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City OF CONTRASTS - Leicester is a city with a long and varied past engrained in the fabric of its buildings and the character of its businesses and people, but it is also a city which looks to the future. It is a city with the commitment to develop a quality environment over the next thirty years. More than anything it is a city of diversity, offering citizens and visitors alike the benefits of a cosmopolitan environment.
Past INTO Present - Leicester's history goes back to the Iron Age. The original inhabitants, the Corieltauvi tribe, gave their name to the settlement of the conquering Romans, Ratae Corieltauvorum which prospered as a trading centre on the Fosse Way. Evidence of the Roman past can still be found in the modern city. There are numerous mosaics gathered in the Jewry Wall Museum, built alongside a Roman wall and baths.
Shopping - Shopping in Leicester has a new vitality. The Market has been here for seven hundred years but it is now complemented by newly pedestrianised shopping streets and the spectacular Shires Shopping Centre.
sporting CHANCE - W.G.Grace,Gary Lineker, David Gower, Peter Shilton, Dean Richards and the flying Underwood brothers - Leicester has been associated with some great sporting personalities, and the city offers tremendous opportunities to the sports fan.
A SENSE OF history - Forget Jurassic Park, we've got the biggest dinosaur in Europe and it's in The Leicestershire Museum and Art Gallery on New Walk. The colossus from Rutland has to be the City's oldest resident and is the highlight of a wonderfully varied collection which ranges from ancient Egyptian relics to German expressionist paintings. The museum also houses an important decorative arts collection and is host to a variety of special exhibitions like the recently acclaimed People's Show.
green & pleasant - Leicester is Britain's first Environment City. The designation was awarded in 1990 by the Royal Society for Nature Conservation and the Civic Trust in recognition of the city's pioneering environmental programmes.
A WALK IN THE park - Leicester has long been graced with an abundance of parkland. Just beyond the city boundary lie almost one thousand acres of wild moorland and ancient woods at Bradgate and Swithland. You can see deer roam freely and peacocks strut in the ruins of Lady Jane Grey's house.
CITY spectaculars - Leicester's cosmopolitan character means that there is something spectacular happening in the city at most times of the year.
stage & screen - When new shows open in London,s West End some may already be old shows to Leicester's Haymarket Theatre audiences.
eating out - Leicester is a multi-cultural city, and its cultural mix provides exciting opportunities to sample a huge variety of cuisines. The city excels in authentic Indian restaurants but also offers truly cosmopolitan dining, sometimes with live music.
clubland CULTURE- Leicester's clubland is a vibrant mix of glitzy nightspots and lively alternative venues and there is plenty of fast and furious dancing at all of them.
University of Leicester - University of Leicester, one of Britain's foremost centres of excellence for research and teaching, is renowned for - among other things - the revolutionary discovery of DNA fingerprinting and for leading Europe in space research.
Our University Road campus has an impressive range of buildings - from elegant late Georgian to the dramatic 1960s engineering building.
This, then, is Leicester; one of the country’s ten largest cities, a manufacturing marvel, but equally a market and university town, home to people of many races and faiths, a champion of environmental concern, and always a city full of surprises.