Ibstock is a large village 15 miles north-west of Leicester and has a long history of trade, manufacture and agriculture that covers framework-knitting, coal mines, and brick making. It was also a hub of Nonconformity, taking in Anglican, Baptist, Primitive Methodist, Wesleyan Methodist and Wesleyan Reform ministers. Though the much of the local industry has changed, Ibstock has had a reinvention in the 21st century, with much of the undermined farmland being planted with young trees from the 1990s to become part of the National Forest.