Frog Island, Leicester

Frog Island is an inner city area of Leicester, England, so named because it lies between the River Soar and the Soar Navigation (a continuation of the Grand Union Canal). Frog Island is adjacent to the Woodgate area to the north, and Northgates to the South. The population of the island was at the 2011 census in the Abbey ward of Leicester City Council.TopographyFrog Island lies to the north of central Leicester, and to the south of the River Soar and Leicester Abbey. The site was not an island before the late-eighteenth century, but was created as such upon the completion of the improved Soar Navigation between Loughborough and Leicester in 1794. The Navigation involved constructing a new section of canal to by-pass a meander in the River Soar. The area enclosed by the River Soar and the canal is Frog Island. The road which crosses the island is also named 'Frog Island'.HistoryThe island lies immediately to the south of Leicester Abbey, and historically was partly covered by the Abbey Meadows, which were too marshy for construction. In 1877, the meadows were drained and incorporated into Abbey Park.The purpose of the Leicester Navigation was to make the River Soar navigable to commercial traffic, and particularly to allow the transportation of coal produced in the Leicestershire region. Upon the completion of the Navigation in 1794, goods could be taken by boat down the Soar to the River Trent. Moreover, the opening of the Leicester to Swannington Railway in 1832 meant that the coal fields of Leicestershire were even better linked with the Soar and the Grand Union Canal, which extends as far as London. Frog Island is located at the epicentre of this connection, and as a result much of the island became highly industrialised in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.