Great Glen and Wistow

Saturday 16th May 2020

From 13th May, the restrictions that had been in place due to the coronavirus began to be lifted in England and I took advantage of this by going for a walk with someone who is not from my household though still maintaining social distancing. I normally work with this person, but had not seen them for several months, so it was good for us to be able to meet up together and go for a walk. We didn’t go far and in fact I came to him. He lives in Oadby, which, just like where I live, is just outside Leicester, and I met up with him beside the busy A6 dual carriageway that goes through the town. Crossing over the road we headed onto a footpath that follows the Wash Brook through a delightful tree-lined strip between housing estates. My colleague was astounded there was something like this so close to his house and he didn’t know. I don’t know Oadby very well and had simply looked at a map of the area t to devise the walk. I didn’t know what we were going to find and was also astonished that such a path in wild surroundings exists. Following the Wash Brook upstream we eventually left the urban conurbation behind and delved into the countryside of Leicestershire.

After crossing a bridleway near Oadby Lodge Farm we were confused about the continuing route which the map indicates crosses the field, but there was no sign on the ground. We were able to follow the field edge but with no sign where the path exits the field we ended up back at the bridleway. Mystified, we continued along the bridleway to Gartree Road where we turned right passing Leicester Airport and the site of the medieval village of Stretton Magna. Opposite a road junction we turned right onto another bridleway past a magnificent line of trees with distinctive tall white flowers that I wish I could have identified, but I had to plead my ignorance, however now that I have had a chance to look it up they would appear to have been horse chestnut trees. We continued along the bridleway for more than a mile not far from the River Sence until we reached the village of Great Glen, which we passed through and over the A6 road again to head out beside a country lane. Just before we reached the site of the Great Glen railway station we took a footpath across several fields, over the railway line and after crossing the Grand Union Canal we came into Wistow.

This is another deserted medieval village and is somewhere I have walked, across the meadows beside the River Sence, many times since I was a child, though not in recent years so it was good for me to return. We crossed the wildflower-filled meadows down to the River Sence and from there followed the footpath beside the river up to the road where I could see a new feature in the landscape that I had not seen before. In the grounds of Newton Harcourt Manor a futuristic house has been “built to the highest standards and embraces the latest technologies to achieve a very high level of low carbon design”, unfortunately I was not impressed so quickly made my way up the road past the old church and over both the canal and the railway line. After a short walk along a path beside the railway line we passed through the village of Newton Harcourt and onto a bridleway that steadily climbs beside field edges before heading up to Mere Lane on the edge of Glen Gorse Golf Course. A quick crossing of the golf course showed us that we were not the only ones taking advantage of the loosening of lockdown with several people playing on the course.

The footpath soon reaches Coombe Park on the edge of Oadby and when my colleague eagerly realised that we were near his house he left the path and entered the park, but we later discovered that it would have been better to keep to the footpath beside the tree-lined edge of the park rather than cross the playing fields. Emerging onto the road near Beauchamp College I finally parted company with my colleague as I headed down to my car and he returned home. During this walk I had endeavoured to show him the walks that are available to him in his local area and since then he has been taking his family for other walks in the area inspired by this one. For me it was interesting to explore a part of Leicestershire that I was not as familiar with and to revisit Wistow where I had not been for many years, although some of the changes were not to my liking. At this time when we are trying to limit our exposure to the coronavirus it is still important to get some exercise and it is providing us all with the opportunity to discover what is in our local area.