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St Nicholas Church, Leicester

Grade I listed church in Leicester, United Kingdom

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 5, 2026
Entity authorityQ7594928 ↗
Source-derived summary

St Nicholas Church is an ancient Anglo-Saxon Church of England parish church in Leicester, England. One of the five surviving medieval churches of Leicester Old Town, it was constructed over 1150 years ago and is Leicester's oldest and longest continually used building. It is also among Leicester's oldest sites of Christian worship.

The building is located on the western edge of Leicester City Centre between Holy Bones to the north, Vaughan Way and Jubilee Square to the east, St Nicholas Circle to the south, and the ruined Jewry Wall, Roman bath complex, and Jewry Wall Museum to the north. It was built perhaps as the minster for the Anglo-Saxon Bishops of Leicester (9th century), added to following the Danish invasion (10th century), the Norman Conquest (11th century), during the High Middle Ages (12th century), and completed in the Victorian period (19th century). It is a Grade I listed building.

Today, St Nicholas attracts an active and predominantly young congregation. It is the official church of the University of Leicester. It is also the city's evening congregation, with the principle Sunday mass held at 6.30pm. The parish community is in the Broad Church, modern Anglo Catholic, and Progressive movements of the Church of England.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “St Nicholas Church, Leicester” as grade I listed church in Leicester, United Kingdom. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Nicholas, Church and Leicester.

Editorial reviewA valuable geographic starting point for tracing changing names, boundaries, uses and administrative responsibility. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1150—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 0801-01-17. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Nicholas, Church and Leicester providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “St Nicholas Church, Leicester”, the useful work is to connect “grade I listed church in Leicester, United Kingdom” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7594928. Authority coordinates are 52.635, -1.141. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1150.

Critical limits

A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “St Nicholas Church, Leicester”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow St Nicholas Church, Leicester primary sources, St Nicholas Church, Leicester archive and Nicholas research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “St Nicholas Church, Leicester”?
  2. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
  3. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “St Nicholas Church, Leicester” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.