East Norton

Loddington is a village and civil parish in the Harborough district of Leicestershire. It is on the county boundary with Rutland, and the nearest town is Oakham in Rutland, 6 miles (10 km) to the northeast. Loddington is on a stream that joins Eye Brook, a tributary of the River Welland. The 2001 Census recorded Loddington's parish population as 77. By the time of the 2011 Census Loddington had been merged with the neighbouring civil parish of Launde. The census included the parish with that of East Norton, for which it recorded a combined total of 230.

Leighfield Forest SSSI is an 11.3 hectares (28 acres) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest east of Skeffington in Leicestershire, England. It consists of several fragments, including Tugby Wood, Loddington Reddish, Brown's Wood, Skeffington Wood and Tilton Wood, of the former medieval hunting Leighfield Forest, which straddles Leicestershire and Rutland. It is a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade II.These woods in the Eye Brook valley date back at least to the thirteenth century. The dominant trees are ash and oak. The diverse moths and beetles include some rare species, and others are at the northern limit of their distribution. There are also areas of grassland and marsh.Roads and footpaths go through some of the woods but others are private.

Tugby and Keythorpe is a civil parish comprising the village of Tugby and land surrounding Keythorpe Hall, Hall Farm and Lodge Farm in Leicestershire, England, part of the Harborough district. The Parish covers around 2,200 acres, situated 7 miles west of Uppingham, and 12 miles east of Leicester. According to the 2011 census the population of the parish was 330. The Anglican parish register for the parish dates back to 1568. The boundaries of the parish have not changed throughout the years, meaning that the parish's size remains the same as it did in 1568. In the 1887 Gazetter of the British Isles it is suggested that the town dates back to Norman rule stating: "The church has a Norman tower, and is good."

Launde Woods is a 99 hectares (240 acres) nature reserve north of Launde in Leicestershire. It is owned by the Leicester Diocesan Board of Finance and leased to the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust. The site is in two areas, Launde Big Wood, which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and Launde Park Wood.Launde Big Wood is ancient semi-natural woodland with a rich ground flora, including wood anemone, wood forget-me-not and sweet woodruff. Most of Launde Park Wood has been planted with conifers, but the northern third has the same range of plants as the Big Wood.There is public access to the woods, which are located on either side of the road south of Launde Abbey.

Launde Big Wood is a 41.1 hectares (102 acres) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest east of Leicester. It is part of Launde Woods nature reserve, which is owned by the Leicester Diocesan Board of Finance and managed by the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust.This wood on heavy clay is dominated by ash, and in some areas by wych elm. The ground layer has flora typical of ancient clay woods, such as bluebell, forget-me-not, yellow archangel and giant bellflower.There is access to the site by a public footpath.

Hallaton Castle was situated to the west of the village of Hallaton, which lies some 20 km to the south-east of the city of Leicester (grid reference SP780967). It seems likely that the castle formed the administrative centre of an estate owned by Geoffrey Alselin, which is described in the Domesday Book, pinpointing the construction of the castle happening before 1086 but after 1066. This was an interesting motte and bailey castle with an additional rectangular enclosure now surviving as an earthwork, 118 feet (36 m) high, and 630 feet (190 m) in circumference, on which stood the keep, occupying, with the outworks, about 2 acres (8,100 m2) of ground. The earthworks only are present today.

Hallaton is a village and civil parish in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 523, which had increased to 594 at the 2011 census.

St Michael's church, Hallaton is a parish church in the town of Hallaton, Leicestershire. It is a Grade I listed building.It is a Norman style church, which dates from the thirteenth century. It has a north porch, built later in the fifteenth century and some of the original timbers still exist today. The church is dedicated to St Michael and is mainly of the 13th century: the aisles were added a century later. The church is sited on rising ground and has a dignified tower with a fine broach spire (one of the best in the county); the nave and chancel and aisles have nobility and beauty. The sculptured stonework of the north aisle contrasts with the plain battlemented south aisle. A former rector is commemorated by a handsome monument attached to one of the corners.

Launde is a civil parish in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, bordering Rutland. The parish is the site of Launde Abbey. It gives its name to an electoral division of Leicestershire that stretches all the way from Scraptoft, Thurnby and Stoughton, near Leicester, to the border with Rutland. The civil parish population is included in the civil parish of Loddington. Launde Park lies in the valley of the River Chater. The Elizabethan house embodies the relics of the old priory and is an E-shaped building of two storeys. The private chapel is from the Perpendicular period and contains some good stained glass. There are numerous memorials of the Simpson family who bought Launde in 1763 and enlarged the house and laid out the plantations. The estate was later owned by the Dawson family.Launde Woods is a nature reserve managed by the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust, and part of it is Launde Big Wood, which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

Hallaton railway station was a former railway station serving the village of Hallaton, Leicestershire, on the Great Northern and London and North Western Joint Railway. The station was located about a quarter of a mile east of the village on the road to Horninghold. The station opened in 1879 and closed to regular traffic in 1953. The Leicester to Peterborough service was withdrawn in 1916. To the south-west was Welham Junction.

The rural district of Hallaton existed in Leicestershire, England from 1894 to 1935. It included the following civil parishes, which were the parts of the Uppingham Rural Sanitary District in Leicestershire. Blaston Bringhurst Drayton Great Easton Hallaton Horninghold Medbourne Nevill Holt StockerstonIn 1935 it was merged into the Market Harborough Rural District, under the review caused by the Local Government Act 1929. It now (after 1974) forms part of the non-metropolitan district of Harborough.

The Hallaton Treasure, the largest hoard of British Iron Age coins, was discovered in 2000 near Hallaton in southeast Leicestershire, England, by volunteers from the Hallaton Fieldwork Group. The initial find was made by Ken Wallace on 19 November 2000, when he found about 130 coins with a metal detector.Along with local community archaeologists, the University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) excavated what turned out to be one of the most important Iron Age excavations and community archaeology projects in Britain.The hoard includes over 5,000 silver and gold coins, a silver-gilt Roman parade helmet, jewellery, and other objects. Most of the items date to around the time of the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century AD. Of the coins from the site, 4,835 can be attributed to the local Celtic tribe, the Corieltauvi. This find more than doubled the total number of Corieltauvian coins already recorded. A silver Roman coin from the hoard has been dated by local museums to 211 BC, and is the oldest Roman coin found in Britain.Some archaeologists have however speculated that it found its way into Britain before the Roman conquest in 43 AD and is evidence of exchange through trade or diplomacy. The site of the treasure proved to be an internationally important ritual site dating mostly to the generations before and after the Roman conquest. Archaeologists believe that the site is a type of open-air shrine that is the first of its kind to have been discovered in the UK. It was located on a hilltop in the Welland valley and was probably enclosed by a ditch and palisade.According to Professor David Mattingly, an archaeologist with the University of Leicester, "This hoard has changed our view of just how significant the East Midlands were in this period and this coin is a good example. It indicates there was contact between this region and the Roman Empire despite the distance between the East Midlands and the parts of Britain the Romans arrived in, like Colchester and Chichester."Finds from the Treasure are displayed at Harborough Museum. The Roman Hallaton Helmet underwent nine years of conservation at the British Museum and went on display at Harborough Museum in 2012. In January 2011 it was announced that the skeleton of a dog, believed to have been sacrificed to guard the treasure, would also be displayed at Harborough Museum.In 2012 a silver ring inscribed "TOT" was found in the area that the Hallaton Treasure was discovered. The inscription is believed to refer to the Celtic god Toutatis, corresponding to the Roman god Mars, who Adam Daubney, an expert on this type of ring, suggests may have been worshipped at Hallaton. Leicestershire County Council have acquired the ring for display at the Harborough Museum.