NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. 245 



here still exist portions of Roman walls and other ancient remains, carefully pre- 

 served in the local museum. The central position of the town on the navigable 

 Soar has enabled it to play an important part in the history of England. It was 

 here that Richard III. and Cardinal Wolsey died. But it is more especially from 

 the beginning of this century that Leicester has grown into a large town, its 

 population since 1850 having more than doubled. This increase is due almost 

 solely to the development of the hosiery trade, of which Leicester is the head- 

 quarters, and which employs many thousand hands throughout the county. The 

 famous Leicester sheep, which produce long combing wool, pasture in the valley 

 of the Upper Soar, towards the old towns of HincMey and Market Bostvorth, near 

 which the Earl of Richmond defeated Richard III. (1485), and on the downs 

 stretching along the southern confines of the shire. The only places in this remote 

 part of the county are Lutferworth,. on a feeder of the Avon, of which John "Wick- 

 liffe was rector (1375 — 84), and Market Harhorough, on the Welland, a favourite 

 resort of hunting-men during the winter. Indeed, the openness of a great part of 

 the county is favourable to sportsmen, and Melton Moichray, on the Wreke, 

 which joins the Soar from the east, is the great head-quarters of fox-hunting, and 

 its stables afford accommodation to five or six hundred horses. The town, more- 

 over, is noted for its pork pies, and exports the famous Stilton cheese made in 

 its environs. Qtiorndon, on the Soar, within a short distance of the granite quarries 

 of Mount Sorrel and the lime-kilns of Barrow, is the head-quarters of the Quorn 

 Hunt. Loughhorottgh, on the Lower Soar, and the much smaller town of Castle- 

 Donington, farther north, engage in the manufacture of woollen hosiery, and the 

 former has in addition a bell foundry and locomotive factory. 



Ashby -de-la- Zouch retains its ancient name, half Danish, half Norman. It is 

 the centre of a coal basin. Whitwiek, to the east of it, on the fringe of Charn- 

 wood Chase, is remarkable for the modern Roman Catholic abbey of Mount 

 St. Bernard, the first establishment of the kind completed in England since the 

 Reformation. 



Nottinghamshire in the main consists of the broad and fertile plain of the 

 Trent, which opens out upon the alluvial lowland at the head of the Humber, and 

 of a broken hill country which occupies the western portion of the shire. The soil 

 in the latter is sandy and gravelly, and the whole region from the Trent to Work- 

 sop, in the basin of its tributary the Idle, was formerly comprehended within 

 Sherwood Forest, the principal scene of the adventures of Robin Hood and his 

 companions. Coal occurs along the western boundary, and the manufacture of 

 bobbinet, or lace, and of hosiery, employs thousands of hands. 



Nottingham occupies a steep declivity overlooking the Trent. It is a place of 

 great antiquity, with a castle built by William the Conqueror, now converted into 

 an art museum. The Standard Hill, upon which Charles I. unfurled the royal 

 standard in 1642, adjoins this ancient stronghold. Like Leicester, the county 

 to-WTi of Nottinghamshire has grown into a great seat of industry, famous for its 

 hosiery, bobbinet, and machinery. The same branches of industry are carried on at 

 the neighbouring towns of Sneinton, Lenton, Basford, Hucknal Torkard, and Arnold. 



