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Æß²ÊÖ±²¥ is a public campus built in and among the city’s streets and existing buildings – and has always been open to the general public.

The main roads through the campus - the pedestrianised Mill Lane, The Gateway, The Newarke, Castle View and Richmond Street – are all used by people walking into the city centre as well as students and staff.

All the campus green and open spaces are open to general public, including the Trinity House Herb Garden, the Wildflower Meadow behind the university’s Queen’s Building and the lawns in front of the Vijay Patel buildings.

This ‘open to all’ policy also extends to many of the university’s buildings, which can be visited by the general public free of charge.

Æß²ÊÖ±²¥ Museum is built on the ruins of the historic Church of the Annunciation which was founded in 1353 along with the nearby Trinity Hospital by Henry, the first Duke of Lancaster, a trusted confidant of King Edward III.

The church was built to house a relic – a thorn reputed to be from the ‘crown of thorns’ placed on Jesus’ head before he was crucified. It had been presented to Henry by King John II of France.

Richard III’s body was put on display at the church following his defeat at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. The only remaining ruins – two arches – are part of the museum basement in the Hawthorn building.

Exhibitions housed at the museum in 2024 included the History of Cinema Going, Contemporary Protest; 70 years of the Evolution of Contour Fashion; plus the permanent exhibitions Legacy of Leather, story from prehistory to the present day, and The Newarke – Discover the Story of Leicester’s Heritage Quarter.

Public access: The museum is open Wednesdays to Fridays, 12pm to 4pm and by email appointment at all other times. Entrance to the Æß²ÊÖ±²¥ Museum is free.

Leicester Gallery, which prided itself on bringing world class art to the city, is housed in the university’s Vijay Patel building.

During 2024, it has hosted works including 100 Black Women Who Have Made A Mark, which seeks to redress the erasure of Black women from portraiture in the UK. The project centres around an exhibition featuring the portraits of 100 Black women with connections to Britain and Ireland, curated by Pawlet Brookes with artwork by visual artists: Valerie Asiimwe Amani, Yvadney Davis, Gayle Ebose, Grace Lee and Lauryn Pinard. The exhibition, which started in January 2024, runs until January 2026.

The Gallery also staged during 2024 and exhibition by renowned artist Bruce Asbestos, showcasing his trailblazing work at the intersection of fashion, film, and artificial intelligence. The exhibition featured Asbestos’ latest AI-generated fashion designs alongside a curated selection of his most iconic catwalk films from the past six years.

ShrineShare & RangKnit were two overlapping exhibitions during 2024 inhabiting the same space.

On the walls of the gallery were ShrineShare, a group exhibition curated by UK based artist, David Blandy, Malaysian based artist Sharon Chin and writer Zedeck Siew looking at the notion of the shrine in the 21^st century.

On the floors were the rugs of Poojah Shah, crafted objects that draw on her Southern Asian heritage to present pools of hospitality and warmth in the hard space of the gallery.

The Gallery also continues to regularly host free sessions of Open Play - an early years programme dedicated to open ended child-led play in museums, galleries and cultural spaces for children aged 4 and under based.

Public access: The Gallery is open to the public free of charge Monday-Saturday from midday until 5pm.

Heritage Sundays allow the general public to visit a series of historic buildings clustered around Æß²ÊÖ±²¥ and The Newarke free of charge to the general public on the last Sunday of every month.

The public can visit the Great Hall of Leicester Castle, restored by Æß²ÊÖ±²¥ in a £4.2 million project, which hosted the English parliament in 14252. The castle was originally a motte-and-bailey battlement and built in about 1068. It was once a royal residence for the likes of Richard III and Henry V.

Visitors can also examine during the weekend the university’s Trinity House building - a stone chapel that originally served as the medieval Trinity Hospital and was founded in 1330 to care for the poor and infirm. The Æß²ÊÖ±²¥ Museum is also open during Heritage Sunday events.

The Trinity House Herb Garden, which has been attached to the hospital since its founding, can also be visited and is open to the public all year round. It originally produced herbs to be used by nurses as vital medicine at the hospital and is now used for catering at Æß²ÊÖ±²¥.

Æß²ÊÖ±²¥’s Kimberlin library is also open to the general public and membership is free of charge with certain age and residence restrictions. Members of the public must be…

• Over the age of 19
• Currently living in Leicester, Leicestershire or Rutland
• And no longer in full-time education

Access to the Kimberlin Library is for 12 months at a time and allows the public to loan up to 10 books from the main collection; reference access to printed journals; use of open study spaces and use of the Library Café. For more information, visit…

Æß²ÊÖ±²¥’s QEII Leisure Centre offers state-of-the-art facilities for Æß²ÊÖ±²¥ students, staff, and the general public, including a 25-metre swimming pool, climbing wall, an eight-court sports hall, a fully-equipped fitness suite, and a versatile dance studio. The centre also runs a wide variety of workout classes, catering to all fitness levels.