New Walk

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• Uncover the story - Take a stroll up Leicester’s leafy New Walk today and you’ll be following in some pretty impressive footsteps. You’ll be walking on an ancient road used by Roman soldiers, and enjoying the tree-lined promenade beloved by Leicester’s Georgians and Victorians. Dinosaurs may not have roamed the area, but young naturalist-in-the-making David Attenborough certainly would have as he made his way to the museum here that so inspired him. <hr> This rare preserved Georgian walkway once linked the town with its racecourse – now Victoria Park – and is lined with elegant buildings set behind decorative railings. A Roman Catholic church was one of the first buildings erected and is today known as Holy Cross Priory. A mass similar to that Richard III is thought to have taken on the morning he rode to battle at Bosworth Field is held here daily and open to all. <hr> Welcoming everyone since 1849, New Walk’s centre piece is its free museum, among the first of its kind to open in the country. A young David Attenborough would bring the fossils he had found in the Leicestershire countryside for identification, returning decades later as a world-famous natural historian to open its refurbished dinosaur gallery. <hr> More recently, marble statues and bronze sculptures commemorating the city’s industrial past have sprung up along the walkway, offering a potted history to anyone wandering up this nearly mile-long path. <hr> Reach the top to discover De Montfort Hall, where past performers include Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, David Bowie and The Rolling Stones, and future shows offer everything from comedy and musical theatre to rock and classical concerts. <hr> A cluster of bars, cafés and restaurants at the lower end of New Walk invite visitors to linger in this elegant part of town. If you choose to stay overnight at The Belmont Hotel, you’ll be staying in a building that was once home Ernest Gimson, a founding father of the Arts & Crafts Movement.