Swinford Preceptory

The Catthorpe Interchange is a major intersection at the southern end of the M6, the western end of the A14 and junction 19 of the M1 near the village of Catthorpe in Leicestershire, England. It was developed in 1994 when the link to the A14 was added to the pre-existing M1/M6 junction by joining the M1, M6 and A14 to the country lane between Catthorpe and Swinford as part of the Trans European Road Network,.The interchange currently handles over 157,000 vehicles per day and as the previous layout was overloaded and had a poor safety record, improvements were required. Traffic attempting to avoid the interchange caused congestion and nuisance in nearby towns and villages. The Highways Agency acknowledged that the layout of the interchange resulted in a serious accident problem, inconvenience for those wishing to travel between villages in the area, and delays and congestion for both motorway and non-motorway traffic. In January 2014, the work on upgrading the junction to a new free-flowing layout began. The final phase, the local link road, was opened to traffic on 22 December 2016.

Lilbourne railway station was a railway station serving Lilbourne and nearby Catthorpe in Leicestershire, England. It was on the Rugby and Stamford Railway between Clifton Mill and Yelvertoft and Stanford Park. In 1846, the directors of the London and Birmingham Railway gained Parliamentary powers for a branch from Rugby to the Syston and Peterborough Railway near Stamford. In the same year the company became part of the London and North Western Railway. The section from Rugby via Lilbourne to Market Harborough was opened in 1850. The line through Lilbourne was single track until it was doubled at the end of 1878.The 1923 grouping made the LNWR part of the London Midland and Scottish Railway. British Railways closed the station in 1966. All that remains is the trackbed and a platform.

Catthorpe is a village and civil parish in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England. It is located beside the River Avon and close to the A5 road, and hence close to the tripoint at Dow Bridge formed by Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Warwickshire; the nearest towns are Rugby, in Warwickshire around 4 miles (6.4 km) to the southwest, and Lutterworth around 4 miles (6.4 km) to the north. At the 2001 Census, the parish had a population of 179, falling slightly to 173 at the 2011 census, further decreasing to 156 at the 2021 census.The name 'Catthorpe' is made up of 'thorpe' meaning 'outlying farm/settlement' and 'Cat'. 'Cat' was probably added after Isabel le Cat and Simon Mallore donated the land to Leicester Abbey.Catthorpe gives its name to the nearby Catthorpe Interchange road junction formed by the M1 and M6 motorways and the A14 road, which was known to be regularly congested owing to its non-standard design. The A14 passed under both motorways; these underpasses were built in the 1960s for the former A427, which passed through Catthorpe. Between 2014 and 2016 the interchange was the subject of a major redesign to reduce the congestion and improve safety by providing free-flowing links and removing direct access from the local road network.Between 1850 and 1966 Catthorpe was served by the nearby Lilbourne railway station on the now dismantled Rugby to Peterborough Line Catthorpe briefly came to national attention in 1999 when the Latvian alleged war criminal Konrāds Kalējs was revealed to be living at Catthorpe Manor, a nursing home near the village. The parish church, dedicated to St Thomas, dates from the 14th century and is Grade II* listed, but is currently on Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register as being in a 'vary bad' state due to masonry defects and heritage crime. There is a village pub called the Cherry Tree and farm shop and restaurant, both are located on Main Street.

Swinford is a nucleated village and civil parish in the Harborough district of the English county of Leicestershire. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 586. It used to be on the former A427, which led under the M1, to Catthorpe. The parish church is All Saints, a 12th-century Norman rebuilding of an earlier Saxon church with a 14th-century square bell tower and a Grade II* listed building. The local pub is The Chequers on the High Street, formerly known as Chequer Inn. Its Anglo-Saxon name was "Suin Heaford" meaning "the head of the Suin" referring to a tributary of the River Avon. A wind farm was constructed north of the village at Swinford Corner and commenced operation in Autumn 2012. It consists of 11 turbines, each of 2 MW capacity and is operated by Vattenfall.

Lilbourne is a village and civil parish in West Northamptonshire in England. It is close to the M1 motorway which runs east of the village, and the A5 road, west of the village which marks the boundary with Warwickshire, slightly to the north is the River Avon which marks the boundary with Leicestershire (the three counties meeting at Dow Bridge). At the time of the 2001 census, the parish's population was 254 people, increasing to 273 at the 2011 Census, and further to 305 at the 2021 census.

Shawell is a small village in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England. Its population at the 2001 UK census was 126, increasing to 162 at the 2011 census. It lies less than a mile from the M1 and M6 motorways. The site of the Roman town of Tripontium is on the A5 (Watling Street), west of the village. Near to the church are the earthwork remains of a motte and bailey castle. The Great Central main railway line, the last main line to be built from the north of England to London, was opened on 15 March 1899 and ran just to the west of Shawell, mainly in a deep cutting where an important signal box was also sited. Although there was never a station at Shawell, one was proposed a little way to the south-west where the line crossed over the A5 and would have been named "Watling Street". The station, which would have lain roughly at the midpoint between Rugby and Lutterworth, was never built however, and the line closed on 5 May 1969, the cutting now being partly filled in.

Dow Bridge is a location in the English Midlands where the A5 road (the former Roman Watling Street) crosses the River Avon. It is the point where the three counties of Warwickshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire meet, forming a tripoint. A bridge has existed at the location since Roman times. The sixteenth century antiquary John Leland wrote 'Where this bridge is there were two smaller ones, the wider for carriages, the lesser, evidently Roman, for foot passengers and horses.' The site was for centuries believed to have been the location of the Roman town of Tripontium, however this was later discovered around a mile to the north. The bridge was rebuilt in around 1776 by the Road Commissioners, consisting of five brick arches and was again rebuilt in 1838, incorporating parts of the earlier bridge. On this bridge was a stone called the 'Three Shires Stone' marking the junction of the three counties. This bridge became grade II listed in 1990. It is now disused having been replaced by a modern road bridge to the west which was built in the 1930s.It lies close to the Warwickshire villages of Newton and Clifton-upon-Dunsmore (the bridge being in the parish of the former) the Leicestershire village of Catthorpe and the Northamptonshire village of Lilbourne.

Greenhaven Woodland Burial Ground is a natural burial ground located in the village of Lilbourne, 5 miles (8 km) from the town of Rugby, England. It opened in 1994 and was the first privately owned natural burial ground in the country. Greenhaven is situated on 14 acres (57,000 m2) of former agricultural land and originally catered for approximately 7,000 plots, but as of 8 December 2008, roughly 5,000 of these remain.

RAF Lilbourne is a former Royal Air Force station which was located 5.2 miles (8.4 km) south of Lutterworth, Leicestershire, England. The airfield opened 1915 before closing around 1920.

Cave's Inn Pits is a 5.8-hectare (14-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest south-west of Shawell in Leicestershire.These disused gravel workings have some of the best neutral marsh in the county, with varied habitats also including scrub, species-rich grassland and shallow pools. There are diverse species of breeding birds.The site is private land with no public access.

Tripontium (Latin for "Place of three bridges") was a town in Roman Britain. It lay on the Roman road later called Watling Street (and known today as the A5) at a site now chiefly within the civil parish of Churchover in the English county of Warwickshire and partly in Leicestershire, some 3.4 miles north-east of Rugby and 3.1 miles south of Lutterworth.

Stanford Park is a 20.4 hectares (50 acres) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest east of Swinford in Leicestershire.The park has avenues of oak trees, together with other large trees in an area of pasture. It has the most diverse lichens in the county on the bark of mature trees and on old stonework, including fifteen species not recorded elsewhere in Leicestershire.The park is the grounds of Stanford Hall, a stately home which is open to the public.