Rothley, Leicestershire

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Rothley parish church of St Mary and St John

Rothley (pronounced "Row-thley") is a village in Charnwood Borough in Leicestershire, England in the United Kingdom, with a population of just over 3000 inhabitants.^[1]

It is close to the River Soar and centres around two Greens – The Cross Green and The Town Green – both of which are reached by a road that leads from the Crossroads. The Crossroads lies on the old route of the A6 road, which now bypasses the village. The village acquired a station on the Great Central Railway, which is now part of the Great Central Steam Railway. The village has five public houses. The largest one, "The Royal Oak", was refurbished in 2005 at a cost of £285,000. The other four pubs are "The Woodman's Stroke" (The Woody's, a much favoured haunt of Leicester Tigers rugby supporters), "The Blue Bell", "The Crown" and "The Red Lion". The only other licensed drinking establishment was the Rothley Constitutional Club. This closed in 2004.

Rothley is one of Leicestershire's richest areas based on number of houses worth over £1million, with the majority of homes priced over £800,000 especially in some areas. The village is served by a Catholic, Methodist, Baptist and the 14th century Anglican Church. Most children of primary schooling age attend Rothley (Church of England) Primary School. The main shopping area of the village is "Woodgate", which offers a selection of craft, antique and gift shops, coffee and sandwich shops and general convenience stores.

Rothley has been continually inhabited since Saxon times, evidenced by the ancient Saxon cross in the church graveyard in the village. In the middle ages, Rothley was home to a manor of the Knights Templar, known as Rothley temple, but now the Rothley Court Hotel, which passed to the Babington family after the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century. The Babington family held the manor for almost 300 years until the death in 1837 of Thomas Babington. Married to Jean Macaulay, the daughter of a Scottish presbyterian minister, Thomas was MP for Leicester from 1800-1818, and a leading anglican evangelical. Educated at St John's College Cambridge alongside William Wilberforce, the two worked closely together on social improvement and famously on the Bills to abolish the Slave Trade. Wilberforce and Babington spent much time at the Rothley retreat working on the text of the Bills, and on the analysis of the Select Committee's enquiries into the trade. Babington was instrumental in rescuing his wife's young brother, Zachary Macaulay, from the mental trauma of working as an overseer on a Jamaican slave plantation, when Zachary came to recuperate at Rothley Temple. Zachary was restored, and with a new Christian faith, went on to a lifetime devoted to the anti-slavery cause, and to have a posthumous bust in his honour placed in Westminster Abbey. Zachary returned often to Rothley, and on one long visit in 1800 his wife Selina (nee Mills) gave birth to poet, historian and Whig politician Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay.

Rothley has close links with its neighbour village, Mountsorrel.

In 1988, Rothley was involved in a cricketing controversy, when then-captain Mike Gatting was accused by the Sun and Today newspapers of improprieties with a barmaid at the Rothley Court Hotel.^[2] These accusations led to the sacking of Gatting as captain, despite his protestations of innocence.

The lead singer of former boy band Upside Down hails from Rothley.