Moira, Leicestershire
| Moira | |
|---|---|
 Moira Furnace and the Ashby de la Zouch Canal |
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 Moira
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| Moira shown within Leicestershire | |
| OS grid reference | SK315155 |
| Civil parish | |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Swadlincote |
| Postcode district | DE12 |
| Dialling code | 01530 |
| Police | Leicestershire |
| Fire | Leicestershire |
| Ambulance | East Midlands |
| EU Parliament | East Midlands |
| UK Parliament | |
| Website | Ashby Woulds Town Council |
Moira is a former mining village about 2.5 miles (4 km) southwest of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in North West Leicestershire, England. The village is about 3 miles (5 km) miles south of Swadlincote and forms part of the boundary with Derbyshire. The population is included in the civil parish of Ashby Woulds.
For centuries North West Leicestershire has been quarried and mined for coal, limestone, granite and brick clay, and its environmental damage was one of the reasons that it was chosen as the site for the National Forest, which is part of a Government-funded programme to create more woodland. Proximate villages include Donisthorpe, Overseal, Oakthorpe, Spring Cottage and Norris Hill.
Moira's toponym is derived from the Irish earldom of Moira, one of the titles of the Hastings family, which held Ashby de la Zouch Castle. The former local colliery, Rawdon Colliery, also bore a Hastings family name. Moira is one of the few place names in England to end in an "a".
The Midland Railway opened its Leicester to Burton upon Trent Line through Moira in 1845. Moira railway station served the village until British Railways closed it in 1964. The building still survives and the line remains open as a freight route.
Rawdon Colliery was worked for about 150 years. Its seams extended 6 miles (10 km) from the shaft,and some had been worked twice, recovering lower grade coal. The pit survived Britain's pit closure programme in the mid-1980s that followed the miners' strike, but ran out of viable coal seams. Gases were rarely a hazard, but spontaneous combustion of coal dust was a potential problem.
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Wikipedia