Old John and Beacon Hill

Saturday 26th January 2013

A couple of weeks ago, just before all the snow melted, I went up to Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire to do a walk around the best hills in the county while they still had snow on them. I often go for walks in this area since it is quite simply the best place in Leicestershire to walk and boasts scenery that many counties in England would die for. The actual heights of the hills may be low but they are full of ancient woodland and granite-topped hills. Charnwood Forest has been extensively quarried over the centuries and is still being quarried in places, though fortunately not in the area that I was walking on this occasion. The hills are not very steep and the snow was not very deep, and was actually gradually melting as the day progressed, so I was perfectly safe with a pair of trail shoes and walking poles. I don’t like winter walking when it gets to the level of serious mountaineering over ice and hard snow, but walking on soft snow over low hills can be fun.

I started from the village of Woodhouse Eaves by walking along the road past the village church and around to the northern tip of Swithland Wood, which is part of the Bradgate Country Park Estate and a beautiful area of ancient oak woodland.  According to the Bradgate Park website it “covers 146 acres and is a remnant of the original Charnwood Forest Oak Woods.  It is rich in a wide range of flora and fauna with an extensive network of footpaths, designated horse tracks and bridleways, and within the wood nestles reminders of the famous former Swithland slate quarries.” This is a fabulous wood to walk through especially in the spring when the woodland floor is covered in bluebells and wood anemones. After the relatively safe walk along the pavement, this was my first chance to see what the ground was like to walk upon, and at this early hour I found that it was a mixture of snow-covered mud with some frozen areas. As the day went on these frozen areas quickly thawed.

Once through the wood I crossed a road and headed along a farm track towards Bradgate Park itself with the folly of Old John Tower at the top of the hill ahead of me. Bradgate Park is a place that I have been coming to for many years and will always be a special place for me as a consequence. I strode out confidently across the very familiar terrain of bracken and grass and up the short, steep hill where many people were, even as I climbed, sliding down on sledges. When there is snow on the ground Old John is guaranteed to be full of sledges. After passing the beer mug shaped tower of Old John I walked over to the Yeomanry War Memorial nearby and gazed at the stunning views under clear, crisp skies while pondering the sacrifice commemorated on the memorial. Old John may be only 212 metres high but it still commands a stunning view across the city of Leicester and the surrounding countryside (the pictures below were taken with my mobile - they are not up to the standard of my camera).

Turning right I headed north down the gentle slopes of Old John and over the small copse of Hunts Hill to one of the car parks that serve the park. On the road opposite I walked for a short distance before passing through a small wood created as part of the National Forest, of which the old Charnwood Forest is only a small part on its eastern edge. On the other side of this new wood is Lingdale Golf Course where a footpath winds a careful route across the fairways and around the tees and putting greens. I am usually reluctant to take this path across the golf course, but on this occasion I had no reason for caution as the snow had put a stop to all golfing activities leaving me to enjoy acres of unspoilt snow. After passing through the golf course I neared the edge of Woodhouse Eaves having almost come full circle, but soon after entering the village I turned off the road into Broombriggs Farm, which is a mixed arable and stock farm owned by Leicestershire County Council.

My target in Broombriggs was not the farm but Windmill Hill which lies between the farm and Woodhouse Eaves where the remains of a windmill stands on top of a hill that commands impressive views through the trees. On coming down from Windmill Hill I crossed into Beacon Hill Country Park, also owned by Leicestershire County Council, and headed for a narrow path that I love and follows a tiny stream through woodland to a small pond before heading across the heathland up to the top of Beacon Hill. I don’t have the long associations with Beacon Hill that I have with Bradgate Park, but I have begun to prefer Beacon Hill for its sheer variety of landscape with the woods and heathland on its slopes to the craggy summit that was once the site of a Bronze Age hill fort. At 248 metres Beacon Hill is higher than old John and provides wide sweeping views across Loughborough and the whole of north Leicestershire.

The clear blue skies that I had at the start of the day were now sadly beginning to cloud over while the snow that had been plentiful on Old John was beginning to melt. I descended the hill along Jubilee Walk and through more ancient woodland slowly descending to the bottom of the valley of Wood Brook where a permissive path allows access through this pleasant valley through to Buck Hill where a slanting path climbs to a prominent ridge that makes me feel like that I am in the fells of the Lake District rather than the rolling hills of Leicestershire. This is a special place that never fails to delight me whenever I walk along this short ridge. A surprisingly steep descent off the end of the ridge leads on beside the edge of a private wood on now snow-free muddy paths to a road and the County Council-owned Jubilee Woods. These woods were recently extended and I look forward to the time when I’ll be able to walk through the whole wood, but until that time I headed through the older section of the wood and into the Charnwood Borough Council-owned Outwoods.

This ancient woodland is covered in bluebells in the spring that guarantees a visit every year so I can see the amazing display that covers the woodland floor in small, delicate blue flowers. The Outwoods is a great place any time of the year, but at the end of April or the beginning of May it becomes the place of my dreams. A pleasant stroll along the quiet Brook Road lane led me from the Outwoods back to Woodhouse Eaves and the end of this enthralling walk. I have done this walk or a variant of it many times before and it never fails to satisfy. Even though the Lake District and Snowdonia are too far away for a day trip I can always go to the Charnwood Forest where ancient woodlands and granite-topped hills provide me with all the interest I need to keep going. If you thought Leicestershire was a dull place to go walking, think again.