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.