Twycross
| Twycross | |
 Saint James Parish Church, Twycross |
|
  Twycross |
|
| District | Hinckley and Bosworth |
|---|---|
| Shire county | Leicestershire |
| Region | East Midlands |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Police | Leicestershire |
| Fire | Leicestershire |
| Ambulance | East Midlands |
| EU Parliament | East Midlands |
| UK Parliament | Bosworth |
|
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Coordinates: 52°38′28″N 1°30′11″W / 52.641°N 1.503°W
Twycross is a small village and civil parish in Leicestershire, England, on the A444 road.[1] The civil parish includes the hamlet called Little Orton, as well as Twycross Zoo, and the selective, private Twycross House School.
Administratively, Twycross forms part of the Hinckley and Bosworth district. It is named 'Twycross' because its centre lies at the intersection of three roads. The A444 connects it to Burton-on-Trent and Coventry and the B4116/B4114 to Birmingham.
The Twycross Cricket Club is a village club with a 1st and 2nd XI who play in the Leicestershire Senior League. It also has a Sunday XI which plays many friendly games throughout the season.
The 1st team XI play regularly in the Premier division, whilst the 2nd team XI play in division 3, which hosts a 1st team and 2nd teams while also holding a Sunday friendly team. It has a youth set-up with under-15, under-13, and under-11 teams.
The church of St. James contains the oldest stained glass in England, originally from Sainte-Chapelle, Saint-Denis, and Le Mans Cathedral. The earliest glass is c1145 from Saint-Denis, the panels having been presented to William IV who gave them to Earl Howe, who got the glazier Thomas Willement to arrange and install them in the church during its restoration in the 1840s.
The video game developer Rare is based at Twycross. The company has developed games and series such as GoldenEye 007, Viva Piñata, Banjo-Kazooie, Killer Instinct, Conker, Perfect Dark, and many of the Donkey Kong games from as early as Donkey Kong Country in 1994 to as recent as Diddy Kong Racing DS in 2007. They became a Microsoft first-party in 2003, when their contract with Nintendo was bought out.
Twycross also lent its name to one of the planets of the Inner Sphere in the BattleTech universe, which became well known as one of the planets the Refusal War between Clans Wolf and Jade Falcon was fought on, as portrayed in BattleTech sourcebooks and novels, as well as the video game MechWarrior 2.
Notable residents
Christopher Graham
References
- ↑ OS Explorer Map 232 : Nuneaton & Tamworth: (1:25 000) :ISBN 0 319 46404 0
External links
Media related to Twycross at Wikimedia Commons