County town: Leicester
Leicestershire was established as a shire in the 10th century following the reconquest of the Danelaw. Leicester, a Roman town (Ratae Corieltauvorum), had been one of the Five Boroughs of the Danelaw.
Leicestershire is a midland county of rolling pasture and ancient forests, divided between the wooded country of Charnwood Forest and the Soar valley in the west and the open-field country of the Wolds to the east. The county's medieval prosperity was based on wool and hosiery. Bosworth Field, where Richard III was killed in 1485 ending the Plantagenet dynasty, lies in its west. Leicester itself preserves the ruins of a Roman forum and a medieval guildhall. The county was also home to the Luddite movement of 1811–12 and the first Co-operative movement, born in Rochdale but strongly associated with the east Midlands hosiery trade.
Leicestershire was surveyed in the Domesday Book of 1086, William the Conqueror's great census of England. The survey recorded 290 settlements in the county, with details of their lords, landholders, population, and resources.
Browse 290 Domesday settlements in LeicestershireEngland's 39 historic counties, established between the 9th and 12th centuries, are the framework through which English local history, legal records, and landscape have been organised for a thousand years. Most survive today as ceremonial counties, their boundaries deeply embedded in place identity.
An Aubrey report for a specific location in Leicestershire draws on historical maps, archaeological records, Domesday data and landscape history to tell the full story of any site in the county.
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