The Leicestershire Round

4th February 2006

Woodhouse Eaves - Mountsorrel - Cossington - Ratcliffe College - Rearsby (9.5 miles)

The Beginning

Woodhouse Eaves village centre. Only another 110 miles to go until I see this village again - not all in one go though! I plan to complete this walk within this year, in about 12 seperate walks. They all rely on public transport - could be an issue in the more far flung places.

Follow The Mud

The first field to cross, and using by honed tracking skills, I can tell that people have been on this track quite recently. I was going to lay my ear on the ground to hear for footsteps, but decided that I would get too muddy.

Follow This Sign

This is the official marker for the Leicestershire Round. It differs from the normal footpath signs by having the 'recycling' symbol in the middle of the arrow. On this walk, they were generally spaced so that the next one was in sight of the one you're standing at. Not always though. Take a map. Better off, take GPS if you can afford it. But then again, you would miss out on the thrill of getting lost.

Skirting around Rushey Fields Farm, this Oak tree stood out tall and proud to beckon the travellers onwards. This picture looks back on the path I've just trodden. This path used to lead to an ancient settlement on Buddon Hill, which would be behind me..

That's One Heck Of A Warren!

The rabbits around here have certainly moved on from their cousins and passed through the industrial revolution already, without any of us knowing! This is called Rabbits Bridge which crosses the Great Central Railway. I was told by the guide book to wave at passing steam trains. I waved for ages. No trains came along.

The advantage of running for a bus at silly hours in the day from Leicester was that I could start the walk early, and it was worth seeing Swithland Reservoir on an early winter's morning. It was amazingly peaceful, the silence broken only by the flapping of birds on the water.

Across the road (Kinchley Lane) from the reservoir are the landscaped water gardens, as can be partially seen through the trees. The guide book tells me these are the gardens. The map marks them as 'works'.

This is the place to have a castle, surrounded by huge amounts of water. OK, so it's not really a castle, but is a fine example of a Victorian building.

It has been many years since I have been to this reservoir, but I presume that normally water flow over the edge of these concrete steps to flow towards Quorn. It shows just how low the water leves are at this time of year.

This course, opposite the steps above, should be flowing with water at this time of year. There is not a trickle of water to be seen. After I left the reservoir, I walked along Kinchley Lane by the side of Buddon Wood, where I stopped for a while to watch and listen to a woodpecker peck his way around the trees. At the end of the lane a small white dog decided to follow me, unitl I persuaded it to go back.

Walking along a track to Mountsorrel, I followed the guidebook to 'pause very briefly to contemplate the vastness of the quarry infill - I may notice smells of methane gas'. This used to be the site of Mountsorrel Castle and grounds, now replaced by the rubbish people create. Could Leicestershire use this fact to encourage more recycling? The look of the fence added to the sorry plight of this area.

As the sign tells me, 'This site was used as a Pinfold for the impounding of stray animals. It was last used in 1919.' I'm not too sure this structure would hold my mother's lurchers if they were to escape. Presumably it held the 'non-jumpy' kind.

You know that spring is thinking of waking up when the daffodils begin to poke their leaves through the soil.

For anyone interested in new developments, this is Rothley Lodge. Unsure of the path out of Mountsorrel, I tried to follow the map but didn't realise it was upside down. I should actually be somewhere way in to the distance. Time to back-track.

The Leicestershire Round sign that I should have spotted, by this underpass under the A6(T), is the one that I should have followed. Can you see where it is?

At last, on the right path and heading for the River Soar. Some people have been having some serious fires here - note the heavily broken trees.

I'm back on the path that inspired me to walk the Round in te first place. Last month I followed the canal from the Walker's Stadium in Leicester to Loughborough, but without the appropriate footwear. Very slippery and blistery as I remember. The Candle Stick Factory can be seen to the right.

There seems to be plenty of water in the canal at the moment, creating natural water sculptures at certain points along the river.

Turning off from the canal, yo pass through Cossington Meadows, a relatively new wetland habitat to be created. This one was created after gravel extraction had finished and was backfilled to flood naturally, as part of the floodplain of the River Soar.

I passed through Cossington to cross over the railway line that I've travelled on innumerable times from Leicester to Loughborough.

There is nothing nicer than going for a pleasant walk in the counrtyside. There is nothing worse than having to put up with the eyesore of the rubbish of somebody who is too lazy and ignorant to take it to the dump themselves. So it takes time? Well, you created the rubbish. That makes you responsible for it! Grrr...

It took a while to calm down, but soon I was heading out to the remote Ratcliffe College and walking all over its grounds trying to find my path. Crossing the Fosse Way, the old Roman road, now called the A46(T), was a potentially dangerous experience. However, I made it safely to the tranquil grounds of Rearsby Mill.

Having to plan my journeys according to bus routes, I finished at Rearsby to head back to prune somebody's apple tree. This seven arched packhorse bridge, built in 1714, will serve as my reference point to start my next walk soon...