Richard III's tomb
A block of Swaledale stone cut with a single cross behind the high altar, where the lost king was reburied in 2015 after his discovery under a car park.
A king killed in battle in 1485, buried in a hurry in a small friary, then lost beneath the city for centuries until archaeologists found him in 2012 under a council car park. That is Richard III, the last English king to die on a battlefield, and he is almost the only reason roughly 100,000 people a year walk into Leicester Cathedral. He was reburied here in March 2015 in a ceremony the whole country watched, and his tomb sits behind the high altar at the east end: a plain block of grey, fossil-flecked Swaledale stone cut with one deep cross. No effigy, no gilding. The restraint is what makes it land. Do not arrive expecting Canterbury or York. A church has stood on this spot since before 1086, but what you see is largely a Victorian rebuild, its spire rising about 67 metres over the Old Town lanes, and it only became a cathedral in 1927. Inside it feels like a generous parish church rather than a great medieval hall. The story is the architecture here, not the other way round. Half an hour covers the nave and the tomb; allow an hour if you add the new Heritage and Learning Centre in the gardens, the last piece of the Leicester Cathedral Revealed project, which relaid the whole cathedral floor as one level stone surface and reopened the building in late 2023, with the centre following afterwards. There is no ticket and no booking: admission is by a suggested donation of £5 per adult, which covers the tomb and the Heritage Centre. Doors open Monday to Saturday 10:30 to 16:30 and on Sundays only from 12:00 to 15:00, and the building, or parts of it, closes for services and events, sometimes for whole days, so check the closures page on the official site before making a special trip. The floor is entirely step-free, pushchairs and wheelchairs enter by the south door through the gardens, and the toilets with baby changing are in the Heritage Centre. The smart move is to fold it into one Old Town morning: the King Richard III Visitor Centre faces the cathedral directly (paid ticket, and it has the original grave site under a glass floor), and the timber-framed medieval Guildhall next door is free. Leicester station is about a fifteen-minute walk; Old Town car parks are close by. For families, children who like kings and dig sites will enjoy it; anyone who does not know the story will see a calm, handsome church and be out in twenty minutes, which is perfectly fine.
A block of Swaledale stone cut with a single cross behind the high altar, where the lost king was reburied in 2015 after his discovery under a car park.
The newest addition to the cathedral gardens, covering the site's history and the digs by the same university team that found the king, included in the donation.
The cathedral, the King Richard III Visitor Centre opposite and the Guildhall next door fill one morning on foot.
Peacock Lane, Leicester LE1 5PZ
If time is short, the cathedral is effectively free and has the tomb, which is enough for the photo and the short version of the story. If you actually care about the tale, and especially with children, the centre opposite (paid ticket) is the more entertaining half: the original grave site under glass, the dig and the DNA work. Cathedral without centre works; centre without cathedral feels incomplete.
Yes, and it is one of the easiest big churches in England on that front: the whole floor was relaid level in the recent restoration, the south door through the gardens is step-free, and toilets with baby changing are in the Heritage Centre. There is no tower climb and no crypt.