Castle Donington Area Guide

Lace making was once an important local industry up to the 1850’s and Bond Gate, Borough Street and Clapgun Street formed the nucleus of the town with there once being a castle at the end of Borough Street on Castle Hill.  Stone from the castle being used to build Donington Hall, Donington Park and other properties in the area, a number of which have been valued over the years by Robert Ellis.  There are several Georgian and Regency houses in the centre of the town, with larger estates being built in the 1970’s off Park Lane with there being a site built by Bloor Homes over the past 10 years at the end of Park Lane and since the Castle Donington loop road was constructed in 2020, there have been several new home developments being built by national house builders which include Miller Homes who are building Chartersgate, a development of 2, 3, 4 and 5 bedroom properties, Redrow Homes are building Foxbridge Manor which has 3 and 4 bedroom properties and William Davies Homes are building Regency Park on which there is a choice of 2, 3 and 4 bedroom properties, all of which will add several hundred more properties on the edge of this vibrant market town.

In 1958 Castle Donington Power Station was opened which was to become one of the largest coal powered power stations to be built in Europe, but it was decommissioned in 1994 and demolished in 1996 with the site now being developed by Clowes Developments into a large distribution centre with the principal tenant being Marks and Spencer who have a 500,000 sq.ft. distribution centre which has become something of a landmark in the area.  This development has since been joined by similar size commercial buildings at the £700m distribution hub near to East Midlands Airport known as Segro Logistic Park East Midlands Gateway on which Amazon opened in 2019 with a 500,000 sq.ft. distribution centre and Xpo constructing a 700,000 sq.ft. building opening in 2022 which will operate a storage and distribution facility for Nestle.

There are two primary schools in the village which are St Edwards Church of England Primary School at Dovecote near the centre of the village and The Orchard Community School on Grange Drive which is just off Park Lane and for older children there is the Castle Donington College which is based at Mount Pleasant in the village.

Donington Hall is situated towards the end of Park Lane and was originally a mansion house set in parkland with the original house being built around 1790.  The house is now owned by MSV who own and operate the Donington Park race circuit and other circuits in the UK.  In 1976 British Midland Airways purchased the hall from the Shields family and converted it into their headquarters and with BMI Baby also being based in the hall and the adjoining building, there were 800 people employed by BMI and its subsidiary businesses working out of these offices.  With the collapse of BMI in 2012 the hall was purchased by Stuart Garner who ran Norton Motorcycles and in 2016 he purchased the adjacent Priest House Hotel but with the failure of this business the hall was placed on the market and purchased in 2021 by MSV with the hall now being connected to the race circuit by a 1 mile long landscaped drive.

Castle Donington is a vibrant market town in which Robert Ellis have sold many properties over the years.  With the new housing developments taking place on the outskirts of the village the population will grow significantly as will the local employment opportunities around the airport and the large distribution centres which have been built close to Castle Donington with several more buildings of over 500,000 sq.ft. being planned to be constructed over the next few years.