Bardon Hill

Saturday 16th February 2013

Last week I wrote about the best hills in Leicestershire, Beacon Hill and Old John, both contained within country parks, and both are deservedly very popular. However, neither of these two are the highest hill in Leicestershire as that honour lies with Bardon Hill, which is not within a country park but on land owned by Bardon Aggregates, a quarrying company. This company operates throughout the UK but is based at Bardon Hill where they have what they describe as a super quarry producing over a million tonnes of crushed rock each year. This has resulted in a lot of Bardon Hill no longer actually remaining, however the summit is still intact and a public right-of-way exists to the top. Due to the edge of this huge quarry being just a couple of metres from the summit I don’t visit the top of Bardon Hill as often as the other two hills mentioned last week, but if I am taking a full excursion across Charnwood Forest then Bardon Hill is usually tagged on even though this means a long diversion across the M1 and back again to encompass all three of the great hills of Leicestershire.

Last March my father mentioned that he’d never been up Bardon Hill so during an unseasonably warm dry spell I took him up to the highest point in Leicestershire, and then last Saturday I decided to repeat that walk, on my own, with a few diversions to explore the surrounding area. As in March I parked at the car park for the nearby Local Nature Reserve of Billa Barra Hill. Instead of heading straight towards Bardon Hill as in March I headed in the opposite direction towards the village of Stanton Under Bardon soon taking a footpath across an old mineral railway and past some allotments near the village. From there I took a path across the edge of a field to a wood where a steep, very muddy path took me to the top of the small ridge. With all the rain that has fallen in the last year a walk in the countryside at the moment is fraught with difficulty as the ground is saturated soon leaving any shoes that you’re wearing soaked and thick with mud.

My feet were staying dry thanks to the SealSkinz socks that I’d started using over the New Year in the Lake District, but it was still very slippery and tricky trying to climb the short slope to the top of the ridge where I was confronted by a big quarry. This is not Bardon Hill Quarry but Cliffe Hill Quarry operated by Midland Quarry Products. The ridge that I was now walking along is made from the spoils of the quarry and the trees I’d walked through have been planted as a screen to block the unsightly view of the quarry. This ‘Good Neighbour Scheme’ has created a lovely walk through woodland along the top of these mounds so despite the mud I had an enjoyable walk along to the end of the ridge where I slipped down the hill past a couple of ponds and onto a road. A short walk along the road brought me onto the busy A511 with Bardon Hill ahead of me. I passed by Bardon Park Chapel, the oldest non-conformist place of worship in Leicestershire, and headed along a lane to a rather fine group of farm buildings past which I found the footpath sign that I’d been looking for.

With Bardon Hill ahead of me I waded along a particularly wet path until I reached a familiar field edge where I joined the direct route from Billa Barra that I’d taken in March (my diversion over), and the route that until now I had always taken to reach Bardon Hill. A steady climb brought me to a tarmac road, up some wooden steps and across a wide, muddy quarry road. Now the walk improved immensely as the path climbed steeply through heathland thinly planted with trees towards a radio mast at the top of the hill. Just before reaching the mast I diverted along the top of the summit ridge to the trig point that marks the top of the hill. Up until this point my climb up Bardon Hill hadn’t been spoilt by a view of the quarry, but at the summit a wire fence barred further progress just a short distance from the cliff edge of the quarry. This enormous quarry is always a jaw-dropping sight no matter how many times I’ve seen it, but I’m sure the hill was a much more enjoyable place to walk when a big quarry hadn’t consumed half of it.

From the top of Bardon Hill I followed a path along the top, past the radio mast and around the top of the cliff, to an area of heathland that affords views of the summit including the sheer cliff edge a short distance away from the summit. I followed this path down the hill through woodland around the eastern edge of the hill and back to my outward route. As in March, and as on most of my visits to Bardon Hill, I returned to Billa Barra passing Rise Rocks Farm and across the A511. Since I’d gone around Billa Barra Hill at the start of the walk I decided that it would be a shame if I didn’t climb to the top of this small hill now to take in the splendid views that can be seen from the top. Billa Barra is an enjoyable little hill that benefits from being completely set aside for the benefit of the flora and fauna that make their home on the hill. At 235 metres it’s higher than Old John but not as high as Bardon Hill’s lofty (relatively speaking) 278 metres. There has been and still is a lot of quarrying being carried out in Leicestershire, but rather than this being a problem for walkers it has actually provoked the creation of some lovely landscaped woodland. Despite the mud it was good to climb the highest hill in what I once heard someone describe as the Highlands of Leicestershire.