The Newarke Trail

The Newarke Gateway / The Magazine - The Newarke Gateway was built around 1410 and is one of Leicester’s finest medieval buildings. It was the entrance from the southern part of the town into The Newarke religious precinct. It is built of local sandstone with separate arches for carriages and pedestrians. In the late 1500s, the gateway was used to hold Catholics, who were imprisoned for their religious beliefs. In the 1600s, during the English Civil War, it became a “magazine” or store for gunpowder and weapons. In the 1800s it was part of the military barracks and later used as a World War I recruiting station.

The Newarke Houses Museum - Created from two Tudor homes, Newarke Houses charts the social history of Leicester, and includes clothing that belonged to 53-stone Daniel Lambert, who put himself on display to Georgian audiences as ‘the greatest curiosity in the world’. Tales of the English Civil War take centre stage outside in the museum gardens and within the Magazine Gateway, a store for gunpowder and weapons. Discover walls bearing scars of the muskets used by Roundheads, battle-ready in their metal helmets and leather tunics, to fend off Cavalier troops resplendent in their plumed uniform headdresses.

Church of the Annunciation - 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. The Church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary was founded in 1353 by Henry the first Duke of Lancaster, son of Henry who founded Trinity Hospital. The church is nationally important as a site of Lancastrian burials as well as the site of the public exhibition of the body of King Richard II after his death at the battle of Bosworth in 1485. The church was demolished in 1548 as part of the Reformation.

Trinity Hospital and Chapel - The Hospital of the Honour of God and the Glorious Virgin and All Saints was founded in 1330 by Henry Plantagenet, the 3rd Earl of Lancaster and Leicester, who was the grandson of King Henry III. The hospital was built to care for the poor and infirm. Today the chapel is the oldest and least altered section of the building. To the left of the altar is almost certainly the tomb of Lady Mary Hervey, who was governess to the children of Henry IV. In the late 1700s, the crumbling medieval hospital was rebuilt at the expense of King George III. In 1994 the hospital and chapel buildings were purchased by De Montfort University and form part of its campus.

Turret Gateway - The Turret Gateway separated the Newarke religious precinct from Leicester Castle. Probably built in 1423, it was one of the two entrances to the enclosed Newarke area. Within the enclosure would have been the Church of the Annunciation, a hospital, a chantry house and priests’ houses. The Turret Gateway is also known as Rupert’s Gateway. Prince Rupert and King Charles I commanded the royalist army that captured Leicester Castle in 1645 during the English Civil War. The gateway survived the English Civil war only to be badly damaged in an election riot in 1832.

Castle Motte - For a front-row view of what was once a Saxon town, climb the Castle Motte, probably built in 1068 on the orders of William the Conqueror. From this earth mound, look down to St Mary de Castro, the church where a doubletclad Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales, married, and where child king Henry VI was knighted among much theatrical pomp and ceremony. The Castle Motte is open to the public and can be accessed through a path in Castle Gardens or from the Castle Square.

Leicester Castle - A motte-and-bailey castle was built in about 1068 and became the centre of power for the first Norman overlord of Leicester, Hugh de Grandmesnil. In 1107, Robert de Beaumont, first Earl of Leicester is thought to have replaced the timber defences with stone. Circa 1150, his son Robert ‘le Bossu’ (the hunchback) built the Great Hall. Leicester Castle’s Great Hall is the oldest surviving aisled and bay divided timber hall in Britain. It still retains some of its original 12th-century timber posts. Following the restoration of The Great Hall, it is now home to the Leicester Castle Business School — De Montfort University.

St Mary de Castro — Chaucer - St Mary de Castro means St Mary of the Castle, reflecting the church’s origins as a place of worship built within the fortified enclosure, or bailey, of Leicester Castle. During the Medieval times, St Mary de Castro would have had great importance and much wealth. It is likely King Richard III would have taken mass and worshipped here when visiting Leicester Castle. King Henry VI was knighted here when he was 4 years old (at the same time as Richard Duke of York) and it is thought that Geoffrey Chaucer, author of the “Canterbury Tales” married his second wife her in the 1360s. The church has been much altered but some early features have survived including Norman doorways, 13th century font and grotesque heads around the exterior.