The National Forest Way, stages ten, eleven & twelve

Saturday 24th May 2015

Branston to Alrewas

In July 2014 I began to walk along the newly opened National Forest Way and by taking it in stages and hardly making any progress during the winter it wasn’t the following May that  I was finally preparing to finish the trail. At the end of stage nine I had reached the Branston Water Park from where the end of the trail, at the National Memorial Arboretum near the village of Alrewas, is a relatively short walk along the Trent valley. However the trail still has another three stages to go from Branston as it goes in a wide loop through the ancient Needham Forest before passing through the village of Alrewas until it finally reaches the National Arboretum. I thought I could complete the trail all in one go by taking advantage of this loop to do a full circle and return to Branston up the Trent valley. The main problem that I’d encountered while doing the trail was that the woods that have been planted for the National Forest are still very young so the trees are immature and lack the wildflower undergrowth that for me is the principle attraction of walking in woodland in the spring.

On this walk I passed through the established woods of the Needham Forest and the resulting profusion of woodland flowers was a delight that compensated for my frustrations of the previous stages. Returning to Branston Water Park I set off back around the northern edge of the large lake that forms of bulk of this reserve until I once again reached the Trent & Mersey Canal. On the previous stage I had turned right at this point but now I turned left, however I was keen to take in the views across the lake as long as possible so lingered on the lakeside path as long as possible. Finally I had to tear myself away from the lake and follow the towpath as far as Tatenhill Lock where I crossed the canal and headed between two flooded gravel pits on a delightful path that was lined with the white flowers of cow parsley and hawthorn. On crossing a road the floral delights continued as I plunged into a wood with cow parsley towering over me and many other colourful flowers on the ground.

The path soon brought me out of the wood and steeply up to the top of Battlestead Hill before plunging through more gorgeous woodland teeming with flowers into the village of Tatenhill. The walk continued through fields that were covered in buttercups with red clover adding to the colour palette and making this a truly memorable stage of the trail. Further on, beside a road, was a narrow wood filled with an abundant array of wildflowers including red campion and bluebells so that by the time I reached Rangemore I was so thoroughly enthused by the amazing delights of the Needham Forest that I didn’t want to leave and yet could hardly wait to see what more was in store for me. However, I had already seen the best and from now on the walk quickly deteriorated. Stage eleven of the National Forest Way started at Rangemore and soon descended into mediocrity as I walked for miles skirting around the St George’s Park National Football Centre before walking past the edge of Tatenhill Airfield. The wildflowers of stage ten were a distant memory until I reached the woodland of Jackson’s Bank where bluebells covered the woodland floor and I was once again in delight.

I was reluctant to leave the lovely bluebells, but eventually I turned south and headed through Brackenhurst Wood eventually reaching the River Swarbourn at Far Hoar Cross Farm. At this point I was dumbfounded to read on the directions that I now had to walk beside the road for 1,800 metres, for over a mile, so I reluctantly plodded along until I finally reached Woodhill Farm. On approaching the turning off the road I met a couple who advised me against entering a field with a pack of aggressive cows, so taking their advice I steered clear and safely reached the village of Yoxall and the end of stage eleven of the National Forest Way. With the start of stage twelve I was now on the last stage of the National Forest Way and I was being treated to a reminder of what had been my problem with this trail on previous stages as I soon entered a young wood where dandelions and buttercups were the only flowers and the trees were not very mature.

This stage of the Way never goes far from the River Swarbourn as I followed the route of a pre-existing trail, the Way for the Millennium, passing the pretentious-looking Wychnor Park Country Club and eventually reached the River Trent on the outskirts of the village of Alrewas. The National Forest Way passes through the village and after walking beside busy roads finally enters the National Memorial Arboretum. I had heard criticism of this poor end to the walk, especially about having to walk on a busy road, so I had no hesitation in declaring my walk along the National Forest Way complete at this point and promptly continued to follow the Way for the Millennium on the towpath of the Trent & Mersey Canal all the way up the Trent Valley back to Branston. The tenth stage of the National Forest Way passed through some amazing woodland that featured some of the best woodland flowers that I have ever seen. Unfortunately the rest of the walk, apart from a brief display of bluebells, was a dull tramp and a reminder of the rest of the trail.

The National Forest Way, stage nine

Monday 5th May 2015

Rosliston to the Branston Water Park

Last spring I was making my way along the National Forest Way, a trail that had recently been created through the National Forest that had just celebrated its twentieth anniversary. Unfortunately, for trees, twenty years is not very old and most are still not mature at that age, and most of the trees that I encountered on this walk have been planted much more recently. I had walked the previous stage just nine days before, but with a bank holiday available where I had nothing else planned I set off on the next stage all the way over to the Branston Water Park, near Burton Upon Trent. This is a former gravel pit that has been flooded and transformed into a large lake teeming with wildlife surrounded by woodland, wetland and wildflower meadows. When I arrived there were lots of birds sitting by the shore of the lake seemingly oblivious to my passing as I walked around the lake to the northern tip of the park where I found the Trent & Mersey Canal.

Leaving the water park behind I turned right and headed along the towpath towards Burton Upon Trent, which is famous for its breweries and soon several large buildings appeared on the other side of the canal bearing the names of well-known ales. At Shobnall Marina I turned off the canal and headed into the centre of Burton where I caught a bus to the nearby town of Swadlincote. On the previous stage of the National Forest Way I had planned on catching a bus to Swadlincote from Rosliston, but was unable to and so now that I was finally able to cover the ground that I’d missed. With the aim of seeking out every wood that I could find I headed east out of the town centre towards what seems to be a young wood that is marked on my map as Swadlincote Woodlands. This is situated on a steep slope and after a short, sharp climb brought me to a viewpoint below a radio transmitter where there were views across the town and towards the Trent valley.

Coming back down the hill I made my way over a main road and behind the back of the Ski Centre until I reached Gresley Common where mature trees provided a relaxing walk in the lovely sunshine. Dandelions and daisies covered the grassy borders and kept me going beyond the common along the road until I finally came to a path that took me into the large Gresley Wood. This is mostly a young wood, typical of the National Forest, with little of interest, but at the southern end of the wood I came upon Swainspark Wood, which is an established wood. However, rather than enter that wood I turned north-west and followed a footpath alongside a railway line down to High Cross Bank. A long section of road walking brought me to the outskirts of the village of Linton where I turned right to walk beside Badger Wood. This part of the walk left little impression on me as I passed through the village of Caldwell and eventually returned to the Rosliston Forestry Centre.

This was where I had ended the eighth stage of the National Forest Way nine days before and now I resumed my trek passing through the village of Rosliston and into a new woodland plantation. A lake at the far end of the new wood provided some momentary interest before the Way plunged through an endless series of fields, many of which were covered in dandelions. Eventually I reached the village of Walton-on-Trent and on the far side I crossed the River Trent beside a temporary Bailey bridge, built in 1974. Just after Walton Bridge I turned north to walk between the river and a bleak, featureless pit that used to be a clay pit, but which according to signs is at the start of a long process to turn it into a wetland centre, not unlike the Branston Water Park that I was heading towards.

My walk up the Trent valley between the tranquillity of the river and the desolation if the clay pits eventually ended as I moved away from the river to the busy railway line that runs into Burton Upon Trent. After following the line for a while I crossed over on a bridge and on the outskirts of Branston crossed under the busy A38 road finally reaching the Branston Water Park to end this stage of the National Forest Way. I must admit that I was losing interest in this walk and in the whole trail. Once I had left Gresley Wood there was little to interest me and little to keep me going except stubborn determination. The weather that been good early in the day, but had deteriorated so that while I was on the trail grey skies matched my mood. I had started on this trail almost a year earlier and it had maintained my interest while passing through North-West Leicestershire, but since reaching the Conkers Centre I was becoming tired of the National Forest Way.

The National Forest Way, stage eight

Saturday 26th April 2015

Conkers to the Rosliston Forestry Centre

I spent last spring walking sections of the National Forest Way, a long-distance trail that has recently been created through the National Forest, a regeneration project that has led to the creation of new woodland across two hundred square miles of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Staffordshire linking the ancient forests of Needwood and Charnwood. I have been walking in Charnwood Forest for many years, and as soon as I heard of the creation of this walk the opportunity to explore the neighbouring countryside was hard to miss. By Easter of last year I had reached the heart of the National Forest at the Conkers Waterside Centre, and so that was where I started this stage of the walk by parking nearby at Sarah’s Wood. The first thing I noticed when I got out of my car was an astonishing number of cowslips littering the ground in this small wood. Cowslips are rarer now than they used to be and I had never before seen such a dense array of these delicate looking plants.

Following the last couple of hundred metres of the previous stage of the Way I returned to the Conkers Waterside Centre alongside the large terminus of the Ashby Canal. To start stage eight of the Way I followed my steps of the previous month onto the Ashby Woulds Heritage Trail until I reached the disused railway, which I crossed over and after walking past a youth hostel and campsite followed a tree lined path onto a road. I then had to endure a tedious walk along this road that brought me to the village of Overseal and at the southern tip I was finally able to leave the houses behind to venture off into the countryside, and I couldn’t be happier. I was elated to be walking on this warm spring morning despite grey skies overhead that threatened rain. I soon entered Cadborough Hill Wood, a young wood typical of the National Forest and similar to many that I had already seen in my travels on this trail. The wood wasn’t drawing my eye; rather it was the multitude of dandelions that were covering the grass borders in a sea of green and yellow.

Dandelions are not the most beautiful flower in the world and are usually considered a weed when in your garden, but here they were enlivening what would have been a dull scene. Above a pond was an established wood, on the steep slopes of Cadborough Hill, and this time it was the gorse between the wood and the pond that was adding colour to my walk. At the far end of the wood I reached a road on the outskirts of Netherseal, but before entering the village I turned off beside a playing field and entered an arable field full of yellow-flowered oilseed rape. The colour yellow seemed to be dominating my walk in all the flowers that I was seeing, and I have found in the past that at certain times of the year certain colours seem to be dominant in the countryside. Yellow may have the colour at this point, but I would soon encounter an early glimpse of the blues of May. After a bit of confusion at the recently planted woodland around Grangewood Hall I came upon the ancient woodland of Grange Wood, which was both enticing and frustrating.

The floor of this amazing wood was covered with wild flowers including lesser celandine and wild garlic, but most noticeably, extensively, and enticingly, bluebells were abundantly distributed throughout the wood. However, there is no public access into the wood so I was forced to gaze longingly from the footpath in the field beside the wood. I suppose if there was public access to the wood then these gorgeous woodland flowers that I so adore would be trampled and the display would not be as extensive as it is. With this thought in my mind I continued along the path into newer woods that didn’t have the wildflower displays that were in Grange Wood. After passing through Top Wood, Penguin Wood and through arable fields I finally reached the outskirts of the Rosliston Forestry Centre, but rather than heading straight towards the Visitor Centre the trail takes a roundabout route through quiet woodland before eventually turning towards the heart of the park.

As I neared the Visitor Centre I tried to explore the park a little and visit some of the signposted attractions, but when I saw that their Bluebell Memorial Woods had no flowers I disconsolately made my way to the car park. It had been my plan to catch a bus from the Forestry Centre, but when I couldn’t find a bus stop outside the park I made my way south into the village of Rosliston. When I finally found a bus stop I discovered that I had just missed a bus and the next one wasn’t for another two hours. I had planned on catching a bus to the town of Swadlincote and from there to walk back to Conkers. Since that plan was blown I returned to the route of the National Forest Way, on the edge of the Forestry Centre backtracking myself as rain finally began to fall as I followed the trail as far as Penguin Wood. On the dandelion-lined road immediately after the wood I walked as far as a footpath that took me over a disused mineral railway and through Long Close Wood.

I was following as straight a route as I could make between Rosliston and Conkers and once I was through Long Close Wood and onto Colliery Lane there was little or no interest in the walk. Sealwood Lane brought me to the outskirts of Overseal where a long walk along the pavement through the village took me back onto the route of the National Forest Way. With rain falling off and on throughout the afternoon I wasn’t too bothered about the way this walk had ended.  By this point in my trek along the National Forest Way I was beginning to lose interest and it was only briefly that it would awaken. The new woodlands that are typical of the National Forest are not established enough to contain woodland flowers and ancient woodlands are rare in this part of the forest. When I did encounter them they were made even more special by their rarity and even more enthralling.

The National Forest Way, stage seven

Saturday 28th March 2015

Smisby to the Conkers Waterside Centre

I had such a great walk three weeks previously on the National Forest Way I was eager to return to the trail and continue my trek. I had started to walk the trail the previous summer, soon after it had opened, but a long break over the autumn and winter meant that by the start of the following spring I was still less than half way through. At the beginning of March I walked stages five, six and, although I hadn’t planned on it, part of stage seven. This stage starts in the village of Hartshorne, but since on my previous walk I had already done part of this stage, the section from Hartshorne to Smisby, that was where I started. Smisby had been my starting point on my previous walk, but while on that occasion I had headed east out of the village towards Ashby, now I headed west past the village lockup and the church where daffodils lined the road. These provided me with a lovely spring start to the walk even though grey clouds lay overhead threatening bad weather.

The National Forest Way leaves Smisby on a quiet road west out of the village and soon swings south passing the Bluebell Arboretum & Nursery on the right and Annwell Wood on the left. It doesn’t stop at either, though I found it very tempting to do so, but instead I followed the road over the Ashby Bypass to the junction with the Ashby Road with the Tap House Bar, Restaurant & Brewery on the corner. Once again, I didn’t stop, but turned right and took a footpath on the left that led into a field that was covered in large tracts of small blue flowers, probably field-speedwells. A small copse farther on was an added delight with lesser celandines beginning to appear on the boggy floor of the small wood. So far this stage of the trail had provided me with many spring delights, but as I made my way into the village of Blackfordby the weather deteriorated and it was soon pouring with rain.

Daffodils were out in abundance in the village, especially near the church at the northern end, but by the time I reached the southern end of the village my waterproofs were on and I was keeping my head down as I made my way past Boothorpe and along Gorse Lane past the new plantations on Hanging Hill until I reached a road on the outskirts of Conkers Discovery Centre. Stage seven of the National Forest Way stays on the road to bypass the Discovery Centre and eventually turns off the road through decorative gates to enter Sarah’s Wood and finally ends in the car park for the Conkers Waterside Centre. Since I had never been to Conkers before I headed into the Discovery Centre, but was thwarted by an admission price that I felt wasn’t worth my paying, so instead I followed a path under a railway line to the Waterside Centre.

I don’t know why, but there I found an open gate into the small woodland behind the Waterside Centre where I had a pleasant, little walk in this area that until relatively recently was a deep coal mine. I may have been fed up with the poor weather, or I simply wanted to explore, but I spent quite some time around Conkers even though I never paid to go in, and it wasn’t until after lunch that I eventually did leave the centre on the Ashby Woulds Heritage Trail. I hadn’t spent a lot of time on the National Forest Way on this walk, and it had not been particularly enjoyable, but now as the weather improved I resolved to make something of this walk. The Ashby Woulds Heritage Trail soon joins onto the remains of the disused Ashby and Nuneaton Joint Railway and provided me with an easy walk south passing through the delightful Donisthorpe Woodland Park that has been built on the site of the former Donisthorpe Colliery.

I eventually left the course of the old railway to enter the village of Oakthorpe and beyond that into Willesley Wood, which is quite an extensive wood with many paths through the mix of new and established woodland. With a great deal of guesswork I eventually found myself on the far side of the wood where on the other side of the road is an ancient wood whose floor was covered in many wildflowers. Unfortunately this dense wood has no public access and was nowhere near where I’d intended on emerging from Willesley Wood. Despite longing to explore this ancient wood I plunged once more back into Willesley Wood eventually finding my way to the Oakthorpe Colliery Picnic Site where I could find my intended route north onto a track that took me into Hick’s Lodge, a former coal mine that is in the process of being totally transformed into a woodland adventure park.

At one time this area was full of coal mines, but they have now all closed and the National Forest has been built in their place to make the most of the derelict ground left behind. Hick’s Lodge is an extensive site that will eventually be an amazing place to visit, but probably needs a couple more decades of growth before it can become really great, which could be said of the whole of the National Forest. Joining the route of the Ivanhoe Way I headed through more young woodland and through arable fields to eventually reach the edge of Ashby-de-la-Zouch. As I headed into the centre of this delightful market town I reflected that this is the third time I had entered Ashby and even though the walks had not always been great the town has always welcomed me. My entry into Conkers on this walk was under a veil of rain, which dampened my mood, but the weather improved later in the day along with the walk. This walk was in an area of Leicestershire that I hadn’t previously walked, but where I now feel a desire to return.