Faith & Belief

Affectionately known as the “Pork Pie Chapel”, Belvoir Street Chapel was designed by Joseph Hansom, inventor of the horse–drawn cab.

What we know today as Leicester´s Jain Centre started life in 1863 as a Congregational Chapel (an independent church).

Leicester's first Sikh gurdwara now occupies a building that used to be a knitwear factory.

The church was founded by Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, and built inside the fortified enclosure of Leicester Castle.

Leicester has been a place of diverse culture and faith for some 2,000 years. A confirmed Roman temple has been discovered and references to other temples have also been found.

Freemasonry is one of the world’s oldest non-religious, non-political and charitable organisations. It became established in Leicester in the 18th Century, with the first Lodges meeting in local public houses.

Built in 1708 as a “Meeting House of Protestant Dissenters”, the Great Meeting is the earliest example of a major brick building in Leicester.

The Highfields Street Synagogue was mostly funded by donations from Israel Hart and other local Jewish business men, it opened in 1898.

This is the only building in Britain that is entirely devoted to secularism. Secularists believe religion should have no privileged role in civil and state activities. It was a very controversial idea in Victorian times.

Today Bishop Street Methodist Church occupies a prime location in the city overlooking Town Hall Square. This area was used as a cattle market and the land around it was therefore cheap enough for the early Methodists to buy and build on.

Baptists were one of the largest Non-Conformist groups in Victorian Leicester and included influential men like Thomas Cook (the great travel pioneer and anti-alcohol campaigner), prominent manufacturers and civic dignitaries.

Leicester Cathedral is at the physical heart of the Leicester, situated in Leicester’s Old Town. The Cathedral famously houses King Richard III’s tomb.

Leicester Abbey (demolished around 1538) lay just to the north-east of medieval Leicester, beside the main road leading to Nottingham and Derby, in a pleasant spot next to the River Soar. A number of magnificent ruins related to the abbey complex remain today and can be seen in the grounds of Abbey Park.

Franciscan friars first arrived in Leicester in the early 13th century. Their friary occupied a large walled precinct south of St Martin’s Church (now Leicester Cathedral) and west of Leicester’s Saturday market place, between two important medieval thoroughfares, Friar Lane and St Francis’ Lane (Peacock Lane today).

In the basement of De Montfort University's (DMU) Hawthorn Building, stand two arches which were once part of a medieval church. Today, these ruins form the centrepiece for the university’s Heritage Centre.

Located on the corner of Catherine Street and Gypsy Lane is the Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Mandir (BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha), a white limestone Hindu temple. The mandir building is a former denim factory and it has now become one of the largest and most stunning mandirs in the Midlands.

First established in 1968 by a group of Pakistani Sunni Muslims, the Islamic Centre would go on to expand from a side street in Highfields to the grand Central Mosque on Conduit Street. The original Islamic Centre is still on Sutherland Street, made up of converted residential buildings and is certainly one of the oldest Mosques in Leicester.

Diwali in Leicester is a huge, cultural celebration enjoyed by people who have come from far and wide to see the thousands of decorative Diwali lights along the city’s “Golden Mile”, enjoy spectacular firework displays and see homes, temples and gurdwaras all illuminated.

St Barnabas was designed by the Leicester architects Goddard and Paget in the Perpendicular style and built by the local firm of G. Hewitt. Its ‘picturesque and pleasing’ exterior was of red brick with Bath stone dressings.

The St John’s Stone stood in open fields on Leicester Abbey land in an area called Johnstone Close. The earliest known reference to the stone dates to 1381. For centuries, it had great significance for local people.

The earliest written mention of Dane Hills, on the west side of Leicester, was in 1689. Only one description of Dane Hills seems to have survived.