Zouch is a hamlet

Hamlet (place)

A hamlet is usually a rural settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community. Historically, when a hamlet became large enough to justify building a church, it was then classified as a village...

 in south west Nottinghamshire

Nottinghamshire

Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is located between Hathern

Hathern

Hathern is a large village and civil parish in the Charnwood district of Leicestershire, England. The village itself is located in the north of the district, and is just north of Loughborough. It is served by the A6. The parish has a population of about 1,800. Nearby places are Dishley, Long...

 and Normanton on Soar

Normanton on Soar

Normanton on Soar is a village and civil parish in the south of Nottinghamshire in England near the River Soar.Nearby villages include Zouch, Sutton Bonington and Stanford on Soar....

 and is situated by the River Soar

River Soar

The River Soar is a tributary of the River Trent in the English East Midlands.-Description:It rises near Hinckley in Leicestershire and is joined by the River Sence near Enderby before flowing through Leicester , Barrow-on-Soar, beside Loughborough and Kegworth, before joining the Trent near...

, which marks the county

Counties of England

Counties of England are areas used for the purposes of administrative, geographical and political demarcation. For administrative purposes, England outside Greater London and the Isles of Scilly is divided into 83 counties. The counties may consist of a single district or be divided into several...

 boundary with Leicestershire

Leicestershire

Leicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...

.

Most of the hamlet lies in the civil parish of Sutton Bonington

Sutton Bonington

Sutton Bonington is a village and civil parish lying along the valley of the River Soar in the Borough of Rushcliffe, south west Nottinghamshire, England. The University of Nottingham has a site just to the north of the village: Sutton Bonington Campus....

, apart from Zouch Farm which falls within Normanton on Soar parish, and the part in Leicestershire which is in Hathern parish. The nearest town is Loughborough

Loughborough

Loughborough is a town within the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England. It is the seat of Charnwood Borough Council and is home to Loughborough University...

. The A6006 road passes through the hamlet and crosses the Soar on Zouch Bridge (alternatively "County Bridge" as it spans the county border). The elevation

Elevation

The elevation of a geographic location is its height above a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface ....

 of Zouch is 30 metres (98.4 ft).

There is a pub

Public house

A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...

 in the hamlet, the Rose and Crown, with one side of the pub on Main Street and the other on the bank of the Zouch Cut canal. On the far western end of the hamlet, on the Leicestershire side of Zouch Bridge, is the County Bridge Mobile Home Park, where tent pitching is available.

River Soar and Zouch Cut

Zouch is an example of a small canal settlement, though there was a mill there long before the Soar was made navigable (and on some historic maps is denoted as Zouch Mill). Due to the canalisation of the River Soar, involving the construction of the Zouch Cut and several weirs and canals in the vicinity, the hamlet lies on several islands (including the main island, and the much smaller islands of Lower Holme and Upper Holme, which have small houses on them). Canal mooring is a notable feature; on the Leicestershire side of Zouch Bridge, situated on the River Soar, are Zouch Marina and the clubhouse of the Loughborough Boat Club. The Long Whatton Brook joins the Soar between the two.

Etymology

Zouch is named after the Zouche family.

It is alphabetically last in a list of all the named settlements in Britain.