a market-town and parish of England, county of Leicester, and hundred of Sparkenhoe, 11 miles west of Leicester, and 106 from London, near the North-Western railway and the Ashley canal. The town is neatly built, occupying an eminence in the centre of a fertile district, and has a handsome church surmounted by a spire, several charities, and a well-endowed grammar-school, in which Dr Johnson was once an usher, and which has two fellowships and four scholarships in Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Pop. (1851) 1058; many of whom are employed in the knitting of worsted stockings. Market-day, Wednesday. Near the town was fought (22d August, 1485) the decisive battle in which Richard III. was slain.