The Ivanhoe Way, section seven

Saturday 2nd July 2016

Just one week after my aborted walk on section six of the Ivanhoe Way I was back at the car park for the Billa Barra Local Nature Reserve to resume my circuit of the long distance trail. Unfortunately this is not a particularly interesting section as it passes through many farmers’ fields that I find rather dull mainly because of their lack of wild flowers. The weather was no help with largely overcast skies and only an occasional bit of sunshine. Soon after starting I turned off the road into a delightfully wild area that has a wonderfully abandoned look about it, just north of the village of Stanton under Bardon. The course of a mineral railway for the Old Cliffe Hill Quarry passes through this area that is delightfully being reclaimed by nature to produce a fascinating area to wander through, but is sadly far too small and I was soon passing between the back of the village and allotments. A track follows the edge of the village to enter a typical National Forest Wood after crossing a road.

The ground underfoot in this wood was particularly wet and boggy so left my shoes saturated by the time I emerged from the wood and entered the first of the arable fields that typifies this part of the Ivanhoe Way. Just before reaching the village of Bagworth I encountered the National Forest Way, which heads north towards Bagworth Wood with a variation of the Ivanhoe Way. Since I had taken that route while on the National Forest Way I decided to head straight on, passing under the Ivanhoe railway line and into the village of Bagworth. There I was joined by the Leicestershire Round trail that follows the Ivanhoe Way for the next five miles almost all the way to the end of section seven at Shackerstone. I was captivated by the lovely, little blue flowers that filled the first couple of fields out of Bagworth and I was curious about what there were until I discover a label that identified them as linum usi, or in other words, flax and used to make linseed oil.

After passing through another young wood: Underhills, that has a picturesque pond in the middle of it, the trail passes through more dull fields. On the approach to the village of Nailstone I had to battle through several fields of dense, overgrown oilseed rape so that although some ox-eye daisy started appearing in gaps between the rapeseed I was greatly relieved when I finally reached All Saints Church in Nailstone. This ended section six of the Ivanhoe Way, but I didn’t stop there as I continued on passing a charming arrangement of poppies at an overgrown road corner on the outskirts of Nailstone. Before reaching the hamlet of Odstone I could see a field that was full of red flowers, presumably poppies, but frustratingly there was no way that I could get there as there is no public access. It was annoying that I couldn’t get a closer look at what must be a charming wildflower meadow.

There was nothing else of interest in section seven of the Ivanhoe Way until the Leicestershire Round finally parted company to take a different route into the village of Shackerstone as I came off a farmer's track to follow a footpath through more oilseed rape that eventually brought me into Shackerstone where the preserved Battlefield Line Railway has its base. The Ivanhoe Way officially ends in Shackerstone, however since I had started my circuit with section four I had not finished yet, but I had finished for this walk. Now I needed to get back to Billa Barra so I joined the Leicestershire Round heading out of the village, briefly beside the Ashby Canal before rejoining the Ivanhoe Way back towards Odstone. I didn't want to stay on the Ivanhoe Way all the way back to Billa Barra as I parted company in Odstone and took an easy footpath that passes Odstone Barn Farm until just before I reached a sewage works.

The path between a stream and the access road for the works was completely overgrown with deadly hemlock, stinging nettles and thorny bramble. Unfortunately such overgrown paths are not unusual at this time of the year. After crossing a main road, I entered a large wood that is part of the National Forest and encircles Ibstock Grange. In Workman’s Wood there was no sign of a path and I had to battle through tall grass until I was able to cross a fence into Battram Wood where I could continue easily through the wood to the far end at Pickering Grange Farm. On passing an old clay pit I saw many ox-eye daisies in an area that appears to have been left to go wild, and as always it doesn’t take long for nature to produce a fabulous display. After crossing the Ivanhoe railway line again I encountered another heavily overgrown path that follows the railway line into New Cliffe Hill Quarry.

At one point I saw a bank of spotted-orchids that had me enraptured. I love these flowers that until the week before on Bardon Hill I had only ever seen on rare moments in the Highlands of Scotland, but I was now seeing great swathes of them in Leicestershire. The weather gradually improved during the afternoon so that by the time I was walking around the edge of New Cliffe Hill Quarry it was sunny with clear views over the largely flat terrain to the south as I walked past fields that had recently been cut for silage with the black plastic bales still sitting in the fields. This walk ended with a circuit through the woodland that has been created to screen the quarry and is a familiar route, but a nice end to a long walk. Overall this wasn’t a great walk, and the Ivanhoe Way was particularly poor, but there were moments of interest and there is something about a really long walk that is invigorating.