Charnwood

The history of Charnwood

The Borough of Charnwood covers an area of middle England to the north of Leicester and south of Nottingham. Loughborough is the main town of the Borough and currently provides a home for engineering, chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The Borough has a population of over 150,000 . Charnwood takes its name from the ancient Forest which lies in the west of the Borough with the villages of Anstey, Shepshed and Woodhouse forming the border of the new National Forest. To the east of the Borough the settlements of Barrow Upon Soar, Birstall, Mountsorrel, Quorn, Sileby, Syston and Thurmaston lie along two river valleys and the Grand Union Canal.

A useful websites for accessing the culture and history of the borough is Charnwood Arts who also have a Creative Map of Charnwood. Another good starting point is Charnwood On-line which offers a clickable map that can take you to all of the village websites in Charnwood. Family historians should make sure that they are in contact with the Loughborough Group of the Leicestershire and Rutland Family History Society, while a host of historical resources are available at Leicestershire Villages' Charnwood History.

The East Midlands Oral History Archive contains a number of interviews about this area. In particular there are tapes which discuss Swithland, Quorn, Anstey and working conditions in Barrow on Soar.

Charnwood websites with historical material

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