It shares its name with Leighfield Forest, a much larger area from Braunston-in-Rutland to Stockerston and from Skeffington to Ridlington, a triangle of land roughly 4 miles (6.4 km) in each direction.

[5] The Leighfield Way is a 7.4 miles (11.9 km) waymarked route joining the Leicestershire and Rutland Rounds at Belton-in-Rutland with the Hereward Way and Viking Way at Oakham.

In 1269 the forester Peter de Neville was arraigned by the king's justices for taking for his own use timber, firewood and charcoal to the amount of 7,000 oaks and other trees.

[7] The greater part of the former Forest, including Leighfield parish, is now an open landscape, although with species-rich hedgerows.

[8] Removal of many hedgerows during the 20th century has made the Leighfield woodlands increasingly isolated, but the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust's 'Living Landscape' project has targeted Leighfield as one of its landscape-scale projects, and is working with the Forestry Commission to create new woodlands that can act as links between the ancient sites.