The Soar Valley Meadows

Saturday 9th July 2022

The River Soar drains most of Leicestershire and runs through the city of Leicester north into a floodplain rich in meadows, many now nature reserves, and are a fabulous sight in the summer so I was keen to explore them. I have walked from the town of Loughborough, in the north of the county, into the city on several occasions, some of them, including in 2015, by following the River Soar all the way past these meadows, but I had never done the walk in the other direction, from the city, so last summer I thought I’d take advantage of the hot, sunny weather to do a walk through the Soar Valley floodplain. The hot weather last summer soon put a stop to my walking as it became too hot to walk, but this walk was right at the beginning of the heatwave and, although it became rather too hot later in the day, it didn’t stop me doing this mammoth walk. I started from Leicester railway station, heading through the centre of the city to the canal that skirts around Abbey Park. Instead of entering the park, I walked along the towpath and already I was on an idyllic stretch of canal with thick tree cover and high buildings to my left, including the tall Wolsey Chimney that is all that remains of the once dominant textile industry in Leicester. Soon after the River Soar joined the canal, the first of the meadows appeared to my left as a wide grassy plain with a pond not far from the river.

This is Ellis Meadows, which was recently created as part of a flood alleviation scheme and already has extensive areas of wildflowers, mainly knapweed at this time of the year. After a quick walk around the meadow I returned to the river and continued downstream, over the old Belgrave Bridge and into Little Mead. This stretch of the river was marred by construction sounds but gloriously overgrown and was a good place to walk. Giant bindweed and great willowherb could be seen by the river while later was the unmistakeable whiff of invasive balsam. After passing under Watermead Bridge I entered the vast Watermead Country Park with its twelve lakes and smaller ponds and was quite a maze for me navigate through. I wandered around for a while, stopping off on a mound that commanded views across part of the park, before seeing a sign for the Watermead Memorial Walk, which was recently constructed to remember those who died in the coronavirus pandemic. This seemed a great idea and I followed the line of trees but soon lost trace of the route so I returned to the canal and followed that to try and keep heading north. At a sign for Meadow Lane Car Park I left the canal, where it turns east, so I could keep north, ignoring the car park, until eventually I came upon Wanlip Meadows, which is a small nature reserve that is mainly grassland with plenty of dock plants scattered around and the accompanying chirp of insects.

Back in the park, I continued to meander through and eventually reached the canal again which I followed out of the park. The views across the lakes in the park were great but it was rather busy so I didn’t want to stop. While walking along the towpath I could hear a constant noise of insects from the fields alongside and while many of those meadows seemed to be rich in wildflowers unfortunately there was no access. Later I left the canal to cross over to Cossington Meadows Nature Reserve where I stopped to have my lunch and rest from the heat that was now building up. When I resumed my walk across the reserve I was frustrated at not being able to see much as I walked along wide, stony tracks between high hedges. However, after a crossing the views seemed to open out but I had actually gone the wrong way and soon the houses of Sileby came into view and I had to turn back. After taking the correct turning at the crossing I returned to the river and continued my exhausting trek north, but soon I came away again to explore Mountsorrel Meadows. This was a fabulous area, full of flowers, including willowherb, giant hemlock, thistles and nettles, and was an interesting area to explore, but far too small and soon I was back beside the river continuing my trek north. Unfortunately there were no more meadows for me to see, so I just kept on going beside the river, though still with some good vegetation to decorate the scenery despite now walking on grazed grass.

There was a lot of activity on the river as I passed through Barrow-upon-Soar where the towpath is not easy to follow, but after negotiating through the maze and out the other side I had a blissful walk through the oppressive heat all the way to Loughborough. There is another large meadow on the northern edge of the town, but it was now too hot to walk anywhere so I came off the canal to visit the local GO Outdoors store and eventually walked to the railway station where I caught a train back home. Once the heat had begun to kick in, around noon, it was too hot to do much walking and it was surprising how quickly I started to become tired. It was great to see the wildflowers in the meadows and beside the river, but it was too variable and failed to compensate for the heat.