The Norman motte
A short flight of steps from the gardens gives the best view over St Mary de Castro and the roofs of the Newarke.
Do not come looking for towers and battlements. What is left of Leicester Castle, founded around 1070 in the wake of the Norman Conquest, is a grassy mound and a hall in disguise. The Great Hall, raised in the twelfth century and one of the oldest aisled timber halls in England, sat as the county courtroom until 1981 and is now De Montfort University's business school. From the outside you see a red-brick Queen Anne front; the medieval timbers behind it normally open to the public only on Heritage Open Days in September and the odd university event, so treat the hall as a facade to admire, not a building to tour. The real pleasure is the walk. Steps from the gardens take you up the motte (once around 12 metres, trimmed in the nineteenth century) to look down on St Mary de Castro, the Norman church where Chaucer is said to have married Philippa Roet around 1366 and where the boy-king Henry VI was knighted in 1426. Then it is down to the ruined Turret Gateway of 1423, which lost its top storey in an election riot in 1832, and through it into the Newarke, where the early fifteenth-century Magazine Gateway, Parliament's arms store during the siege of Leicester in 1645, still stands; the garden wall of Newarke Houses next door keeps the gun loops Cromwell's men cut through it that year. John of Gaunt died here in 1399; a parliament met here in 1426. There is a great deal of history packed into a small space, but you read it off the panels rather than the stones. Castle Gardens themselves, along the River Soar and the canal, are free, open every day in daylight hours and locked at night. The paths are paved and pushchair-friendly, though the top of the motte means stairs. There are no facilities and no cafe, and the gardens stay quiet even in the summer holidays; on a dark winter afternoon they can feel empty. Newarke Houses museum next door is free but opens only on Saturdays from May to August plus a few school-holiday dates. Our advice: make it a 45-minute stop on one walking loop that begins at the Roman Jewry Wall five minutes north and ends at the cathedral and the Richard III centre. From Leicester station it is a 20-minute walk; drivers will find on-street parking around the Newarke. With small children it works as a historic playground for a short run about. Anyone expecting Edinburgh Castle will leave disappointed.
A short flight of steps from the gardens gives the best view over St Mary de Castro and the roofs of the Newarke.
A Queen Anne brick front hides a twelfth-century timber hall that served as a courtroom until 1981; exterior only.
A ruined 1423 gateway that lost its top floor in an 1832 riot leads to the Magazine Gateway and the free Newarke Houses museum.
Castle View / The Newarke, Leicester LE1 5WN
It is not in the same league: no towers to climb and no halls to enter, just a mound, two gateways and an old church. Go as part of a free walking loop with Jewry Wall and the cathedral, not as a destination in itself; if your time in Leicester is short, the Richard III centre comes first.
The gardens are flat, paved and pushchair-friendly, and children enjoy running up the motte, but the summit means steps, and there are no toilets or cafe inside the gardens, so plan a stop in the nearby city centre.