The Ivanhoe Way, section five

Saturday 16th April 2016

While a lot of rain was falling in Britain last spring I wondered if I’d ever get some good weather on a Saturday when I could go for a walk in the countryside. However, during the course of the morning on this day the sun did come out, which was all the prompting that I needed to grab my rucksack and drive to the small town of Shepshed in north-west Leicestershire. Having started my circuit of the Ivanhoe Way the month before I was now aiming to do my second stage of the trail, which is actually section five in the leaflet produced by Leicestershire County Council. A well-constructed path beside a recent housing development took me out of Shepshed and onto boggy paths beside arable fields. The heavy rains of the previous couple of months had saturated the ground so that I had a lot of difficulty on this walk with mud, although usually the ground was quite firm, except in a few really bad places. The first part of this walk was not very interesting as I made my way through various fields of varying standards underfoot as I tried to find my way to the point where I had finished the Ivanhoe Way the previous month.

Occasionally I spotted a few bluebells (my first of the year) underneath a hedge along with some celandines and it brightened up the dull trudge through the monoculture that is usually seen in fields. Coming out of the pretty little village of Osgathorpe, I climbed up a great little path that was lined with many delightful wild flowers, especially forget-me-nots that were unforgettable, while at this stage of the day the sun was shining brightly overhead through broken cloud. Eventually I arrived in Griffydam where I had left the Ivanhoe Way previously, at the end of section four, and now I resumed my circuit of the trail, though through yet more arable fields. The leaflet on the Ivanhoe Way makes a big mention at this point of the Leicester and Swannington Railway even though the trail doesn’t actually touch the disused railway line and I had to make a diversion up to the top of the embankment in order to have a glimpse up and down the tiny stretch that is a public footpath. Returning to the Ivanhoe Way I continued to Whitwick and beyond into the delightful Cademan Wood that is bestrewn with granite outcrops typical of the Charnwood Forest.

There was a maze of footpaths through the wood, which made following the Ivanhoe Way difficult especially as most of paths were very boggy. Nevertheless I had an enjoyable time exploring the wood and after the visiting the crags at the top of Broad Hill I made my way along what I thought was the path of the trail until I eventually realised that I was passing to the south of High Cademan, the highest point in the wood, even though the Ivanhoe Way passes to the north. To get back on track I clambered up to the trig point that sits at the top of the crags and surveyed the view over the top of the trees before making my way steeply down the other side where I found the path of the Ivanhoe Way. Unfortunately this was horrendously muddy and so excruciatingly bad that I had to come off the path and try to make a course through the bramble, which was preferable to wading through the mud.

I think I have visited High Cademan before, but it was a fleeting visit from the road and back again while waiting to go to a concert at the nearby Loughborough University. This was the first time I’d walked all the way through the woods and it has sparked my interest, so I think I must make a return visit at a better time of the year. When I reached the road I turned right and soon started to get wet from the showers that I knew were forecast. So far on this walk I had been lucky with the weather enjoying lovely sunshine, but that had now ended as I made my way through access land on the side of Ratchet Hill and into a small housing estate on the edge of Whitwick. On the other side I entered Holly Hayes Wood on a wide and well-constructed path straight through the ancient woodland and past Whitlock Quarry to Agar Nook. The Ivanhoe Way passes between the houses of Agar Nook and the school playing fields until it reaches Greenhill Road and the end of section five. There, I turned left and climbed up the hill on the road to Warren Hills, which I had first passed through while doing my circuit of the Charnwood Forest Challenge Walk.

I have been back to the Warren Hills several times since and I have enjoyed the crags and undeveloped land immensely every time despite its small size. Usually I would climb over all the crags, but by this point in the walk I just wanted to get back to my car, so I stayed on the path through the heathland area onto the busy Abbey Road. I stayed on the route of the Charnwood Forest Challenge Walk past Mount St. Bernard Abbey and down to Blackbrook Reservoir where I came upon a path that was the worst that I had encountered on the whole walk. The mud was ankle deep and I had no way of avoiding it, so I just had to wade through and endure it, but there was a glorious compensation to come. On the edge of Shepshed I passed through White Horse Wood which was overflowing with wild flowers, especially bluebells and wood anemones. I was gutted that my camera had stopped working on High Cademan, even though I was never going to be able to take good photos as it was so cloudy and late in the day that it was very dull under the trees. Nevertheless I took my phone out and took a few pictures, though they totally failed to do justice to the awesome spectacle.

White Horse Wood was a wonderful reward for all the terrible conditions that I had endured on this walk and more than compensated by bringing this walk to a great end. Generally this wasn’t a good walk, though it did have some great moments. At the start of the walk I had been ecstatic to be out walking again in the countryside again with the sun shining upon me, even though I was walking through dull arable fields. The Ivanhoe Way itself was much better than the previous section as it had now entered the outcrop-rich woods of the Charnwood Forest, especially Cademan Wood, and once I left the Ivanhoe Way I enjoyed walking through the Warren Hills, as always. However, it is the mud that I encountered on this walk that almost ruined it with some abominable section under trees, though ultimately on this walk, despite everything that I came across, it was simply great to be out walking.