Mountsorrel is a large Charnwood village on the River Soar between Loughborough and Leicester, famous for its pink Mountsorrel granite which has been quarried here since the sixteenth century and which gives the village its distinctive stone buildings and boundary walls. The Soar valley is a wide, flat flood-meadow corridor of willows, alder carr and water-meadow wildflowers here; the Buddon Wood ancient woodland and the granite quarry restoration habitats on the Charnwood edge to the west add bracken, gorse and secondary scrub forage. The Grand Union Canal towpath runs south from Mountsorrel through a willow-lined corridor; lime and sycamore stand in the older streets; bramble is dense on the Soar water-meadow margins.
Collectors in Mountsorrel regularly attend swarms in the garden trees and granite-wall cavities of the older village streets near the parish church and the Market Place, along the Soar riverside willows and alder carr at Pillings Lock and the road bridge, in the Buddon Wood and quarry restoration scrub margins toward Broombriggs, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the granite and red-brick cottages of the historic village core.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
CV11 5DN· approx. 31 km
Visit websiteDE13 0BN· approx. 36 km
Visit websiteCV21 2JT· approx. 39 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.
