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.