lies on the River Soar at the very edge of the National Forest. As with so many towns and cities in the British Isles, Leicester has a long and colourful past owing to the Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Viking invasions. It was the Romans who first labeled the city as ‘Ratae Corieltauvorum’ and that name was kind of stolen from the Celtic tribe ‘Corieltauvi’, but the Romans kind of cleared them out when they arrived.
The Anglo-Saxon and Viking Invasions and Later
Somewhere around the year 679 Leicester was chosen as the ‘centre’ of the bishopric and survived such until about the middle of the ninth century when the Vikings took over. Leicester then got mingled into one of five areas of the newly created Danelaw boroughs, but it didn’t last very long because the Saxon Bishop ran off to Dorchester-on-Thames and Leicester didn’t become a bishopric again until into the twentieth century.
During the Medieval period Leicester had grown in stature to a town of reasonable importance and even warranted a mention in the Doomsday Book, as a ‘civitas’, meaning city. However, once again that was short lived and it seemed that Leicester was always to be the brides maid and never the bride. But its fortunes did turn around again and in 1927 the Church of St Martin was renamed ‘Leicester Cathedral’ and the town was once again reinstated as a City.
The Tudor period saw many changes in authority and new growth to the city, as well as the effects of the civil war. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw the changes with the industrial revolution. Then came World War I and World War II, but since then, Leicester has settled down and become home to many businesses and people. You will find an array of business, such as storage in Leicester, shopping facilities, theatres, pubs, services and of course sporting stores and venues. Leicester as a city continues to grow and change and is now a multicultural city that is a melting pot of various nationalities.
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