Much of the Bradgate Park Estate is protected under national legislation for its importance for natural and historic heritage. To help manage our work, working with local and national experts, we have prepared a Parkland Plan that helps guide our management work on the Estate.

The landscape of Bradgate Park, together with its underlying geology, is nationally important and is legally protected by the Bradgate Park and Cropston Reservoir Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

The 288-hectare parkland component of the SSSI is described by Natural England (the Government’s conservation advisory body) as “one of the finest remaining examples of ancient parkland in Leicestershire .... [and] contains some of the last remaining fragments of wet heathland in the county.”

Certain features including the Precambrian fossils and recently discovered Late Upper Palaeolithic archaeology are of international importance.

There are two Grade II* and three Grade II listed buildings within Bradgate Park. The Park is included in the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest at Grade II. There are two Scheduled Ancient Monuments, comprising the remains of Bradgate House and a moated lodge site 200m west of Bradgate House, which investigations in 2016 show to have been a 13th century hunting lodge.

Swithland Wood is also a Site of Special Scientific Interest, as one of the largest remnants of ancient semi-natural woodland in Charnwood Forest.

Click on the appropriate document image to download the Parkland Management Plan 2014 or the Woodland Management Plan