Shopping
You’ll know about the Highcross already, no doubt. Big place, shiny stuff, chain names. In fact, you’ve probably already been, so let’s move on. On the edge of the city, Fosse Park is one of Britain’s biggest shopping centres. But for those of you seeking something independent, the narrow old streets of the Lanes, St Martin’s Square and the arcades round and about are the best starting point. The elegant Silver Arcade isn’t quite what it once was, but it’s still lovely, with a good deli on the ground floor.
If vintage is your thing, The Wardrobe in Royal Arcade and BluTit Thrift nearby on Silver Street could be just what you’re looking for. To zhuzh up your room a little, try Harriman and Co, tucked away in St Mary’s Works in Burnmoor Street, near Leicester City’s King Power Stadium. It was named in the top 20 homewares shops in the UK by House & Garden magazine. Look out for the independent Mash Up Market at St Mary’s Works on October 24.
Leicester’s Golden Mile – Belgrave Road – is a home to myriad sari stores and jewellers, plus whatever the collective noun is for vegetarian Indian restaurants. Other areas that might take your fancy include Clarendon Park, to the south of Vicky Park. This is Uni Of territory, and there are lots of independent shops, cafes and bars, and some great chazzas, including a record shop. It also does a neat Christmas fair, closing the entire street to traffic to make way for stalls. A little further beyond that, you’ll find the Stoneygate shops of Francis Street and Allendale Road.
Bonus shopping tip: if you want to save on your food bill – and who in their right mind doesn’t? – Leicester market is the place. It’s been running for around 800 years, so you’re overdue a visit.
Leisure and sport
You’re 10 years late for the greatest story in sport, Leicester City’s 5,000-1 Premier League title win. But you’re bang on time for the miserable epilogue, the club’s recent, ignominious fall from grace. If there’s one small upside to their plummeting fortunes, it’s this: it’s a little easier to get hold of tickets these days.
Even in these reduced circumstances, you should go to a match at the King Power Stadium. It’s the beating heart of Leicester, which is one of Britain’s true sporting cities. And even if the club’s current obsession with prog-rock football doesn’t quicken your pulse, hearing When You’re Smiling before kick-off may give you goosebumps.
Aside from football, there’s top-flight rugby at Welford Road, home of giants of the game Leicester Tigers; first-class cricket at Grace Road, and basketball at Morningside Arena, where you can watch serial title-winners Leicester Riders, the oldest club in Super League Basketball.
If you’re more of a doer than a spectator, get involved with one of the students’ union teams. Aside from all the sports you’d expect at DMU, there are clubs from archery to equestrianism to trampolining to cheerleading. Not bowling, mind. Still you can do that at Lane7 and East Street Lanes.
Rileys bills itself as Leicester number one sports venue, which seems harsh on the King Power Stadium. It’s right by the DMU campus, and offers pool, snooker and darts. If rational golf isn’t really your thing, try Congo River Crazy Golf in Blaby and Treetop Golf by the Highcross. Anyone who needs to be told where the escape rooms are in Leicester might not do all that well at working out how to break free again, but still: you can find them here and here. And for those days when you need to get a bit of angst out of your system, you can go paintballing here and if that’s not quite enough, try um … checks notes … tank driving might work.
Museums and galleries
Sooner or later someone in your family will mention the king under the car park. Turn yourself instantly into the kind of person who airily lets slip that you’ve seen his grave, by going to see his grave. It’s in the cathedral. The visitor centre over the road tells you the whole bizarre tale of how he was found.
The National Space Centre – rockets, and whatnot – has the UK’s largest planetarium. At one point it had a virtual roller coaster too, although thinking back on it now, you were probably still in primary school back then, so it may well have changed … Next door is Abbey Pumping Station, an industrial museum beloved of generations of Leicester kids whose school trips were enlivened beyond all expectations by the poo-flushing exhibit.
Spare a thought for the kids who grew up in Leicester, by the way. Learning to spell the name of your home town isn’t quite as taxing as it is for youngsters in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, but it’s a tiny bit harder here than if you were born in, say Rye or Ely. Or Å, in Norway, for that matter. It could be worse, though. We could have stuck with the Roman name, Ratae Corieltauvorum.
Leicester’s New Walk is a pedestrianised promenade dating back to the Georgian era that runs from the city centre to Victoria Park. There are bars and restaurants at the city end and halfway along you’ll find the city’s main museum – it’s entirely free, and home to Ancient Egypt and dinosaur exhibits as well as a nationally important collection of German Expressionist art with a striking backstory.
The newly revamped Jewry Wall Museum uses the latest digital technology to bring to life the story of this important Roman town. More than 100 Roman artefacts – all discovered in Leicester and Leicestershire – are on display.
The nearest museum to the DMU campus is pretty much on campus. Newarke Houses has toys from the beginning of the 1500s to the present day, a 1950s street scene with its shops and pub, and a recreated First World War in its Leicestershire Regiment collection. It also boasts the trousers of Leicester’s celebrated colossus, Daniel Lambert. When those Leicester kids weren’t struggling with spelling of the city’s name or shrieking with joy at the poo-flushing exhibit, they were busy climbing then falling off the cannons seized from Sebastopol which now stand outside.
Hang on, there’s an even closer museum to DMU: the DMU one, where you can see the surviving arches of the Church of the Annunciation where Richard III’s body was laid out after the Battle of Bosworth.
Museums not really your thing? That figures. You might not have completely shaken the memory of all those poo-flushingless school trips. But the gamers among you may enjoy the lo-fi thrills of the Retro Computer Museum.
Festivals and events
Download is the monster of Leicestershire festivals, drawing a crowd of almost 100,000. It’s held at the spiritual home of hard rock, Donington Park. This year’s headliners were Limp Bizkit, Guns N’ Roses and Linkin Park. Next year’s festival will run from June 9-13.
The city’s biggest fireworks display is held each year in Abbey Park. This year’s orgy of ooh-yors is on November 7. Remember, remember, it’s two days after the fifth of November. Great Central Railway hosts a display at at Quorn & Woodhouse Station on Bonfire Night itself, with steam trains running from Leicester North.
Leicester’s Comedy Festival was one of the longest-running comedy festivals in Europe, bringing a much-needed splash of joy to drizzly old February. But the charity which operated it went into liquidation earlier this year. It’s far too important to the city’s cultural calendar not to continue, and an interim festival will go ahead in 2027. Watch this space.
Diwali in Leicester is Quite a Thing. The festivities in the city – centred on Belgrave Road, with a big wheel which absolutely no one is calling the Diwal-eye, regrettably – are often said to be among the biggest in the world. Be sure to go at least once before you graduate.
Bring the Paint is Leicester’s international street art festival, with live artwork, exhibitions, music, breakdancing and BMX. It launched in 2017, so next year’s the 10th anniversary.
Leicester’s annual Riverside Festival is held right on the doorstep of DMU, along the Mile Straight of the canalised River Soar. There’s live music, street food stalls, and dragon boat races on the river.
Glastonbudget is the original tribute act festival, hosting pun-friendly bands like Oasish, Fell Out Boy, Fontaines CD, Ron Maiden and Kings of Lyon. One of those is a lie. Find it in a field in north Leicestershire from May 27-30.
Leicester Pride runs at the tail-end of the summer each year. This year’s event had a parade through town up to Abbey Park, where there was a stage, stalls, a funfair and … Rylan. Rylan!
Days out
When the sun comes out, everyone in Leicester is legally obliged to head immediately to Bradgate Park, which is great news for burglars. It’s a sprawling medieval deer park a few miles north of the city that’s home to the romantic ruins of the home of Lady Jane Grey. More than two decades in the Leicester Mercury newsroom mean I am obliged to type the phrase ‘England’s tragic nine-day queen’ immediately before or after mentioning her. (Find information on how to get to Bradgate Park here).
If you’ve got a car, or know someone that does, or you’re a car thief, Rutland Water is a lovely spot. You can hire a bike, go sailing, windsurfing, kayaking, canoeing or live out your long-forgotten wish to appear on Total Wipeout at Aqua Park Rutland. And afterwards, if you feel a sudden, inexplicable urge to stroll around a quintessentially English market town, try Uppingham, a few miles from the lake.
Better still, if you like that kind of thing, head for Stamford, which often doubles up as The Past in films and period dramas on TV. It’s about 40 minutes by train from Leicester.
Compiled by Jeremy Clay.