Blaby Oaks and Countesthorpe Country Park

A coronavirus walk

With the current restrictions because of the global pandemic I have been unable to do the sort of walking that I would like to do including not being able to go to Scotland at Easter. Instead I am stuck in my house and only able to go out for a walk locally for not much more than an hour. My first choice local walk is one that has previously been mentioned on this blog along Mill Lane between Blaby and South Wigston, just outside Leicester. To stretch my legs a little further I have been turning off Mill Lane onto a bridleway beside Blaby Cemetery with an old cemetery on other side that has recently been cleared of overgrowth to develop the site for wildlife. It now has bluebells and red campion growing in amongst the nineteenth century gravestones and looks delightful. At the top of the short incline is the Peace Meadow Garden where the path splits to go either side of a small space where one can sit in quiet contemplation. The path continues beyond leaving the new cemetery behind and passing beside a thin strip of young trees along a wide lane that provides plenty of room to keep the necessary two metre separation from other people that social distancing prescribes.

On reaching Hospital Lane the bridleway continues to the left on a grassy path for a short distance before ending opposite the entrance to Blaby Oaks. This is a Woodland Trust property and is often very muddy, as it was when this lockdown started after the huge amounts of rain we had over last autumn and winter, but the dry and sunny weather we’ve been enjoying over the last month has completely dried out the mud making the going a lot easier. The bridleway continues around the woodland but it is better to follow the main path into the wood beside a drainage channel and half way through the options open up to provide alternative paths to avoid other people. This woodland is still quite young so doesn’t have the appeal of ancient woods, but is still a good place to walk when the ground is dry. At the southern end of Blaby Oaks the bridleway turns left, but the field to the south is also open to the public. When I first came here I thought I might be trespassing, but the site has now been beautifully developed and a clear gravel path has been built with gates that allow passage into Countesthorpe Country Park.

This is a lovely place to walk with a pleasant parkland feel to it as I make my way along the path and into the next field where a wide mound has to be climbed. Here the path splits in two with the path heading to my right joining a right-of-way towards Winchester Road while keeping straight ahead passes a drainage pond and a second drainage pond can be seen in the adjacent field. I could extend the walk slightly by diverting into that field, but so far I have just climbed onto the mound created by the creation of the ponds and pass to the left of the first pond. There is a wood between the drainage pond and a new housing estate and this provides a much more pleasant walk than the tarmacked right-of-way that follows the edge of the estate. The wood seems fairly mature however it is littered with old plastic tree guards that have not been removed when they should have been, and the local youths have been at work remodelling the terrain for their own adrenaline-filled adventures.

With the nearby housing estate now clearly in sight, the field at the far end of the woodland provides more parkland walking and leads to the remains of an old railway line. The right-of-way crosses the line by an old bridge immediately before entering the residential streets of Countesthorpe, but a slender path has been forged alongside the old line. Within the deep cutting there is an abundance of wildlife while at the bottom pools of water remain where it can no longer drain, but this path keeps to the top of the cutting passing under gorgeous tree-cover beside the darkly enclosed cutting. The path weaves around the tree roots taking an interesting route through the delightful surroundings until eventually it climbs out and joins the bridleway encountered earlier at the point where it crosses the old railway line at the top of a small, shallow hill. Turning left I follow this path beside grassy fields with relatively extensive views ahead of me slowly descending until eventually I return to the southern tip of Blaby Oaks.

Taking a different route through the community woodland I veer left eventually coming out of the wood into the adjacent playing fields of Oakfield Park. After crossing the grass I am back on Hospital Lane and the wide lane that I was on earlier. An alternative route back would be to go along the narrow woodland strip of the Long Walk, however the access path is narrow which makes passing other people awkward at this time so I have been avoiding Long Walk and stayed on the bridleway until I reach a footpath at the edge of Blaby Cemetery. This takes me to the right angle in Long Walk where I can join the woodland path, or alternatively stay on the footpath, which takes me straight back onto Mill Lane. Although this is not a particularly long walk it does have a mix of terrain from grassy parkland to dark woodland including a tricky undulating path to tackle. It is difficult keeping away from people when on a narrow path, but a lot of this walk involves wide paths that provide easy social distancing, and while anywhere further afield is unavailable it is a good way to get my daily exercise.