A Charnwood Forest Round

Saturday 24th January 2015

Whenever I’m not walking elsewhere in the country I often do a walk in the county of my birth and where I have spent most of my life: Leicestershire. If I want to do a really challenging walk in Leicestershire, then I will go to Charnwood Forest in north-west Leicestershire where there are some granite topped hills and ancient woodland that provides the best walking that the county has to offer. I have been coming to this area all my life, so I am very familiar with the walking possibilities available in the area. A couple of years ago I adapted several walks that I had done before to come up with a challenging walk around Charnwood Forest that usually takes me about six hours to complete. This walk has been so successful that I have been doing the exact same walk repeatedly every couple of months and must now have done the walk at least a dozen times.

I usually alternate the direction that I do the walk and start in a different location depending on which direction I’m going. The last time I did this walk was in January and on that occasion I went around in a clockwise direction starting from the village of Woodhouse Eaves. The start of the walk is along the road past the church of St Paul and out of the village on a shady lane. Even though I was walking along the pavement beside a road this was still a pleasant start to the walk with several large tree-filled gardens either side of the road filled with lots of interesting plants. I used to try to avoid this street-walking by following footpaths through nearby fields, but eventually decided that the road was more interesting than the arable fields. After passing the Wheatsheaf Inn I reached a T-junction where I turned right and followed the road round to the left where a right turn soon brought me to the entrance into Swithland Wood.

This small wood is a delight to walk through, especially if you keep off the wide bridlepath and pick your own route through the wood. I often vary my route through Swithland Wood as I try to find steep paths up to the top of the old slag heaps left by the quarrying that was extensive in this area at one time. There has been no quarrying in Swithland Wood for over a hundred years and that has allowed the ancient woodland to reclaim the area with the delightful result of a dazzling display of woodland flowers in the spring including bluebells and wood anemones. Unfortunately the last time I walked through Swithland Wood there were no flowers and hardly any leaves on the trees, but it was still a delightful place to walk.

Having made my way through the wood I crossed a road and walked along a track with my next goal in sight ahead of me: Old John. Bradgate Park has been a fixture of my life for as long as I can remember. I have been there so many times and on so many occasions that it feels almost as part of the family, and I’m sure many of the people of Leicestershire feel the same. The tower of Old John that sits at the top of the highest point in Bradgate Park is an icon of Leicestershire and it was with satisfaction that I climbed the steep hill once again to the top of Old John. The weather was fabulous for this walk with clear views across the city of Leicester and the surrounding area. Continuing on the walk I passed across to a war memorial that stands guard over the landscape remembering those of the Leicestershire Yeomanry killed in the two world wars.

I didn’t enter Bradgate Park through one of the car parks and I didn’t leave through one of them either, going through a gate in the park boundary wall, after coming down the hill, and down a footpath that took me onto the street in the village of Newtown Linford. Turning right I followed the road to a junction where I turned left and took a footpath that led to a young woodland planted as part of the National Forest. This section of the walk can be very muddy, especially in January when I last did it. After passing a scouts campsite and some stables I passed through more young woodland and an area of parkland also developed as part of the National Forest scheme. On the edge of the busy dual carriageway, the A50, the path climbs to the road and follows it for a distance before disappearing into trees.

Before last year the path took a more discrete route through access land and since it avoids sight of the road is a much better route, even though it can be muddy. Despite the proximity of the nearby road this is a delightful path through woodland that is being allowed to develop naturally and although it is still relatively immature,  I’m sure given time it will develop and when it is colonised by woodland flowers it will be just as delightful as the other woods on this walk. Just before reaching a tunnel under the road I turned away from it and followed a path through a narrow avenue of hedges slowly climbing Chitterman Hill until finally I reached a quiet lane at the top where a bench that affords extensive views often provides me with a welcome break from the walk.

After a section of road walking I eventually came upon the edge of Ulverscroft Nature Reserve in a section of the reserve that is managed by the Wildlife Trust and access is restricted to trust members. Fortunately I am a member of the Leicestershire & Rutland Wildlife Trust so I am able to enter the woodland and make my way through the delightful area over the hill and down into Poultney Wood where a right turn onto a public right-of-way leads into a small area of wet woodland near Herbert’s Meadow. This woodland is teeming with woodland flowers in the spring and is a brilliant place to go when the flowers are in bloom. I remember going through this woodland in April last year when the woodland was covered with the white flowers of wood anemones and three weeks later the woodland floor was covered in the blue flowers of bluebells.

Beyond the nature reserve I passed Ulverscroft Lodge and made my way along footpaths on the edge of fields until eventually I emerged onto a road not far from Beacon Hill. A short walk along the road brought me to the edge of West Beacon Fields, an area of young trees on the western slopes of the hill. A short walk brought me to the upper car park and an even shorter walk from there brought me to the top of Beacon Hill. Over the last ten years I have grown to love Beacon Hill perhaps more than Bradgate Park. While Old John is overfamiliar and very popular, Beacon Hill is more selective and mysterious. Beacon Hill Country Park has more woodland and more hidden corners than Bradgate Park so keeps you interested every time you visit. For years I would come to Charnwood Forest just so I could walk up Beacon Hill.

The top of Beacon Hill looks over the large town of Loughborough and over much of north Leicestershire, but my walk was far from over. Heading north away from the summit I passed along the side of Martin’s Wood and into Felicity’s Wood. There is a permissive path through this wood that gives you access to stunning woodland that has an extensive covering of bluebells in the spring. The path descends to the bottom of the Wood Brook valley and after a relaxing walk along the bottom of the valley climbs through woodland to the narrow ridge of Buck Hill. I love this place as the gradients fall steeply down to the valley giving the ridge a great, airy feel reminiscent of the Lake District. Sometimes when I am on Buck Hill I feel like I can easily imagine I’m on a mountain.

The permissive path descends very steeply at the end of the ridge and continues through a narrow strip of bluebell filled woodland to a road. On the other side of the road are the young trees of Jubilee Wood where no path has currently been cleared, but a short walk up the road leads to older woodland where a path is possible through to the Outwoods. This wood is also a great place for seeing bluebells in the spring, but even in January it is a lovely place to walk even though by this time I am usually very tired and curse this last climb to the top of the rocks that epitomise the Outwoods. A pleasant walk through the wood eventually leads to a bridlepath through the edge of woodland and onto Brook Road where a relaxing wind down along the road and through Woodhouse Eaves ends the walk.

If I was going to do the walk in the opposite direction I would park beside Swithland Wood and go through the wood first before proceeding through Woodhouse Eaves towards the Outwoods leaving the ascent of Old John till the end of the walk. Having done the walk many times in both directions I think the way described is the better direction and that is the way I took when I tried to see how fast I could do it. On a Summer Bank Holiday Monday I raced around Charnwood Forest in just four hours, but usually this walk takes me about six hours and when I have finished I always feel satisfied at having completed a long and challenging walk. It may be only about twelve miles, but there are many ups and downs on the walk meaning that when taken together I feel like I have just climbed a mountain, in Leicestershire.