Melton Mowbray Melton Mowbray Melton Mowbray () is a town in Leicestershire, England, northeast of Leicester, and southeast of Nottingham. The town is on the River Eye and the River Wreake and has a population of 25,554. The town is best known for its culinary speciality, the Melton Mowbray pork pie, and it is one of the six homes of Stilton cheese. Melton Mowbray is promoted as the "Rural Capital of Food". The name comes from the early English word Medeltone – meaning "Middletown surrounded by small hamlets" (and therefore has the same origin as Milton and Middleton). Mowbray is a Norman
Melton Mowbray throughout Anglo-Saxon and Danelaw period (8th/9th centuries) is reflected in many place names. Along the Wreake Valley, the Danish suffix "-by" is common, as is evident in Asfordby, Dalby, Frisby, Hoby, Rearsby and Gaddesby. In addition, a cemetery of 50–60 graves, of Pagan Anglo-Saxon origin, was found in Melton Mowbray. Although most villages and their churches had origins before the Norman Conquest of 1066, stone crosses at Asfordby and Sproxton churches and Anglo-Saxon cemeteries as found at Goadby Marwood, Sysonby and Stapleford, are certainly pre-Conquest. Melton Mowbray itself had six recorded crosses the construction of which spanned several centuries: (i)