Wigston Magna
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Template:GBdot Wigston (or more properly Wigston Magna to distinguish it from the nearby Wigston Parva), is a town in Leicestershire, just to the south of Leicester, on the Welford Road which leads to Northampton.
It runs directly into Oadby to the east, with which it shares Oadby and Wigston district council, and Leicester to the north. An area known as South Wigston is actually to the west.
Wigston was the subject of W. G. Hoskins's pioneering historical study, The Midland Peasant (London: Macmillan, 1965), which traced the social history of this village from earliest recorded history into the 19th century.
In the Middle Ages it was known as Wigston Two Spires as, unusually there were two mediaeval churches there, All Saints and St. Wistans.
St Wistans is known as that because it was one of the places where the body of St Wistan rested before burial. First, he was buried at Repton and finally in Evesham. St Wistan was a Mercian Prince who was assassinated but was regarded as a Martyr.
It was the birthplace of George Davenport, a notorious highwayman, and Abigail Herrick, the mother of Jonathan Swift, author of Gullivers Travels. Graham Chapman, of Monty Python fame, also did much of his growing up in Wigston.
There is a Framework Knitting Museum here, as it was an important occupation in this area.
Also, Leicester based punk band The Lifeless, rehearse in the area.