The region's major rivers, theNene, theSoar, theTrent, and theWelland, flow in a northeasterly direction towards theHumber andthe Wash. TheDerwent, conversely, rises in the High Peak before flowing south to join the Trent some 2 miles (3 km) before its conflux with the Soar,[citation needed] and theWitham flows in an arch, first north toLincoln before heading south to the Wash.
Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts, next to the Trent, and Waitrose, in Newark-on-Trent
The centre of the East Midlands area lies roughly betweenBingham, Nottinghamshire andBottesford, Leicestershire. Thegeographical centre of England lies inHigham on the Hill in westLeicestershire, close to the boundary between the Leicestershire and Warwickshire. Some 88 per cent of the land is rural in character, although agriculture accounts for less than three per cent of the region's jobs.[citation needed]
A quarter of the UK'scement is manufactured in the region, at three sites inHope andTunstead in Derbyshire, andKetton Cement Works inRutland.[7] Of theaggregates produced in the region, 25 per cent are from Derbyshire and four per cent from Leicestershire. Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire each produce around 30 per cent of the region'ssand andgravel output.[8]
Several towns in the southern part of the region, including Market Harborough, Desborough, Rothwell, Corby, Kettering, Thrapston, Oundle and Stamford, lie within the boundaries of what was onceRockingham Forest – designated aroyal forest byWilliam the Conqueror and was long hunted by English kings and queens.[citation needed]
TheNational Forest is an environmental project in central England run by The National Forest Company. Areas of north Leicestershire, south Derbyshire and south-east Staffordshire covering around 200 square miles (520 km2; 52,000 ha) are being planted in an attempt to blend ancient woodland with new plantings. It stretches from the western outskirts of Leicester in the east to Burton upon Trent in the west, and is planned to link the ancient forests of Needwood and Charnwood.[citation needed][10]
Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire attracts many visitors, and is perhaps best known for its ties with the legend ofRobin Hood.[11]
Regional financial funding decisions for the East Midlands are taken byEast Midlands Councils, based inMelton Mowbray. East Midlands Councils is an unelected body made up of representatives of local government in the region. The defunctEast Midlands Development Agency was headquartered next to theBBC's East Midlands office in Nottingham and made financial decisions regarding economic development in the region. Since theConservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government launched its austerity programme after the2010 general election, regional bodies such as those have been devolved to smaller groups on a county level. As a region, there is no overriding body with significant financial or planning powers for the East Midlands.
The East Midlands region contains many urban areas which include:
Nottingham Urban Area (includes the Derbyshire towns ofAlfreton,Belper,Heanor,Ilkeston,Long Eaton,Ripley andSandiacre. It also covers Nottingham, Mansfield, Arnold, Beeston, Bulwell, Carlton, Hucknall and West Bridgford. This means it spans parts of both Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.) (Pop: 729,977)
9% of all jobs in the region are inlogistics. Traffic in the region is growing at 2% per year – the highest growth rate of all UK regions. It is estimated that about 140,000 heavy goods vehicle journeys are made inside the region each day.
TheM1 (part of theE13 European route) serves the four largest urban areas in the region and affords a motorway link betweenLondon,Yorkshire, andNorth East England. Additionally, theM6 begins on the south-western edge of the region, providing links to theWest Midlands andNorth West England. Both connect to other major routes providing further links to other parts of the UK.
To the east of the largest cities lies theA1 (part of theEuropean route E15), which is important for journeys to and from ports on England's north-east coast and the capital, and is a major artery for the United Kingdom's agricultural industry. TheA46 largely follows theFosse Way, which has linked the south-western and north-eastern parts of England since Roman times. TheA43dual carriageway connects the East Midlands via theM40 motorway corridor with the university city ofOxford, as well asSouth of England andSolent ports further afield. The historically importantA5 runs along the south-westLeicestershire boundary to the south ofLutterworth andHinckley. TheA14 runs through the north ofNorthamptonshire, serving the settlements ofKettering andCorby alongside surrounding areas, and is a major route between the region and theEast of England, including the university city ofCambridge, and the major port ofFelixstowe.
East Midlands Airport inNorth West Leicestershire is situated in proximity to the region's largest cities; 14 miles (23 km) from the centres ofDerby andNottingham, with centralLeicester being 21 miles (34 km) away andLincoln further north east being 43 miles (69 km) away. The airport is the region's biggest public airport, used by over 4 million passengers annually.
Rivalry between the region's three biggest cities has led to a long-running discussion about the identity of both the airport, and region, with the East Midlands rarely found on any non-political map of the UK. The name was at one point changed to Nottingham East Midlands Airport so as to include the name of the city that is supposedly most internationally recognisable. However, the airport has a Derby phone number and postcode, and is in Leicestershire, but is officially assigned to Nottingham byIATA. As a result of the dispute, the name change was reverted.
Air cargo aircraft at EMA
Three of the world's four main international air-freight companies (integrators) have their UK operations at EMA:DHL,UPS andTNT Express (TNT bought by UPS);FedEx have theirs atStansted. It is the second-largest freight airport in the UK afterHeathrow, but most freight from EMA is carried on dedicated planes, whereas most freight from Heathrow is carried on passenger planes (bellyhold).Royal Mail have their main airport hubs at Heathrow and EMA, as EMA is conveniently near theM1,A42 andA50. Heathrow takes some 60 per cent of UK air freight, and EMA some 10 per cent, with Stansted, Manchester and Gatwick next. Air freight has grown at EMA from 1994 to 2004 from about 10,000 to over 250,000 tonnes. The main hours of cargo flying are from 20:00–05:00; domestic cargo flies into the airport in the evening, then from 23:30 to 01:30 cargo flies to European capitals and from 03:00–05:00 from Europe to EMA. It is the UK's twelfth-largest passenger airport; the runway is the UK's sixth-longest at 2,900 metres (9,500 ft).Royal Mail flights from EMA go toBelfast,Edinburgh,Inverness,Aberdeen,Newcastle,Exeter andBournemouth, and it is the largest UK Royal Mail air hub, with eleven flights per night. DHL is the main route carrier at EMA by far with 20 flights per night, UPS have 6, and TNT have 2 (Belfast and Liège); for hubs in Europe, DHL flies toLeipzig, UPS toCologne, and TNT atLiège.
Aland speed record for trains was broken in the region. Although the record was set in 1938, the current world speed record forsteam trains is held by4468Mallard, which clocked 126 mph (203 km/h) betweenGrantham andPeterborough, pulling six coaches on theEast Coast Main Line nearLittle Bytham in Lincolnshire, on 3 July 1938. TheMallard record was unbroken by any British rail train until 6 June 1973, when anInterCity 125 betweenNorthallerton andThirsk reached 131 mph (211 km/h).Mallard in 1938 had six carriages and adynamometer car. The national electric-train speed record (pre-High Speed 1) of 162 mph (261 km/h) was set on the same stretch as the Mallard record, on 17 September 1989 byClass 91 91010.
The River Trent at the formerHigh Marnham Power Station, next to the 1897Fledborough Viaduct; the power station, built in 1959, was Europe's first 1000 MW coal power station (5 x 200 MW) and consumed coal from 17 collieries; the area is the largest collection of power stations in Europe, sometimes known asKilowatt Valley.
TheTrent is anavigable river used to transport goods to theHumber, as well as passing by many power stations. The Trent is the only river in England able to supply cooling water for power stations for most of its length; it has the largest water capacity in England, although it is not the longest.
Several rivers in the region gave their name to earlyRolls-Royce jet engines, namely theNene, theWelland, and theSoar.
As part of the transport planning system, the later defunct Regional Assembly was under statutory requirement to produce a Regional Transport Strategy to provide long term planning for transport in the region. This involved region wide transport schemes such as those carried out by theHighways Agency andNetwork Rail.[13]
A historical basis for such a region exists in the territory of theCorieltauvi tribe. When theRomans took control, they made Leicester (Ratae Corieltauvorum) one of their main forts. The main town in the region in Roman times wasLincoln, at the confluence of theFosse Way andErmine Street.
After the withdrawal of the Romans, the area was settled byAngles, aGermanic people who gave the East Midlands most of the place-names it has today. They eventually founded the Kingdom of Mercia, meaning "borderlands," as it borders theWelsh people to the west. The region also corresponds to the laterFive Boroughs of theDanelaw, the area that Vikings from Denmark controlled. In about 917 the region was subdivided between Danelaw (Vikings) to the north, and Mercia (Anglo-Saxons) to the south. By 920 this border had moved north to theRiver Humber. Evidence of the Danelaw can be seen in place-name endings of the region's villages, particularly towards the east. The Danes underCanute recaptured the area between about 1016 and 1035, but it came back under English control after Canute's death that same year.
George Boole, pioneer ofBoolean logic (upon which alldigital electronics and computers depend), was born in Lincoln in 1815. The application of Boole's theory to digital circuit design would come in 1937 byClaude Shannon. Boole's grandson, the physicistG. I. Taylor, made significant experimental contributions toquantum mechanics. The first practicaldemonstration of radar was nearDaventry in 1935.Robert Robinson, of Chesterfield in Derbyshire, invented the circular symbol in 1925 for thepi bonds of thebenzene ring, as found on structural diagrams ofaromatic compounds.Nicola Pellow, a maths undergraduate at Leicester Polytechnic, whilst at CERN in November 1990, wrote the world's second web browser.
On the early morning of Tuesday 26 February 1935 theradio transmitter atDaventry was used for the "Daventry Experiment" which involved the first practical demonstration ofradar, by its inventorRobert Watson-Watt andArnold Frederic Wilkins. They used a radio receiver installed in a van atLitchborough (just off theA5 about 6 miles (9.7 km) south of Daventry) to receive signals bounced off a metal-cladHandley Page Heyford bomber flying across the radio transmissions. The interference picked up from the aircraft allowed its approximatenavigational position to be estimated, and therefore proved that it was possible to detect the position of aircraft using radio waves. The success of the experiment persuaded the British government to fund the development of a network of full scale radar stations on the south coast of England, which became known asChain Home, which provided a decisive advantage to theRAF in theBattle of Britain in 1940.[24]
Steep Hill inLincolnFox hunting is historically linked with the East Midlands.
Parts of the East Midlands use a distinctive form of spoken dialect and accent. It also has some history in the beginnings ofReceived Pronunciation and southern England accents. However, spoken dialect and accent in the northern area of the East Midlands is far more similar to Northern English.
There is no modern Midlander, or East Midlander, identity. As Robert Shore wrote: "no one is more sceptical about the existence of an overarching Midland identity than Midlanders themselves."[25] Inhabitants of the East Midlands tend to identify themselves either on a county or town basis, regarding the East Midlands as simply a bureaucratic area that lumps together dissimilar places. In the North of the region, in areas such as North Nottinghamshire and North Derbyshire, people culturally identify as Northerners. For example, a study by YouGov in 2018 found that a quarter of the inhabitants of the region identified as Northerners.[26]
A new area of theNorth Midlands has been proposed, but this has not taken off. InBassetlaw, the most northern local authority in the East Midlands area, many of the shared services such as NHS are with South Yorkshire, not with other Midlands areas. The television signal comes mainly from theEmley Moor transmitting station, which broadcasts local news from BBC Look North and Calendar News. And its officially designated BBC Local Radio station in terms of radio coverage isBBC Radio Sheffield. In 2016 Bassetlaw District Council voted to become part of the Sheffield City Region because of the strong local ties.[27]
Lord Byron andD. H. Lawrence are perhaps the region's best known authors, although the latter only gained full recognition in the late 20th century. TheKey Words Reading Scheme (Peter and Jane) was first produced in 1964 by Ladybird of Loughborough and is still in print. The books originated in 1948 with an idea fromDouglas Keen ofHeanor; the first wasBritish Birds and Their Nests.Ladybird Books were published in Loughborough throughout their 1960s and 1970s heyday, with the site closing in 1998.
Joseph Wright of Derby was an artist whose paintings symbolised the struggle between science and religious values in the Age of Enlightenment. He was also suggested to be "the first professional painter to express the spirit of the Industrial Revolution".
Charles Frederick Worth, born in Lincolnshire in 1825, is considered to be the founder of Parisianhaute couture, ostensibly as the world's first true fashion designer.
Britain's hosiery and knitwear industry was largely based in the region, and in the 1980s it had more textile workers than any other British region. Thestocking frame was invented 1587 inCalverton, Nottinghamshire by RevWilliam Lee; these were the first knownknitting machines and heralded the industrial revolution by providing the necessary machinery. The world's first (horse-powered) cotton mill was built in central Nottingham in 1768.Marvel's Mill in Northampton was the firstcotton mill to be powered by water.
John Barber of Nottinghamshire had invented a simplegas turbine in 1791 (when living inNuneaton).Lincoln was the site of the firsttank (first built on 8 September 1915,Little Willie was the first tank, and is the oldest surviving tank in the world, originally called the No.1 Lincoln Machine), andGrantham the firstdiesel engine (in 1892). Thejet engine was firstdeveloped in the region inLutterworth andWhetstone, with theVTOL engine also (initially)developed inHucknall. The first jet aircraft flew fromRAF Cranwell in May 1941. During the Second World War,Derby was an important strategic location, as it was in Derby thatRolls-Royce developed and manufactured their iconicMerlin aero-engine. During the Second World War, all of R-R's engineering staff had been transferred to Belper.
The innovative but aborted APT, designed in Derby, seen here in May 1980
At its peak,Corby Steelworks was the largest in Britain. The collapsiblebaby buggy was invented in 1965 atBarby, Northamptonshire byOwen Maclaren.Ford's £8 million Daventry Parts Distribution Centre (Ford Parts Centre) was fully opened on 6 September 1972, the first southern section opened in 1968, and was the UK's largest building by floor area for many years at 36.7 acres (149,000 m2), and is situated opposite theCummins factory.
How a zoom lens works; the principle was largely first invented in Leicester.
The largest camera in the world was built in 1957 in Derby for Rolls-Royce, which weighed 27 tonnes and was around 8 feet (2.4 m) high, 8 feet (2.4 m) wide and 35 feet (11 m) long, with a 63-inch (1,600 mm) lens made byCooke Apochromatic. Cooke Optics andTaylor-Hobson were major supplier of lenses for Hollywood;Star Wars was filmed with their lenses, filmed in England.Horace W. Lee invented the inverted telephoto lens (known as theAngénieux retrofocus) in 1931, lengthening the backfocal length of the camera for the 1930sTechnicolor Process and forvignetting.
Arthur Warmisham of Taylor & Hobson invented the first non-telescopic 35 mmzoom lens, the Cooke Varo 40– 120mm Lens, in a camera manufactured byBell & Howell of the US. The popular 35 mmEyemo film camera came with Cooke lenses. Much of World War II aerial photography, where definition was important, was through Cooke lenses, due to theirApochromatic process. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Cooke Speed Panchro lenses were the most popular choice for cinema films, then from the 1970s their Varotal zoom lens, which would winGordon Henry Cook the 1988Gordon E. Sawyer Award at the Oscars.Harold Hopkins (physicist), of Leicester, also did important work on the zoom lens (he largely invented it) andfibre-optics.
J. P. Knight of Nottingham is credited with inventing green and redtraffic lights, installed in London on 9 December 1868, but these lasted only three weeks; traffic lights would be introduced only from the 1920s, again inLondon (from an American-led design scheme). The first modern-day traffic lights were installed inPiccadilly from August 1926.Edgar Purnell Hooley, a Nottinghamshire surveyor, in 1901 was in Denby and found a stretch ofroad surface that was smooth from an accidental leak oftar over the surface. He patented a process of mixing tar with chipped stones in 1902, formingTarmac, a name which he patented. Radcliffe Road (A6011) inWest Bridgford in 1902 was the first tarmac road (5 miles or 8.0 kilometres long) in the world.
Mettoy was a firm in theSt James area of Northampton, which from 1933 producedCorgi toys (mostly made inSwansea and designed in Northampton), and in the 1970s it made thespace hopper; the company collapsed in 1983, moving to Swansea. In Leicestershire wasPalitoy, another world-famous firm in Coalville;General Mills bought it in 1968, but production ceased in 1984 and the site was closed byHasbro in 1994.Pedigree Dolls & Toys (Sindy) was inWellingborough, closing in 1982. The first plasticDVD case was made in Corby byAmaray. Britain's first out-of-town shopping centre was opened in November 1964 by GEM at West Bridgford, on a site later owned byASDA.
Muchintegrated circuit and semiconductor research was carried out byPlessey atCaswell near Towcester, ahead of the achievements in America byJack Kilby; Plessey invented a model of the integrated circuit in 1957. Caswell was later a site for manufacturingmonolithic microwave integrated circuits in the 1990s byMarconi. On 15 December 1966, the first electronic telephone exchange in Europe opened atAmbergate in Derbyshire.
Most of the region was protected by a solitary RAF station,RAF Digby nearSleaford, part ofNo. 12 Group RAF and controlled fromRAF Watnall. Within the East Midlands, only Nottingham washeavily bombed during the Second World War'sBlitz, due to the presence of a largeRoyal Ordnancefactory. However, much of theaerial obliteration of Germany was directed from the region, with two bomber groups based inLincolnshire (No.1 andNo.5), and a few squadrons in South Nottinghamshire. The proliferation of Second World War airfields in Lincolnshire led to it being known as Bomber County.
Forteenage pregnancy rates in the region, Nottingham is the top-tier authority. Of the council districts,Corby has the highest rate. Of the top-tier authorities, Rutland has the lowest rate for any district in England. The council district with the lowest rate isSouth Northamptonshire, although it has a rate greater than that of Rutland. Rutland has the highesttotal fertility rate forBritish counties (top-tier authorities). Theborough of Boston has the highest TFR for district councils.
The region has the second-lowest overall population density in England (afterSouth West England), eased by thelow population density ofLincolnshire andRutland. In 2007, the region had a lower percentage of degree-educated people than the English average.[29] Of the region's population, 29.5 per cent live in rural areas.
The region as a whole is less deprived than theWest Midlands and regions in theNorth of England.[38] By measurement ofLower Layer Super Output Areas, the East Midlands has more in common with the South of England (except London) than the North, in that it has more areas in the 20 per cent least deprived areas than the 20 per cent most deprived areas, but less so than regions inSouthern England. This has been explained by academic statisticians, who claim the area straddles thenorth–south divide.[39]
The region does not show typical economic characteristics of Northern England (which the West Midlands does), although it is not as affluent as large parts of the South of England. Economically, the East Midlands bears a similarity toSouth West England.
In March 2011, the averageunemployment claimant count for the region was 3.6 per cent. Nottingham and Leicester were the highest with 5.8 per cent each. Next wereCorby andLincoln with 4.9 per cent. The lowest were Rutland andSouth Northamptonshire with 1.4 per cent each, andHarborough, with 1.6 per cent.[40]
In 2009, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire county councils changed control from Labour to Conservative. From 1993 to 2005, Northampton was controlled by Labour, but has since been controlled by the Conservatives. Lincolnshire and Leicestershire have historically been Conservative, hence all the main county councils are Conservative controlled.
UK Coal (formerly RJB Mining) was based inStyrrup nearHarworth. The north part of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire used to have manycoal mines, and the last two pits producing in Nottinghamshire were nearMarket Warsop andOllerton.
RPC Group inRushden, is a large (international, the largest of its type in Europe) packaging company, and make the bottles forHeinz Tomato Ketchup. Granger's, on the Clover Nook Industrial Estate atPinxton, make Cherry Blossomshoe polish. Fusion Provida based in Chesterfield makes pipe jointings andelectrofusion fittings for the oil and gas industry.Vaillant UK (Hepworth Heating before 2002, with headquarters inRemscheid) makeGlow-worm boilers nearBelper School.
Taylor Hobson (an international metrology company) is in Leicester, bought byAmetek in 2004; with a former division of the company, Cooke Optics, a camera lens manufacturer, further north in Thurmaston. TheGent fire alarm company, owned by Honeywell since 2005, is north of Humberstone.Matsuura Machinery UK (CNCmachine tools) is in Coalville.
Premier Pitches ofNether Handley, atUnstone in northeast Derbyshire, made the pitch for Wembley Stadium, as well as many other main pitches. Hewitt Sportsturf,r inCosby, supplied the turf (360 rolls) for theOlympic Stadium in March 2011, although it was grown near Scunthorpe; a division of the company, Petersfield Growing Mediums, which supplies compost, has a Royal Warrant.Werner UK (Britain's leading manufacturer of metalstep ladders) moved its ABRU site to Essex in 2016.
Headquarters of Next Retailing in July 2007 at Enderby, next to the M69; the largest company by turnover in the Midlands
Boden (clothing) is on the Meridian estate in Leicester.Wolsey (clothing) is northeast of Leicester, east ofRushey Mead. Scott Nichol make traditional socks in Hinckley.Per Una have a factory near Cossington. Much of Britain's lingerie and hosiery is made in the region. Guilford Europe (former Guilford Kapwood), at Somercotes, makes fabric (warp knitting) for sports clothing and automotive products, and have been owned byLear Corporation since 2012.
Sports Direct is based inShirebrook. At the Trent Business Centre isSunspel, who introduced thet-shirt to the British market; nearby Meadowmead make premium furniture, andAga Rangemaster Group make kitchensinks. Duresta Upholstery is in Long Eaton, with a factory ofDFS opposite. W&G Sissons on the Chesterfield Est, owned byFranke, has been the UK's largest manufacturer of stainless steel sinks since the 1950s.Parker Knoll make high-end furniture on the Greenhill Industrial Estate, south of Alfreton.Gunn & Moore (GM), north of Trent Bridge cricket ground, is an exclusivecricket bat manufacturer.
John Smedley factory at Lea Mills: the oldest working factory in the world
George at Asda, based at Lutterworth, in 2009 overtook M&S to become Britain's leading fashion retailer.TW Kempton are a main manufacturer of uniforms for the armed and police services opposite theNational Space Centre in north Leicester; they also own the Fortis body armour and makePASGT nylon fibre helmets for troops.
Maclaren, thepushchair maker, is next toLong Buckby railway station;BabyStyle is inSileby. There are three main distribution centres in the area atMagna Park in Leicestershire (the largest of its kind in Europe), andBrackmills and theDaventry International Railfreight Terminal in Northamptonshire.J D Wetherspoon have their main distribution centre at Daventry, andCurrys (founded in Leicester in 1888 on Belgrave Gate) have theirs atNewark-on-Trent. Oxford University Press have their national distribution centre at North Kettering Business Park inRushton).Monsoon Accessorize have their national distribution centre to the east on Octavian Park in Irchester. InKilsby on the DIRFT estate, Tesco have their Daventry Grocery, the largest supermarket depot in the country. North of the A428 is Tesco's Clothing Distribution Centre.
Carlsberg Brewery at the A428/A508 junction in Northampton, on the formerPhipps NBC site, also bottlesTuborg andSan Migiuel; all modern lagers come from aCarlsberg yeast developed in 1883.
The crisp companyWalkers (owned byPepsiCo and the UK's biggest grocery brand) makes 10 million bags of crisps a day at the biggest crisp factory in the world atBeaumont Leys. Beaumont Park is PepsiCo's main research centre in the UK.Pork Farms is in Lenton, Nottingham.Thorntons is a big employer south ofAlfreton inSwanwick on aformer colliery, since the factory opened in 1985. At Latimer Park (Burton Latimer) is Alpro, who makesoya milk products, and a hugeMorrisons depot. To the west isWeetabix, which sources its wheat from a 50-mile (80 km) radius around Kettering, and also makeWeetos in Corby;Ready Brek was bought fromLyons in 1990.
Greencore Prepared Foods onMoulton Park make half ofM&S's sandwiches andsandwich filler pots. Sealord UK make all ofWaitrose'swhite fish products nearCaistor. Kettleby Foods, part of Samworth Brothers, make most of Tesco's ready meals inMelton Mowbray. PAS (Grantham) (owned byMcCain) make chips atEaston. Isoma of Swadlincote makes food handling equipment; Interlevin Refrigeration at Castle Donington is near the M&S distribution centre; Parry Catering and Fabrication inDraycott make catering appliances and equipment.
Roquette (former ABF-owned ABR Foods) produce starch andbioethanol at Corby near RS Components, and a Morrisons frozen-food depot is nearWeldon. Opposite Charles Lawrence in Newark, Laurens Patisseries (owned byBakkavör UK) are Europe's largest manufacturer of cream cakes.Kerry Ingredients makeHomepride flour in Gainsborough.
Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) is one of the largestteaching hospitals in Europe, and the largest hospital in the UK. The CT scanner (X-ray computed tomography) was invented by Newark's SirGodfrey Hounsfield. Both inventions receivedNobel Prizes for Medicine (2003 for MRI and 1979 for CT). Glenfield Hospital (under the UHL NHS Trust) is one of England's main hospitals for coronary care and respiratory diseases; it has a strong international reputation for medical research in cardiac and respiratory health and carried out the world's firstpercutaneous coronary intervention on a two-year-old child in August 2012 with the largestECMO unit in the UK.[citation needed]
NatWest Group has a documents centre (Williams Lea) in Shepshed, where it prints its statements for England and Wales. Orion Security Print, north ofStanton steel works in Ilkeston, producesOdeon cinema tickets and library cards. An office ofRR Donnelley west of South Wigston, next to therailway, deals with all of Barclaycard's mail. Barclaycard have their Payment Acceptance Centre in Northampton.
After Norfolk, Lincolnshire is the second largest potato producer in the country, and grows 30% of the country's vegetables.Interflora has its UK HQ in Sleaford; Lincolnshire is the world's leading producer of daffodils (narcissus family); 40% of the flowers bought in the UK are grown there; Butters Group supply many bulbs (Amaryllis) fromLow Fulney. The county produces each year enough sugar beet for 350 million bags of sugar and enough wheat for 250 million loaves.Fowler-Welch Coolchain are based inSpalding, as isBakkavör (formerly Geest) which is the UK's largest provider of fresh prepared foods.[43]
Skegness and theLincolnshire coast provides seaside entertainment for many in the East Midlands with itsButlins 200-acre resort atIngoldmells. Nottingham and Leicester are both popular night time destinations.
Center Parcs UK opened their first leisure facility at the Sherwood Holiday Village site atRufford, nearOllerton, together with their headquarters and call centre in Sherwood Energy Village business park, built upon the former Ollerton Colliery site in Ollerton, Nottinghamshire.[44][45]
Most secondary schools in the East Midlands arecomprehensives, although Lincolnshire retains fifteen stategrammar schools.
There are around 180,000 students in the region's secondary schools; this is the second lowest number of students in a region in England, after theNorth East, and more than 100,000 lower than the figure for theWest Midlands. Some of the East Midlands' urban secondary schools holdtruancy rates above that of the national average, whereas truancy rates in the region's rural secondary schools tend to be lower than the national average.
Nottingham City schools tend to perform less well in terms ofGCSE standards, with some Leicester schools suffering a similar problem. Rutland (amongst the highest-performing areas in the region where GCSE standards are concerned) has one of the highest percentages of pupils reaching the threshold of five grade A–C GCSEs (including Maths and English) in England. On a District Council level,Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire tends to attain some of the region's best GCSE results. Leicestershire and Derbyshire also regularly tend to produce GCSE results at a standard greater than the national average.
AtA-level, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Derbyshire regularly generate results greater than the national average. Nottingham tends to produce better results at A-level than it does at GCSE.
The region's largest university by student population, with around 33,000 students. The university is often ranked in the British top seven for research power. It is famous for its academic reputation, consistently ranking highly in university league tables. It is the onlyRussell Group university in the East Midlands. The university has produced severalNobel Prize winners.
In addition to its more traditional academic work, Loughborough University is well-regarded for its sporting heritage. One notable sporting alumna is British gold-medallistPaula Radcliffe. TheBritish Olympic athletics team trained at the university as part of their preparations for the2012 Summer Olympics. Theadidas Jabulani football, the official football for the2010 World Cup, was designed in the university'sSports Technology Institute.[49]
Nottingham Trent University is the East Midlands' second largest university (and one of the largest universities in the United Kingdom), with a student population of approximately 24,000.
The university has established itself as a leading research-led university and has been named University of the Year of 2008 by the Times Higher Education. The University of Leicester is also the only university ever to have won a Times Higher Education award in seven consecutive years. The university is most famous for the invention of genetic fingerprinting DNA, the discovery of the remains of King Richard III and Space research. It houses Europe's biggest academic centre for space research, in which space probes have been built, most notably the Mars Lander Beagle 2, which was built in collaboration with the Open University. It is a founding partner of the National Space Centre which is based in Leicester.
The region's third largest university. It is a public research and teaching university. The university has one of the largest numbers of Teacher Fellows of any UK university and was awarded Centre of Excellence status for its performance practice teaching and student support
Formerly a centre and college for teacher training, Derby University works closely with businesses of the area with its University of Derby–Corporate programme and has a history of academics dating back to 1851.
The newest university in the East Midlands, formerly a university college.
The region has the lowest proportion of part-time students in England. The region has a higher influx of young people into the region at the university stage than out of the region into other regions' universities. Only 25% of the region's students undertaking a first degree are native to the region.
The first1978 BDO World Darts Championship was held in Nottingham, in February 1978, being largely the idea of Nick Hunter, a BBC sports producer, and the event first introducedSid Waddell.
Admiral Sportswear atWigston in Leicestershire made the Englandfootball strip from 1974 to 1982, when the company went bankrupt; in 1974 it was the first company to introduce replica kits.Umbro took over theEngland kit after the1982 World Cup in 1984. Nike make the England kit today.
The East Midlands is home to several professional and semi-professional association football (soccer) clubs.
The East Midlands is home to two top-tier (Aviva Premiership) clubs.
Leicester Tigers are an English rugby union club based in Leicester at the Welford Road stadium and play in the Aviva Premiership. They were formed in 1880; their colours are green, burgundy and white. Leicester Tigers are one of the most successful Rugby Union teams in Europe and the most successful English club since the introduction of league rugby in 1987, having won the European Cup twice, the first tier of English rugby ten times, and the Anglo-Welsh Cup seven times.
Northampton Saints are a professional rugby union club from Northampton, England. They were formed in 1880, and play in black, green, and gold colours. The team play their home games at Franklin's Gardens, which has a capacity of 15,500. Their biggest rivals are Leicester Tigers.
ITV News Central East covers much of the East Midlands, broadcasting fromITV Central's Birmingham studios. Some western parts of the region can receiveITV News Central West.
There are many regional lifestyle publications, the largest and most widely read beingLife&Style Magazine,FHP Magazine,Nottinghamshire Life andCity Life and County Living. National magazine publishers in the region includeKey Publishing,Mortons of Horncastle andBourne Publishing Group.
Allen, R.C.Enclosure and the Yeoman: the Agricultural Development of the South Midlands 1450-1850 (Oxford UP, 1992)
Beckett, John V.The East Midlands from AD 1000 (Addison-Wesley Longman, 1988).
Dewindt, Edwin Brezett, and Edwin Brezette DeWindt.Land and people in Holywell-cum-Needingworth: structures of tenure and patterns of social organization in an East Midlands village, 1252-1457 (PIMS, 1972).
Laughton, Jane, Evan Jones, and Christopher Dyer. "The urban hierarchy in the later Middle Ages: a study of the East Midlands."Urban history (2001): 331–357.
McWhirr, Alan.The Early Military History of the Roman East Midlands (1970)online.
Stafford, Pauline.The East Midlands in the Early Middle Ages (Leicester University, 1985).
Stobart, Jon. "Regions, Localities, and Industrialisation: Evidence from the East Midlands Circa 1780–1840."Environment and Planning A 33.7 (2001): 1305–1325.
Tompkins, Matthew.Peasant society in a midlands manor, Great Horwood 1400-1600 (PhD Diss. U of Leicester, 2006)online.
Townsend, Claire. "County versus region? Migrational connections in the East Midlands, 1700–1830."Journal of Historical Geography 32.2 (2006): 291–312.
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