Leicester City

Our destination on day 2 of our weekend car-rental excursion was the city of Leicester. Today Leicester is probably best known for the Leicester City Football Club; we were interested in something a little more medieval.

We began our visit with a rainy walk through Abbey Park ...

 ... which turned out to be the highlight of the day.

Abbey Park takes its name from the Abbey of Saint Mary de Pratis, an Augustinian monastery that was dissolved in 1538 by order of Henry the VIII and quickly dismantled. Even the stone from the foundations was removed and reused in other buildings. The complex was so thoroughly obliterated that until archaeological excavations in the early 20th century, no one knew where precisely the abbey had been located. The low walls that now stand in the park were built by archaeologists in the 1930's to mark their findings. t. was happy to chance upon the modern memorial to Cardinal Wolsey, who fell out of favour after failing to secure a divorce for Henry the VIII. Wolsey died in 1530 on his way to London to face trial for treason. We know he was buried at the abbey, though his tomb was never found. (We neglected to take any other pictures of the abbey ruins. Blame the rain.)

Abbey Park also includes the ruins of Cavendish House, a mansion built in the early 17th century using stone from the abbey ruins. Christiana (Bruce) Cavendish, the Countess of Devonshire--and, more importantly, Lady Anne Halkett's godmother--took ownership of the mansion in 1628 after her husband died. In 1645 the mansion was burned by retreating royalist troops during the English civil war.

We didn't let the rain ruin our day:

Lunch at the Peppercorn Cafe

Tourism in Leicester received a boost in 2012 when the remains of the last Plantagenet king, Richard III (1452-1485), were discovered in a "car park" behind a building near what is now Leicester Cathedral.

Richard was killed in the battle of Bosworth Field, and his successor, Henry VII, the first of the Tudors, saw no reason to honour his predecessor's legacy. In 2015 bad king Richard at last received a royal funeral, and was re-buried in Leicester Cathedral:

While it is a medieval church, it was only designated a cathedral in 1927, and is tiny in comparison to the Norman cathedrals we visited in Ely and Norwich:

We found both the tomb and the cathedral underwhelming, and decided to take a pass on the Richard III visitor centre, and the chance to see where Richard's bones were discovered. (If you are interested in more detail, you might find "The King in the Car Park" documentary entertainingly absurd, says t.)

On our way out to our own car park we stopped in at the remains of a Roman bathhouse:

(The soldiers are not original.)