Why is Leicester Forest East named as such when it lies to the west of Leicester?

Posted by Consistent_Welcome_6@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 13 comments

As the title suggests, why is Leicester Forest east when it lies west of the city?

Question stems when my parents stopped at the well know service station on the M1 (which features services east and west) and my sister queried the name.

A google suggests that it's named after a historic village, but why did the village gets it's name given its location? Did the founders look at the map upside-down when they named it? Or has someone just not got a very good sense of direction!

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Jabberminor@reddit

I couldn't verify this but maybe there was a forest on the west side of Leicester. Therefore making the Leicester Forest East area be on the Eastside of the forest.

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flowering_sun_star@reddit

In similar vein, Oxford has two streets named North Parade and South Parade. When they were built North Parade was at the north of Oxford, and South Parade the south of Summertown. Nowadays it is all one continuous urban area, with two streets with seemingly silly names.

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crb11@reddit

This is boring, but entirely true.

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ukbot-nicolabot@reddit

OP marked this as the best answer, given by /u/gitsnshiggles1.

LFE native here - there used to be a Leicester Forest some miles west of the Leicester city centre (and there still kind of is). LFE is on the east side of that forest, though there's not much forest left around the services bearing its name. If you go a few more miles west along the A47 you'll see signs for a Leicester Forest West, though there's basically no houses there.

The services are named after the village (now suburb) of Leicester.

^(What is this?)

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gitsnshiggles1@reddit

LFE native here - there used to be a Leicester Forest some miles west of the Leicester city centre (and there still kind of is). LFE is on the east side of that forest, though there's not much forest left around the services bearing its name. If you go a few more miles west along the A47 you'll see signs for a Leicester Forest West, though there's basically no houses there.

The services are named after the village (now suburb) of Leicester.

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Consistent_Welcome_6@reddit (OP)

This is the !answer i was looking for! Thansk for your local knowledge

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LinuxMage@reddit

If you go down the road towards the Desford crossroads, there is actually a place called Leicester Forest West, but its very easy to miss. I think theres a single sign with it written on.

As another poster has said, this is about a place originally called Leicester Forest, and the current suburb is on the East side of that forest, albeit, the forest itself no longer exists, and likely was cleared for agricultural purposes in the 18th Century or even earlier.

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eventworker@reddit

Given the age of the housing in that area, almost all of which is less than a century old, I'd suggest it went something like this:

Council wanted to grow city to rival Nottingham. Which would obviously include a second football team.
Development was set aside for that area as 'Leicester Forest'
Development started and much of the eastern side was completed
A war came along and the local authorities referred to it as 'Leicester Forest East' not wanting the plans to be shelved.
Rebuilding works took priority over new development works, Leicester Forest remained stalled.
Motorway is built. People can now buy or build new in villages and use the motorway to get to Leicester centre quicker than they could get to it from the planned local centre of Leicester Forest.
it's the 70's, 50 years has now passed and everyone working for the council has long forgotten the original plan, and due to the services being called 'Leicester Forest East' and that being much more famous than the junction named 'Leicester Forest' this is not brought up in peoples minds.

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