Anstey is a large village on the north-western edge of Leicester, set on the bracken and heather fringe of Charnwood Forest where the ancient igneous rock outcrops and twisted oaks of the forest margin are never far away. The village grew as a hosier's and framework-knitter's settlement but today is a well-established residential area with a good range of mature gardens. Charnwood Forest, rising immediately to the west, offers bracken, bilberry, gorse and sweet chestnut coppice forage with a character distinct from the surrounding lowland. The Rothley Brook valley and the farmland hedges between Anstey and Groby carry hawthorn, bramble and sycamore; lime lines the older residential streets in the village centre.
Collectors in Anstey regularly attend swarms in the mature garden trees of the older village streets near St Mary's Church and the Market Place, on the Charnwood Forest bracken and gorse fringe west of the village toward Martinshaw Wood, along the Rothley Brook riverside hawthorn and willow scrub margins, and in the chimney stacks and garden eaves of the Victorian terraces and brick-built cottages of the older village core.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
CV11 5DN· approx. 26 km
Visit websiteCV21 2JT· approx. 34 km
Visit websiteDE13 0BN· approx. 35 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Oilseed rape and field beans drive the arable flow. Sycamore and horse chestnut in the market towns build the mid-May crop; lime dominates June in Leicester, Loughborough and Market Harborough. Charnwood brings sweet chestnut, bracken and patches of bilberry; Bradgate and Belvoir parks add ancient lime and oak. Bramble is universal; rosebay willowherb fills ex-quarry ground around Mountsorrel. Ivy on the red-brick farmhouses and old pub gardens closes the season strongly.
More on beekeeping in LeicestershireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
