Swadlincote Tourist Information

Swadlincote is the southern most town in Derbyshire, the main street is a busy traffic free shopping precinct, furnished with ample seating, shaded under trees. The focal point of the town is the market square surrounded with shops and cafés, a good place to find a bargain.

Swadlincote was mentioned in the Domes Day Book but little is recorded of its early history until the 19th century, during the start of the industrial period when coal mining and clay played a vital part.

Sharpe's Pottery Works is now a Museum, Information and Heritage Centre, once producing tableware, lavatory bowls and sinks, designed with decorative flowers favoured by the wealthy Victorians around 1875 when the Public Health Act came in to modernize the backyard privies. Green's Pottery manufactured the famous and much loved blue and white striped kitchenware, known as Cornish Ware. The disused bottle shaped kilns are Grade 11 listed, still marking the landscape, giving this area of Derbyshire it's unique character as did the coal mining. South Derbyshire's main industry was coal mining, scaring the landscape with mounds of black earth, now the scar's are beginning to heal as much of the area is being planted with tree's and the once dense forest that produced the fossil fuel "coal" is being rejuvenated.

Places to visit, Swadlincotes dry Ski Slopes, Ashby-de-la-Zouch a market town with castle, the Heart of the National Forest, between Overseal and Moira off the A444.

There is a busy bus station serving the town. Swadlincote is on the A511 between Burton-on-Trent and Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Major towns are Derby and Leicester.

Description by Shirley Leedham