Braunstone

Braunstone Village

Braunstone is referred to in the Doomsday Book, and at that time the village consisted of eight households and was worth about 60 shillings. Braunstone Lane was once known as Coalpit Lane due to the packhorses bringing coal to Leicester from the Swannington coalfields. The village sat on the edge of the ancient Leicester Forest of which Bendbow Spinney, by Hand Avenue, is a remnant.

Braunstone has always been a farming community and is mainly located along Braunstone Lane. The 13th century St Peters Church contains monuments to members of the Winstanley family, and nearby Cressida Place has a row of estate workers' cottages which were commissioned by the Winstanleys and designed by the well-known architect William Butterfield in 1859. The remnants of wide ditches and deer leaps, designed to control stags for hunting can be seen near here. The schoolhouse (1867), now a private residence, was also paid for by the Winstanleys. The local pub, the Shakespeare, is quite recent and is named after a firm of auctioneers who had owned the building. However, it was previously a farmhouse and contains a brick dated 1655.

In 1924 a guide to the county described Braunstone as a 'curiously remote and isolated little village, with stately hall of brick, in a pretty park with water'. It was also described as having a 'quaint, old-world character'.

Hear a description of the area before 1914.

Click on the thumbnails below to see larger pictures

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Braunstone Village

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Further Reading

Last updated: 16/1/04
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