Essential Hotels > England > Leicestershire > Hinckley

Hinckley, set on the edge of Leicestershire in central England, is famously home to the Triumph Motorcycle Company and was once a prominent player in the country’s hosiery industry. The town is situated a stone’s throw from the neighbouring settlement of Nuneaton while Coventry and Leicester are equidistant to the south-west and north-east respectively. Further, Hinckley is conveniently placed next to the M69 and a little further from the M1 and so access from the north and from London is made straight forward. Meanwhile, if travelling by train there is a station in the town centre.

The town dates back as far as the Saxon times and has endured and enjoyed many experiences over the years. Today there are a number of distribution warehouses in the town due to its convenient position next to a couple of motorways in the centre of England. As already mentioned Hinckley is home to the Triumph Motorcycling Company while another well known feature is the Concordia Theatre which opened in 1972 with an ability to seat 400. Outside there are parks in the form of Clarendon Park and Richmond Park for example while there are even some award-winning toilets in the town!

In the 1086 Domesday Book Hinckley was recorded as a large village and it is thought to have been named as such due to its initial reference as the woodland clearing of a man named Hynca. From this point onwards Hinckley grew into a market town, holding a market for the first time in 1311. Hinckley developed as a centre in the hosiery industry in the 17th century and it was this that brought it economic growth and consolidated its place on the map. The Civil War didn’t prove particularly helpful for the town however due to its position between the two warring parties; there were Royalist garrisons at nearby Leicester and Ashby de la Zouch to one side and Parliamentarian garrisons at Tamworth and Coventry on the other side, meaning the town was often caught in the middle.

At the beginning of the 19th century the town’s population had reached 5,000 with many working in the continuing hosiery industry. It was also during this century that the Hansom cab was first built, adding another facet to the local economy. Hinckley and the 19th century also brought the first instance of Luddism however; workers took sledgehammers to their new machinery on Castle Street in a spate of protests.