The Organ Grinder on Woodgate has nine cask ales on at any given time, which is more than some towns manage across all their pubs combined. It's a Blue Monkey Brewery tap housed in what used to be the Pack Horse coaching inn — an 18th-century coach house with original features including what they call the stable bar, which is exactly what it sounds like. The renovation in 2012 kept the bones of the building and filled it with beer. It has won CAMRA's Branch Pub of the Year four years running, from 2023 through 2026, which at this point is less an award and more a standing arrangement. Dogs are welcome. There's a beer garden.
But the Organ Grinder is only the start of it. Loughborough has, for a town of 65,000 people, an improbable density of serious drinking establishments. The Swan in the Rushes on The Rushes holds CAMRA's designation as a pub interior of special national historic interest — glazed stone frontage, original lobby layout, fireplaces, fixed seating, all dating from its 1932 opening as the Charnwood Inn. Castle Rock Harvest Pale sits permanently on the bar, with changing guests alongside it. There's food Monday to Saturday and a first-floor outdoor terrace, which is not what you'd expect from a pub that looks like it hasn't changed since the coronation.
Six doors down, the Needle & Pin occupies a converted electronics shop. It opened in 2015 as a micropub and has an upstairs room with over 400 vinyl records, which gives you a fair idea of the clientele. The ale selection changes constantly — hand-pulled and gravity-fed — and there are 80-odd foreign and craft bottles if the cask doesn't take your fancy. It won Mild Pub of the Year in both 2024 and 2025. Around the corner on Moira Street, Moonface Brewery & Tap brews on-site and serves about five gravity-fed ales at a time. It took CAMRA's Pub of the Year in 2021. All four of these pubs appear in the Good Beer Guide 2025.
There are others. The White Hart on Churchgate runs regularly changing guests from Leatherbritches, Charnwood and other local breweries, with a secluded patio and garden to the rear. The Jam Garden on Bedford Square won a Rover award for being the most dog-friendly pub in the East Midlands, which is a competitive field in a region that takes both dogs and pubs seriously. You could spend a long weekend here and drink nothing but excellent cask ale without repeating a pub. People do.
The drinking is the headline, but Loughborough has a proper market town centre behind it. The retail market runs every Thursday and Saturday, 8am to 4pm, and won Best Large Outdoor Market in 2017. Markets have been central to the town for over 800 years — Henry III granted the first charter in 1221. A farmers' and craft market takes over on the second Wednesday of each month. Ward's End Quarter has more than 20 independent shops, delis and cafes, and there's a further cluster of independents along Churchgate and through the Mews. It's a town that still has actual shops in it, which increasingly counts as a selling point.
What makes Loughborough genuinely unusual, though, is the bells. John Taylor & Co on Freehold Street is the last remaining working bell foundry in the United Kingdom. The business dates from the 14th century. The Taylor family took it over in 1784, built the modern foundry from 1839, and moved to the current Grade II* listed site in 1859. Since then they've cast over 25,000 bells, shipped to more than 100 countries. Great Paul, cast here in 1881 for St Paul's Cathedral, weighs 17,002 kilograms and remains the largest bell ever cast in Britain. The Emmanuel bell for Manchester Town Hall came a year later at 8,279 kilograms. The carillon at Washington National Cathedral — 53 bells — was cast here. So were Yale University's 54. The foundry went into administration in 2009 and was rescued by a consortium. You can take a two-hour tour that includes a viewing platform over the Casting Hall, and there's an interactive museum with two immersive galleries. Children nine and over. Your annual pass comes with the tour ticket.
The bells don't stop at the foundry. In Queen's Park, the Carillon Tower stands 152 feet high — a Grade II listed war memorial designed by Sir Walter Tapper and completed in 1923. Its 47 bells were all cast at John Taylor, from a 6-kilogram treble to a bourdon weighing 4,211 kilograms. It was the first four-octave carillon in England. Edward Elgar composed "Memorial Chimes" for the dedication ceremony on 22 July 1923. The manuscript was lost and not rediscovered until 2012. Inside, a War Memorial Museum across three floors received £110,000 in improvements and reopened in 2025. Recitals run every Thursday and Sunday afternoon through the summer, 1pm to 2pm. You sit in the park and listen to someone play a tower.
All Saints Church — formerly St Peter and St Paul — is Grade I listed, with a 14th-century core, a 15th-century tower, and a late 15th/early 16th-century nave clerestory. It's one of the largest parish churches in England, built on medieval wool trade money. The ring of ten bells was cast between 1897 and 1899 at John Taylor, naturally. The Old Rectory next door is a medieval manor house with records going back to 1228.
The walking starts immediately. The Outwoods, 110 acres of ancient woodland, is carpeted in bluebells from late April into early May. There's an easy-access path, a bird feeding station, a children's play area, and a cafe — it's the kind of walk that works whether you want an hour's gentle stroll or a reason to get the boots properly muddy. Beacon Hill, at 248 metres, is a Bronze Age hill fort site with a craggy summit and sweeping views across north Leicestershire. Link the two together on the Beacon Hill and Outwoods Circular — 7.9 kilometres, 280 metres of elevation gain, roughly two and a half to three hours depending on how long you stand on the summit pretending you're in a painting.
For something longer, the Charnwood Forest Peaks Walk covers 15 miles and four peaks through gnarled oak trees, historic deer parks, and some of the oldest rocks in Britain. The geological story here is extraordinary. Charnwood Forest sits on volcanic rocks dating back 600 million years — Precambrian, which in practical terms means they were already ancient when most of life on Earth hadn't got round to existing yet. Near Woodhouse Eaves, a schoolboy found Charnia masoni, the earliest known large complex fossil. The landscape reflects this age: craggy hilltops, dry stone walls, fast-flowing streams threading through ancient woodland.
Bradgate Park deserves its own mention. Eight hundred and fifty acres, enclosed as a deer park over 800 years ago, with herds of red and fallow deer still roaming it. Old John Tower sits on the high ground. It's one of those places that feels as though it hasn't been consulted about the passage of time.
The Great Central Railway runs from Loughborough Central station — done up in 1950s livery — through Quorn & Woodhouse in its 1940s wartime dress, past Edwardian Rothley, down to Leicester North in 1960s trim. It's the UK's only double-track main line heritage railway and the only place in the world where full-size steam engines pass each other on parallel tracks. The working double track covers 5.25 miles of an 8.25-mile total. It's been kept going since 1969 by around 700 volunteers and a small permanent staff.
The Domesday surveyors recorded the place as Lucteburne, in the Hundred of Goscote. Thirty-nine households — eight villagers, fifteen freemen, sixteen smallholders — with five lord's plough teams and twelve and a half men's. Forty-five acres of meadow, woodland measuring seven by three furlongs, and two mills worth ten shillings. Earl Hugh of Chester held it as tenant-in-chief. By the 17th century, framework knitting had become the major industry. By 1812 there were 12,183 knitting frames in the area. John Heathcoat patented his bobbinet lace machine in 1809 at nearby Hathern. The Luddites attacked his factory on 28 June 1816.
Thomas Cook organised his first package excursion here — a temperance trip to Loughborough in 1841, which launched the entire modern tourism industry from a platform in the East Midlands. Loughborough University, founded in 1909 and granted its Royal Charter in 1966 as the first technological university, is now top-ranked in the world for sports. Paula Radcliffe and Lord Coe are alumni. The annual November fair, originally granted for the Feast of All Souls, is one of the largest travelling fairs in Europe. Loughborough Grammar School has been running since 1495.
Getting here is straightforward. The station sits on the Midland Main Line, 111 miles from London St Pancras, with hourly East Midlands Railway services to Nottingham and hourly semi-fasts to London via Leicester. The M1 is two miles away at Junction 23.
On Thursday afternoons in summer, if you're walking through Queen's Park, you'll hear the carillon before you see it. Forty-seven bells, cast a few streets away, played from a tower built to remember the dead, performing to whoever happens to be passing. Most people stop. Some sit on the grass. A few look up, trying to work out where the music is coming from.
gh station sits on the Midland Main Line, 111 miles from London St Pancras, with hourly East Midlands Railway services to Nottingham and semi-fast trains to London via Leicester. The M1 is two miles away at Junction 23.
On Thursday afternoons in summer, if you're walking through Queen's Park, you'll hear the carillon before you see it. Forty-seven bells, all cast within walking distance, played by hand in a tower built for the dead and used by the living. It is not a bad summary of the place.
