Swithland

Leicestershire is a county in the East Midlands of England with an area of 833 square miles (2,160 km2), and a population according to the 2011 census of 980,000. Leicester City Council is a unitary authority, and the rest of the county is administered by Leicestershire County Council at the top level, with seven district councils in the second tier, Blaby, Charnwood, Harborough, Hinckley and Bosworth, Melton, North West Leicestershire and Oadby and Wigston.In England, Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) are designated by Natural England, a non-departmental public body which is responsible for protecting England's natural environment. Designation as an SSSI gives legal protection to the most important wildlife and geological sites. As of January 2018, there are seventy-six SSSIs in the county, fifty-seven of which are designated for their biology, twelve for their geology and seven for both criteria. There are nineteen Geological Conservation Review sites, six Nature Conservation Review sites, one Special Area of Conservation, three national nature reserves, two are common land, and three contain scheduled monuments. One site is a local nature reserve, thirteen are managed by the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust, and one by the National Trust. The largest site is Bradgate Park and Cropston Reservoir at 399.3 hectares (987 acres). It has rocks dating to the Ediacaran period around 600 million years ago, and is very important for the study of Precambrian palaeontology. The smallest is Gipsy Lane Pit at 0.5 hectares (1.2 acres), which is important to mineralogists as it is rich in sulphides, some of which are unidentified.

Leicestershire is a county in the East Midlands of England. The area of the administrative county is 806 square miles (2,090 km2) and the population according to the 2011 census is 980,000. Leicester City Council is a unitary authority, and the rest of the county is administered by Leicestershire County Council at the top level, with seven district councils in the second tier, Blaby, Charnwood, Harborough, Hinckley and Bosworth, Melton, North West Leicestershire and Oadby and Wigston.Local nature reserves (LNRs) are designated by local authorities under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. The local authority must have a legal control over the site, by owning or leasing it or having an agreement with the owner. LNRs are sites which have a special local interest either biologically or geologically, and local authorities have a duty to care for them. They can apply local bye-laws to manage and protect LNRs.As of December 2017, there are 23 local nature reserves in the county. The largest is Burbage Common and Woods at 85 hectares (210 acres), where over 300 species of flowering plants, 250 of fungi, 100 of birds, 20 of butterflies and 15 of damselflies and dragonflies have been recorded. The smallest is Lucas Marsh with 1.5 hectares (3.7 acres), a former quarry which is part of Brock's Hill Country Park. All sites are open to the public, apart from Knighton Spinney, which is only accessible on occasional open days.

The Mountsorrel Cross is a market cross that dates from the Middle Ages. It originally stood on Main Street in the village of Mountsorrel, Leicestershire, but was moved in the late 18th century to a position 250 metres south-east of St Leonard's Church, Swithland, where it still stands. It is a Grade I listed feature.

Swithland Viaduct is a railway viaduct in Leicestershire that carries the former Great Central Main Line over Swithland Reservoir. It is unusual in that it carries the line over a reservoir rather than a valley. It actually consists of two separate viaducts, with an embankment over Brazil Island in the centre of the reservoir. The line now carries the Great Central Railway. The viaducts (bridges No. 349 and 350) were constructed in c.1895/7 by Messrs John Aird & Sons, as a sub-contract to Henry Lovatt & Co. of Wolverhampton. Lovatts were contracted to the Great Central to execute contract number 2 on their extension line to London, East Leake to Aylestone, but the Corporation of Leicester insisted that those portions of the work that could delay or hinder the completion of their new water works at Swithland were to be executed by the main contractors for that job.The south viaduct has a skew girder section approximately halfway along its length, this having been provided to bridge the weir which separates the reservoir into two unequal portions. As of September 2015 extensive maintenance work is being carried out on this span in order to replace wasted plates within the girders, and this work is expected to carry on until the end of the year. Originally the lineside telegraph wires were carried along the eastern wall of the viaduct on wooden trunking, except where they were carried over the previously mentioned iron-girder span in structure 350. A telegraph pole, sat on top of the masonry of the parapet wall and guyed appropriately, was provided a short distance from each end of this span, and the circuits were then carried over the span between the two poles. Although little sign of these poles remains from on top of the viaduct, the remains of the guying on the exterior of the parapet wall can still be clearly seen from the reservoir. As part of the resignalling of much of the GCML, carried out in the early 1940s by Westinghouse to increase capacity, cable hangers were installed on the western walls of the viaducts, and the new lineside signalling and power cables required by the work were strung along them. This cable route was restored to work, albeit with new cables, during the recent resignalling of Swithland Sidings. As part of the same scheme a pair of mechanical signals (Swithland Sidings' Up Inner Distant and Up Outer Home) was installed on Brazil Island, between the two viaducts. Photography may be undertaken from the south from Main Street, or at very long range from the dam which carries Kinchley Lane. If one has a lineside permit, one can walk south from Quorn and photograph trains coming north off the viaduct. The viaduct itself however is out of bounds. The best location is probably from the east at Kinchley Hill but there is no public access there (the land is owned by Severn Trent)

Swithland Hall is a 19th-century Neoclassical country house in Swithland, Leicestershire, designed by James Pennethorne .

Swithland Wood and The Brand is a 87.9 hectares (217 acres) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest south of Woodhouse Eaves in Leicestershire. Swithland Wood is a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade II. The Brand is designated a Precambrian site in the Geological Conservation Review, but the dating has been changed due to the discovery of trace fossils from the succeeding Cambrian period. Swithland Wood is a public woodland in Charnwood Forest, in Leicestershire. Although close to the village of Swithland, it is almost entirely within the parish of Newtown Linford, just north of Bradgate Park and also near Woodhouse Eaves and Cropston. The wood is Leicestershire's most important ancient woodland for nature conservation. Quarries within the wood were a source of the distinctive Swithland Slate roofs found on many local buildings as well as the slate gravestones common in Leicestershire churchyards. Swithland Wood has been a public woodland since 1925, upon its acquisition by the Leicester Rotary Club, having previously been part of the estate of the manor of Groby. Since 1931 it has been managed by the Bradgate Park and Swithland Wood Trust.

Swithland Reservoir is a reservoir in the English county of Leicestershire. It is north-east of the village of Swithland from which it takes its name, north-west of Rothley and approximately 133 metres (145 yd) south-west of Mountsorrel Quarry. It is part of the 187.1-hectare (462-acre) Buddon Wood and Swithland Reservoir Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

Charnwood is a constituency in Leicestershire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2015 by Edward Argar, a Conservative.Further to the completion of the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, the seat will be abolished, with the majority being included in the new constituency of Mid Leicestershire, to be first contested at the next general election. Syston, East Goscote and Thurmaston will be included in the newly created constituency of Melton and Syston.

Swithland was a railway station which was constructed on the Great Central Main Line between Rothley and Quorn and Woodhouse. The station was due to open in March 1899 but was never completed although the line opened as planned in March 1899. The line through the station site was closed in May 1969. The line through the station was reopened in 1990 as the Great Central Railway.

Cropston Reservoir (originally known as Bradgate Reservoir) lies in Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire, England. The dam and associated water works are in Cropston, while the bulk of the reservoir is in the neighbouring Newtown Linford parish. It was opened in May 1871 in a corner of Bradgate Park, a large expanse of open land northwest of Leicester. It is part of the 987-acre (399.3 ha) Bradgate Park and Cropston Reservoir Site of Special Scientific Interest.London-based consulting engineer Thomas Hawksley was appointed by Leicester Water Works in 1865 to carry out the surveying work. In September 1867, 180 acres (73 ha) of land adjacent to the deer park at Bradgate Park was purchased from the Earl of Stamford for a cost of £24,000. A stone wall was built by George Rudkin around the boundary to separate the deer park from the reservoir, at a cost of 8s 10d per yard. The dam is 760 yards (690 m) long and rises to a height of 51 feet (16 m) at its highest point, which gives a depth of water of 38 feet (12 m). The cost of the dam was £41,356 and the reservoir £8,500 with the contract being awarded to Benton & Woodiwiss of Derby. The reservoir was completed in 1870. The dam was originally constructed from a mixture of siliceous sand and clay, but as water was found to be leaking through it, it was rebuilt and now extends 40 feet (12 m) below the surface. Water from the reservoir was piped to four large filter beds. It was then pumped to an elevation matching the supply from Thornton Reservoir so that the supplies from the two reservoirs could be merged.The reservoir is formed by the River Lin and is owned and managed by Severn Trent. The growing population of Leicester and surrounding areas meant that by the late 19th century the reservoirs in Leicestershire were no longer adequate to meet demand, and water is now piped from Ladybower Reservoir to Cropston.

Swithland Sidings is a set of railway sidings on the preserved Great Central Railway, situated just south of Swithland Reservoir and Swithland Viaduct which crosses it.

Woodhouse, often known to locals as Old Woodhouse, is a small village and civil parish in the heart of Charnwood, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 2,319, including around 300 term-time boarders at the Defence College. The parish includes the larger village of Woodhouse Eaves. The parish of Woodhouse was formed in 1844. The village is located between the larger Woodhouse Eaves and Quorn villages, the village contains a mixture of small cottages and large modern houses. It is a commuter village for both Leicester and Loughborough, as well as further afield. Beaumanor Hall, ancestral home of the Herrick family, was used as a listening station during the war, and intercepted signals intelligence for Bletchley Park. The Hall is now owned by Leicestershire County Council and is used as an educational base with outdoor activities.In 2005 Welbeck College moved to the village, on the edge of the grounds of Beaumanor Hall.The village has 130 homes and around 400 people living in it.The oldest part of the village is the church, St Mary-in-the-Elms, which dates back to the 15th century with 17th and 19th century renovations. On the side of the church near to where the Herrick family are buried are a number of old indentations showing where arrows were sharpened for hunting. The village was originally linear; however, the army barracks created a more nucleated village with more modern housing than the typical Georgian architecture seen throughout. The village has no services and relies on surrounding villages and towns for shops etc. The village is low on the settlement hierarchy.