Syston

St Peter and St Paul's Church, Syston is a Grade I listed parish church in the Church of England in Syston, Leicestershire.

Syston railway station ( SY-stən) is a railway station serving the town of Syston in Leicestershire, England. The station is on the Midland Main Line from Leicester to Loughborough, 103 miles 63 chains (167.0 km) down the line from London St Pancras.

Wreake Valley Academy (formerly Wreake Valley Community College) is a co-educational secondary school with academy status in Syston, Leicestershire, England. The school is known locally just as 'Wreake' or 'Wreake Valley', which is the name of the geographical area.

The Roundhill Academy (formerly Roundhill Community College) is a co-educational secondary school located in Thurmaston, Leicestershire, England. The most recent Ofsted inspection report (January in 2023) identified the school as "needing improvement" or "inadequate" in every category. The Roundhill Academy is a member of the Bradgate Education Partnership, a multi-academy trust.

The Watermead Country Park is a network of artificial lakes in the valley of the River Soar and the old Grand Union Canal, in and to the north of Leicester and in and to the south of the Borough of Charnwood in Leicestershire. The southern part of the park, which includes the Hill and the Mammoth is located in Rushey Mead. It runs north to south along the path of the watercourses, with Birstall to the west and Thurmaston to the east. The parks provide bird watching, fishing and watersports facilities, and are managed by a partnership of Leicestershire County Council, Leicester City Council and Charnwood Borough Council.The park includes three Local Nature Reserves, Reedbed – Watermead Country Park (North), Watermead Country Park – South and Birstall Meadows.The northernmost lake is named John Merricks Lake, after the late John Merricks, a silver Olympic medallist who competed in sailing events on a nearby lake as a schoolboy. He died in a car accident in 1997. Further south is King Lear's Lake, a popular fishing lake which can be circumnavigated and is popular with people walking dogs and cyclists. A statue on the western side of the lake depicts the final scene of Shakespeare's play King Lear. The lake is also used for open water swim training by Leicester Triathlon Club, and for water training of Newfoundland Dogs. A 5km parkrun takes place at the Country Park each Saturday morning. There are several further artificial lakes continuing south following the course of the canal ending with the southernmost lake, often referred to as the Mammoth lake due to the presence of a large statue of a Mammoth atop a small hill aside the lake, from where one can see Leicester and the surrounding area for some distance in either direction. There was a previous woolly mammoth where the current one stands, although it was burned down in an arson attack several years ago. The Millennium Mammoth was built to commemorate the discovery of ice age mammoth remains found when Watermead was a quarry. In January 2010, two brothers died after falling into one of the frozen lakes. They had been plucked from the lake by a police officer, who was leaning out of a helicopter hovering above the frozen surface.

Cossington Gate railway station was a small station serving Cossington village in Leicestershire. It served the Midland Counties Railway, built in 1840, which shortly joined the North Midland Railway and the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway to form the Midland Railway.The station was associated with a level crossing - hence Cossington Gate. Station buildings were provided in 1846 looked after by the crossing keeper. However, when the lines were quadrupled in 1873, the crossing was replaced by a bridge and the station closed.

Barkby is a village and civil parish in the Charnwood district of Leicestershire, England. It is situated north-east of Leicester, and only a short way from Leicester's urban sprawl in Thurmaston and Syston. Nearby villages are Beeby and Barkby Thorpe. Barkby Brook is the main watercourse which flows through Barkby. The parish has a population of around 300. In the 1870s John Marius Wilson stated that Barkby, "lies on an affluent of the river Wreak, 1½ mile S by E of Syston r. station, and 4½ NE of Leicester; and it includes the hamlet of Hambleton."

St Mary's Church, Barkby is the Church of England Parish Church for Barkby, Leicestershire, England. The church mostly dates from the 13th century. It was Grade I listed in 1966.

St Botolph's Church is a Grade II* listed Church of England church in the village of Ratcliffe on the Wreake, Leicestershire, England.

Ratcliffe on the Wreake is a village and civil parish in the Charnwood district of Leicestershire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 179. It is just to the north of the River Wreake, opposite East Goscote. The village is small enough not to have a parish council; instead it has a parish meeting consisting of all the electorate. The 14th-century St Botolph parish church is a Grade II* listed building.Ratcliffe Hall is a Grade II listed country house built c. 1812 by Robert Shirley, 7th Earl Ferrers and was inherited by his granddaughter, Caroline Shirley, Duchess Sforza Cesarini, who had married into the Italian aristocracy. It subsequently descended to the pioneer aviator, Sir William Lindsay Everard, who set up Ratcliffe Aerodrome, which opened with a 'Grand Air Pageant' on 6 September 1930. Famed aviator Amy Johnson made an unexpected trip from London to participate with Sir Sefton Brancker, Director of Civil Aviation. Some 5,000 spectators were treated to a show with 100 planes and staged bombings of Chinese pirates. There was one crash, but no one was killed. Ratcliffe Aerodrome was one of the finest in civil aviation with a comfortable clubhouse and an outdoor pool. The hangars were first class and the many air shows and displays had the atmosphere of a garden party.Ratcliffe is known for its abundance in wildlife especially crayfish which inhabit the River Wreake right through the village.

Cossington is a village within the Soar Valley in Leicestershire, England. It lies between Sileby, Rothley, Ratcliffe-on-the-Wreake and Syston. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 598.The village's name means 'farm/settlement of Cusa/Cosa'.Although there is no railway service to Cossington, the Ivanhoe Line runs along the Midland Main Line between Leicester and Loughborough, passing close to the village. An hourly service is provided in both directions as part of East Midlands Railway Local service from Lincoln to Leicester via Nottingham. Many years ago there was a 'Cossington Gate railway station' which has long since gone, the only evidence remaining on old maps, The nearest stations now being at Syston and Sileby. Cossington was once home to Lady Isobel Barnett, a radio and television personality from the mid 20th century, where she committed suicide amidst shoplifting charges. A short new road, Barnett Close, has been named in her memory. The village is home to three small businesses; two garden centres (Derry's Nursery and Goscote Nursery) and a pub, The Royal Oak In the early 1990s there were plans to expand the village, which were strongly opposed by the residents at the time, who formed the protest group 'Cossington In Distress'. The residents were successful in bringing about the cessation of the work and the village remains a peaceful community to this day. Every alternate Easter the residents of Cossington open their gardens to the public for two days for the 'Secret Gardens of Cossington' in which the village's willing gardeners show off their talents, with all the proceeds of ticket sales going to charity. The event has been a massive success every time it has run. The church of All Saints dates from the 13th century. A ‘Grant of Arms’ of the Fisher family displayed on the tower wall above the arch. There are memorial tablets to the Fisher family of which Geoffrey Fisher became Archbishop of Canterbury in the 1950s.To the south of the village lies Platts Lane Recreation Ground (more simply known as just 'Platts Lane') which is owned by the Platts Lane Charitable Trust and run by a volunteer committee made up of mostly village residents. Platts Lane is basically a large playing field area and plays host to football, cricket and rugby matches - most notably being the home of Sileby Town Rugby Football Club who are also known as 'The Vikings' and play all their home fixtures at Platts Lane, which many locals enjoy watching. Nearby is Ratcliffe College. A notable native of Cossington was John Webster, governor of Connecticut Colony in 1656. John Webster's Great-great-great-grandson Noah Webster Jr Wrote what became the Merriam-Webster Dictionary around 1875 The Australian artist Grace Cossington Smith's mother (also Grace, née Fisher) was the daughter of a rector of Cossington from the Fisher family (see above). To the east of the village there is a footpath named "Polly Peggs Footpath". Local village legend says a distressed girl drowned herself after falling pregnant whilst courting. Her lover, father and even the church abandoned her and she committed suicide.

Ratcliffe College is a coeducational Catholic private boarding and day school near the village of Ratcliffe on the Wreake, Leicestershire, approximately 7 miles (11 km) from Leicester, England. The college, situated in 100 acres (0.40 km2) of parkland on the Fosse Way about six miles (10 km) north of Leicester, was founded on the instructions of Blessed Father Antonio Rosmini-Serbati in 1845 as a seminary. In 1847, the buildings were converted for use as a boarding school for upper-class boys. The college became coeducational under the presidency of Father Tony Baxter in the mid-1970s. As of the 2018–2019 academic years, there were 850 students on roll at Ratcliffe, from ages 3 to 18.The school buildings were designed by the Victorian Gothic revivalist Augustus Welby Pugin. Pugin, who is associated with Catholic architecture throughout the Midlands and north of England, is also noted for his collaboration with Charles Barry in the reconstruction of the Palace of Westminster. The Square was designed by Charles Francis Hansom, brother of Joseph Hansom, the designer of the Hansom cab. Various building works over the years have contributed to Pugin and Hansom's work, and modern buildings include a "new" gothic refectory (constructed in the early years of the twentieth century) and a Byzantine-style church.