Groby

The Village Pub

The Stamford Arms has served Groby since 1921. The pub stands at 2 Leicester Road in the village.

The pub serves meals and drinks, and its current website advertises live music, live sports and private functions.

The pub won Leicester CAMRA's Country Pub of the Year award in 2020.

At the Edge of Charnwood

Groby sits about five miles northwest of Leicester, on the southern edge of Charnwood Forest. The A50 connects it with the city, and bus routes 28 and 29 serve the village.

Groby Pool covers 38 acres on Charnwood Forest's southern edge and is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Watch birds from the publicly accessible roadside banks; access elsewhere is limited. Martinshaw Wood offers paths through ancient woodland between Groby and Ratby. The 15-mile Charnwood Peaks Walk crosses four peaks, but sections 10–11 are impassable; the road alternative has fast traffic, and quarry work diverts sections 12–14.

Bradgate and the Nine-day Queen

Nearby Bradgate Park has 830 acres of publicly accessible deer park. A visitor entrance is at Newtown Linford.

The ruins of Bradgate House mark Lady Jane Grey's childhood home and birthplace in 1537. Proclaimed Queen of England in July 1553, she was deposed nine days later and beheaded at the Tower of London the following February, aged sixteen or seventeen.

The Greys and Groby Old Hall

Groby's Grey family connects the village with two queens. Sir John Grey of Groby married Elizabeth Woodville, who later married Edward IV and became queen. Their descendants included Lady Jane Grey.

St Philip and St James stands beside Groby Castle. Built in 1840 to William Railton's design, the Grade II listed church gained a chancel in 1912. Nearby Old Hall was the Grey family's home before 1446; the church occupies a newer site beside the older complex.

From Grobi to Granite

Groby appears in the Domesday record with 16 households and an annual value of three pounds in 1086. The village quarry supplied granite for Leicester via a rail link completed in 1832, with stone travelling onward by canal toward London.

The Groby quarries worked hard diorite, locally called granite, for roadstone. In the railway's first six months, 4,622 tonnes of stone and slate were carried from the quarries.