Introduction
Most of the pictures here were taken on our first visit to Market Bosworth in 2012.
We have retuned several times since and will continue to do so because it is such a charming English town in the county of Leicestershire. You can see its relative location on the maps below, surrounded by Loughborough, Leicester, Hinckley, Nuneaton, Tamworth, Ashby-de-la-Zouch and Coalville:
Map Showing Market Bosworth’s Location
Map of Market Bosworth Market Place
The pin entitled The Square locates the Market Place proper and is actually placed at the Market Place Bus Stop. The whole street from Main Street to Rectory Lane is called the Market Place.
Observe: The road to the south is Sutton Lane – mainly traffic free. That is where we saw this chaffinch sitting in a hedge.
This is one of the beautiful things we (my wife and I) saw on visiting Market Bosworth.
Market Bosworth Famous for the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.
We parked in a side road off Rectory Lane which continues on from The Park (road). This road has the local park to the south side. We wandered over to Bow Pool (a fish pond) where we had a good look at the upside down ducks.
It was while watching the ducks that we met the first friendly person who wanted to chat. This friendliness of the Market Bosworth people was seen throughout the day. We have never been anywhere where so many local people spoke to us first. Some just wanted to say hello but several wanted to engage us in conversation. Even a lady sipping tea on a bench in her front garden on Sutton Lane called us over and made conversation with us, advising where we could walk if we started down Sutton Lane.
Before venturing from the town we found a small table outside a building in the Market Place with books on it, all priced up, with a collection box for honest souls to buy and pay. Adjacent we found a coffee shop with easy chairs in Peppercorn Cottage under some scaffolding. This was old and previously renovated in the 19th century.
The chaffinch above in the Gallery was photographed on Sutton Lane as were the horses, Blue Tit and Pheasant.
Buildings We Saw When Visiting Market Bosworth
The town is very small and only has a population of around 2000 people. So all the houses are near the centre and you can walk to town in a short time.
There are many fine houses and cottages. All old properties appear to have been renovated and there are some nice new houses on Sutton Lane which compliment the old houses well. See this example (right).
If I’m going to show you the new houses I’d better let you see the old ones too. The first in the distance across the fields (although it doesn’t look very far away here) is on Shenton Lane to the west of Sutton Lane.
Lunch At Softleys
After we walked down Sutton Lane for half an hour, we turned back to the town so we could go and have lunch at a local hotel called Softleys on the Market Place. We both had Stilton and Walnut cream Paté with Red Onion chutney and Melba toast. I followed that with Tuscan Beef marinated in red wine, with Tomatoes, Garlic & Rosemary and a warm Basil Scone. My wife had Pan fried Lambs liver on Champ Potato, Crispy Bacon & Red Wine Sauce. We then shared a Panna Cotta with Mixed Berries. Softleys served really good food (you may soon see a report on Trip Advisor). I’ve never had such wonderful Panna Cotta.
After lunch we headed for the butcher’s J.W.Lampard and Son. Here we found another very friendly Market Bosworth man who gave us a very nice sample of his cheese after we bought some tempting steak.
The whole experience of visiting this town was helped along by the mild temperature and the sun which fought its way through the haze making everywhere bright and clean. One thing I failed to do was take enough photos. More of what I did take can be seen in the Gallery below:
Gallery
To complete our day out we proceeded to the Bosworth Gallery where temptation fell upon us causing us to buy a print of two hares (below):
Leave a Reply