The George Inn is named after Sir George Beaumont, 7th Baronet, who co-founded the National Gallery and lived up the road at Coleorton Hall. Wordsworth drank here. So did Coleridge, Scott, Constable, Byron, and Shelley. The pub now serves Draught Bass and two rotating local ales, and dogs are welcome in the beer garden, which looks out over the Leicestershire countryside. The literary ghosts will have to share.
The food is home-cooked from local ingredients — Steak & Ale Cobbler, Wild Mushroom & Sweet Potato Falafel Burger, Sunday lunch. Reviews tend to use the word "honest," which in pub terms means generous portions and no foam on things that don't need foam. There's a children's play area in the garden and a lighter lunch menu if you've already walked nine miles, which in Coleorton is a real possibility.
The village sits on the A512 about two miles east of Ashby de la Zouch, in the National Forest. It is said to have more footpaths than any other parish in Leicestershire, which is either difficult to verify or easy to believe, depending on how long you spend here. The Mining Heritage Trail runs nine miles in a loop through Coleorton and Swannington to Snibston Discovery Park in Coalville, tracing the coal workings that gave the village its name. The "Cole" in Coleorton is Old English for coal. Mining was recorded here from the early thirteenth century.
There's also the Mill, Mines and Railways Walk, which passes through Coleorton Wood — planted in 1991–92 on the site of a former colliery known locally as the Bug and Wink. The last deep mine at New Lount closed in 1968. What was pit land is now young woodland, part of the National Forest's larger project of turning post-industrial Leicestershire green.
The Church of St Mary the Virgin is Grade II* listed, with a recessed west tower and spire dating from the fourteenth century. The stained glass, around 1500, was brought from Rouen by Sir George Beaumont. Pevsner noted that Beaumont imported materials freely, though the last bay of the north aisle is entirely new work from 1854, after Beaumont's death.
Beaumont is the figure Coleorton keeps circling back to. His family held the manor from 1426 and exploited the coal deposits for centuries, but Sir George — the 7th Baronet — preferred art to industry. He convinced the government to establish the National Gallery in 1824 and donated his own collection to fill it.
William and Mary Wordsworth, along with Dorothy, stayed at Hall Farm from 1806 to 1808 while Sir George built the new Hall. Coleridge joined them. Lady Beaumont asked Wordsworth to help design the Winter Garden at Coleorton Hall, intended as "a spot which the winter cannot touch." He wrote poetry here, working partly through grief over his brother John's death at sea.
Coleorton Hall itself is Grade I listed, set in parkland. You can't go in, but you can walk past it on the Heritage Trail, a self-guided route around the parish. The Coleorton Heritage Group organises guided walks too, if you want someone to point out which window Constable painted from.
There are no shops to speak of. Ashby de la Zouch is two miles west by road or bus, and Coalville is reachable the same way. There's no railway station.
The beer garden at the George has a view that rolls a long way into open country. On a clear evening, with a pint of something local, you can see roughly the same landscape Constable saw — minus the collieries, plus a few thousand new trees.
