There is a footpath map pinned to the entrance of the Black Horse on Main Street, which tells you most of what you need to know about Grimston's priorities. The pub sits on the village green, opposite St Peter's church with its crocketed spire, and between them they account for roughly half of everything worth looking at. The other half is the Leicestershire Wolds rolling away in every direction — open fields, hedgerows, small copses, and not much else. The civil parish has 294 people in it. You will not struggle to find parking.
The Black Horse is the only pub. It is also, by local consensus, the beating heart of the parish, which is a phrase that gets overused but in a village this size is close to literally true. The building has been serving drinks for nearly 400 years. The earliest licence on record dates to 1753, when Thomas Hill was listed as alehouse keeper. His widow Elizabeth took over after him, then two successive John Hills — son and grandson — which is either good succession planning or a lack of imagination with names.
The pub closed in January 2020. It stayed closed for four years. Then the Black Horse Community Group bought it with local fundraising and a £245,000 government grant, and reopened on 3 February 2024. The interior is a single room divided into three sections on two levels, which gives it the feel of somewhere that has been adapted over centuries rather than designed.
Food is home-cooked and unpretentious. Tuesday nights rotate through themed menus — pizza, burger, or pie — and there are bar snacks and takeaway if you'd rather eat facing the green. They keep Draught Bass on as a regular plus two changing cask ales, at least one local. Dogs are welcome. There's a beer garden. Quiz nights happen.
The Midshires Way passes directly through the village, which is how a pub in a parish of 294 people sustains a walker and cyclist trade. The long-distance route covers 230 miles of footpath and bridleway, and the Black Horse is a recognised stopping point along it. The parish has plenty of signed footpaths beyond the main route — Shoby, a hamlet with minimal surviving settlement, and Saxelbye, a small agricultural village sitting in a dip of the Wolds, are both within easy walking distance. Saxelbye has its own St Peter's church, currently on Historic England's Heritage at Risk register.
There are no shops in Grimston. Melton Mowbray is three miles west and has everything you'd want, including the market and the pork pie and Stilton producers that have made the town's name. The nearest rail station is also in Melton Mowbray, on the Nottingham–Grantham–Skegness line. You will need a car.
The Domesday surveyors recorded Grimston in 1086 with a population of roughly thirty households, placing it in the largest 40% of settlements. The name comes from the Old Norse personal name Grimr and Old English *tun* — a Viking farmer's settlement that has stayed more or less the same size for nine hundred years.
On Tuesday evenings, when the pie night is on, the green fills up with a few more cars than usual. It is not a large increase.
