If you drive north on the A46 from Leicester, go 10 miles to Nottinghamshire then turn right and drive another ten miles towards Lincolnshire, something a bit odd happens. You pass a big sign saying: “Welcome to Leicestershire”.
That’s because Leicestershire has a corner that runs farther north than Grantham and is part of a county like no other. Main attractions include Belvoir Castle, overlooking the large valley known as the Belvoir Valley, and the large village of Bottesford.
The village, 35 miles drive from Leicester, doesn’t feel like part of the county. The nearest town is in Lincolnshire and has a postal code of Nottinghamshire, making one feel a bit torn between the three counties.
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But everyone we spoke to agreed on one thing – this is a great place to live. Villager Colin Watts, 66, who has spent the last 23 years in Bottesford, said: “It’s a very established village and you have everything you need here from a vet and a shop to local builders and other trades.
“It’s a really nice place to live – but that means it’s expensive.” He said the village also had good cafes and pubs. “But I don’t really think of it as Leicestershire,” he added.
His friend Ian Gray, 57, who lives over the border in Nottinghamshire agrees: “When you drive around here you are in Lincolnshire, then Leicestershire, then Nottinghamshire….”
Nicky Hibbert, 44, who owns a hair salon across from the Co-op on Queen Street, said: “It’s a lovely little village and great for eating out and has great pubs. There’s almost everything you could want here and if you need go where it’s bigger there’s always Grantham – but it’s a hellhole!”
Her friend and customer, Lynn Adlington, 55, said: “The village looks great too. They’re building new houses all over the place around here, so it’s getting bigger.
“You can get all your groceries and everything here. But sometimes I go outside the village for a bigger supermarket.”
Local city councilor for the area, Don Pritchett, echoes the opinion that Bottesford has everything you could want. He said: “It is very well served with doctors, pubs, restaurants, good schools, active churches and chapels, a very successful grassroots football club involving around 2,000 local people and a cricket club which is also popular and successful.
“There’s great links – trains to Grantham get to London in just over an hour and there’s the A52, A46 and A1 nearby. That’s why people love it here.”
And the downsides? Don said Bottesford’s popularity meant rapid growth, with around 700 homes expected to be built over the next seven years, generating more vehicles, including construction traffic. But at least the extra people mean doctors’ surgeries and schools are guaranteed a future, he said.
And Don, who grew up in the village and moved again later in life, isn’t done listing all the positives: “There are lots of shops, including two Co-ops, a hairdresser. There’s also a bowl, a PT women’s group … and outside the village there’s many beautiful country roads.
“We did very well in the pandemic, I think, because we have everything we need here. It’s a great place.”
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