Hidden Gems Near Leicester
Written by UK Hidden Gems Editorial
Updated 5 August 2026
The hidden gems near Leicester are St. Mary de Castro Church, The King's Head, New Walk Museum & Art Gallery, Mini Statue of Liberty, Abbey Pumping Station, National Gas Museum, Aylestone Meadows and Bradgate House.
Leicester wears its long history lightly, a Midlands city built where the River Soar threads between old streets, a medieval castle and Victorian promenades. Its treasures are not hard to reach, but many go quietly overlooked.
In the old town you can slip into St. Mary de Castro Church within the castle precinct, then wander east to the King's Head on King Street and the venerable New Walk Museum & Art Gallery along its leafy promenade.
Down by the Soar near the King Power Stadium stands the curious Mini Statue of Liberty, while to the north, beside the National Space Centre, the Abbey Pumping Station keeps its great beam engines. Southwards lie the National Gas Museum on Aylestone Road and the wide floodplain of Aylestone Meadows, and a short drive north-west brings you to the Tudor ruins of Bradgate House in its deer park.
History, industry and open country sit side by side. Here are eight hidden gems to seek out near Leicester.
St. Mary de Castro Church
Photo: Ashley Dace via Geograph.org.uk
St. Mary de Castro Church is a medieval church tucked within the precinct of Leicester Castle in the old town, keeping fine Norman work inside, among it a richly carved set of sedilia often reckoned the best Norman decoration in the county.
It was raised to collegiate status in 1107 and given a heavy restoration by George Gilbert Scott in the 1860s. Its tall spire cracked and had to be taken down in 2014, so the church now stands without one.
Tradition holds that Geoffrey Chaucer married here in the 1360s, though no firm record of it survives. A rich seam of history in a quiet corner.
The King's Head
Photo: Roger Templeman via Geograph.org.uk
The King's Head is a real-ale pub on King Street, near the New Walk promenade, run by a brewery that fills its bar with cask beer across more than a dozen handpumps of regular and guest ales. It is a traditional drinkers' pub rather than an old one, enlarged to its present size in the 1990s, with an open fire, a covered balcony and a roof terrace, plus rear access from New Walk.
It appears in the Good Beer Guide, an easy find close to the centre of Leicester.
New Walk Museum & Art Gallery
Photo: Dave Bevis via Geograph.org.uk
New Walk Museum & Art Gallery stands on New Walk, the Victorian tree-lined promenade that runs through the city, and it also goes by the name Leicester Museum and Art Gallery. One of the oldest purpose-built museums in England, it opened back in 1849.
Its galleries range across an Egyptian collection complete with mummies, dinosaurs that include the locally found Rutland sauropod, the country's largest holding of German Expressionist art, and further rooms of natural history and Picasso ceramics. Entry is free of charge.
There is more here than a single visit can take in, so allow plenty of time.
Mini Statue of Liberty
Photo: Mat Fascione via Geograph.org.uk
Mini Statue of Liberty A nine-tonne replica of the New York statue keeps watch over a Leicester roundabout, planted on a plinth on the Swan Gyratory by the River Soar near the King Power Stadium. A local sculptor made it around 1919 for the Lennards shoe firm, whose Liberty brand and factory it once crowned from the rooftop, until that building was demolished in 2003.
Rather than being scrapped, it was restored and set up at ground level on the roundabout in 2008, and there it has stood ever since. It is exactly the sort of unexpected landmark you catch from the roadside and do a double-take at.
Abbey Pumping Station
Photo: Ashley Dace via Geograph.org.uk
Abbey Pumping Station Four huge beam engines dominate the hall here, their tall flywheels and heavy rocking beams built by a local firm to pump the whole of Leicester's sewage. They sit inside a Victorian pumping station of 1891 on the River Soar, next door to the National Space Centre and now the city's museum of science and technology.
Around the engines run displays on public health, a narrow-gauge railway and a line-up of old buses and fire engines. Entry costs nothing, though the beam engines only come alive under steam on special steaming days rather than at every visit, so it is worth checking the calendar first.
National Gas Museum
Photo: Richard Sutcliffe via Geograph.org.uk
National Gas Museum A gas-powered radio and a 1920s gas kitchen laid out just as it would have looked are among the thousands of objects packed over two floors here, tracing the story of the gas industry through early cookers, heaters and irons. It all fills the surviving gatehouse of the old Aylestone Road gasworks in Leicester, a listed building of 1878 standing beneath a clock tower, most of the works around it long gone.
A charitable trust runs the museum, which opens only on limited days, so the hours are well worth checking before you set out. It is a curious, one-of-a-kind window on everyday life powered by gas.
Aylestone Meadows
Photo: Mat Fascione via Geograph.org.uk
Aylestone Meadows is a sprawling nature reserve of floodplain meadows, woodland and wetland strung along the River Soar and the Grand Union Canal, roughly a mile and a half south of the centre of Leicester and the largest reserve the city has. Within it you find old ridge-and-furrow grassland, canal locks and towpath, boardwalks and a granite packhorse bridge, plus the surfaced Great Central Way tracing the course of a former railway.
People come to walk, cycle and watch the birds. It is a local nature reserve, free to enter and always open.
A green breathing space close to town.
Bradgate House
Photo: Nigel Cox via Geograph.org.uk
Bradgate House Tradition makes this the birthplace of Lady Jane Grey, the nine-day queen, though the exact place and date are far from certain. What is sure is that the Grey family raised the red-brick mansion around 1520, making it one of the earliest large unfortified brick houses in England.
Now a roofless ruin, it stands in the open deer park of Bradgate Park near Newtown Linford in Leicestershire, reached on foot across the grass. You can trace the brick walls, towers and service ranges, and step into the chapel, the only roofed part, which holds a family memorial.
A nearby visitor centre lays out finds from recent excavations.
FAQs
Which Leicester hidden gems are free to visit?
Several cost nothing. The New Walk Museum & Art Gallery and the Abbey Pumping Station in Leicester are both free to enter, and Aylestone Meadows, the city's largest nature reserve, is open and free to walk at any time.
Where is the Mini Statue of Liberty in Leicester?
You will find Leicester's small Statue of Liberty on the Swan Gyratory roundabout by the River Soar, near the King Power Stadium. The nine-tonne replica once crowned the Lennards shoe factory and was set up at ground level here in 2008.
What can you see at Bradgate House?
Bradgate House, in Bradgate Park near Newtown Linford, is the roofless brick ruin of an early Tudor mansion built around 1520 by the Grey family. Reached on foot across the deer park, it is traditionally held to be the birthplace of Lady Jane Grey.
Conclusion
Leicester rewards the curious, from the Norman carving of St. Mary de Castro to the hiss of steam at the Abbey Pumping Station.
Raise a glass at the King's Head, lose an hour among the mummies and dinosaurs of the New Walk Museum, or seek out the unlikely Mini Statue of Liberty beside the Soar. The National Gas Museum and the meadows at Aylestone spread out to the south, while the deer park and Tudor ruins of Bradgate House lie a short drive north-west.
Some are a stroll from the old town, others a gentle trip into Leicestershire, yet each adds something the guidebooks tend to skip. For history, industry or a walk by the river, these are the hidden gems to seek out near Leicester.
