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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Leicester
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(280,000 in 1991)
City and administrative centre of Leicestershire, on the river Soar. The importance of the Roman settlement here, where the *Fosse Way crossed the river, is revealed in the size of the Jewry Wall (the reason for the name is not known), with its masonry and brickwork of the 2nd century AD; the site is now an archaeological museum. From the late medieval period there survive the timber-frame Guildhall (15–16C) and the Newarke, an area added to the castle precincts in the 14C and including two 16C buildings which have been combined into the Newarke Houses Museum of local domestic history.
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The 12–13C church of St Mary de Castro is less altered than the old parish church of St Martin, now mainly 19C, which in 1927 became the cathedral of the new diocese of Leicester. The Museum and Art Gallery, founded in 1847, has a broadly based collection of paintings and decorative arts but is particularly strong in German Expressionism. The traditional industry of the city has been stockings, with boots and shoes as an added speciality since the 19C. In recent decades Leicester has become the home of a large minority from the subcontinent of India, mostly *Hindus and *Jains (it contains the only Jain temple in Britain).
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