The Lost Villages of East Leicestershire 03/08/13

Plans for 2nd August fell away after the intense heat of the previous day, and no walking took place as I awoke with legs reluctant to move all that much, not coming right until the late afternoon, and the the only part of the day's plan was taking my Parents to dinner at the White House, an under-performing restaurant that has since found its way as a branch of Wetherspoon's. So my walking plan has to be pruned slightly to fit it in on Saturday, losing a couple of miles from a loop and re-directing to a new finish point and my target for the day is the rural landscape of East Leicestershire,  the side of the county that I considered home for over 20 years, to seek out some of the villages lost to history in the late Medieval period, swept away by enclosure and the change from arable farming to livestock. One side of the Explorer 233 plate shows at least a dozen of them, and a fascinating account of these by the antiquarian WG Hoskins should be read for a bit of background, before I set out in search of six of them, taking an early start in some much more hospitable weather.

The Lost Villages of East Leicestershire:
 Hamilton, Baggrave, Lowesby, Cold Newton, Quenby & Ingarsby   12 miles


Hamilton

I'm dropped off at 8.30am by my Mum, at the corner of Keyham Lane West and Hamilton Lane, just on the city boundary and only a mile or so from the family pile, and I set out along the second of these roads, a favoured cross-country sneak route north from this end of town, back in the day, taking care to avoid the traffic that is not expecting to see a walker at this time in the morning (or at all, for that matter). On past the grounds of Hamilton Community College, where I didn't go to school, and then past Hamilton Grounds farm, which was once owned by one of my nursery school teachers, if memory serves, and a short way beyond, in the lea of Melton Brook, is the deserted village of Hamilton. This was regularly pointed out to me on our trips out this way, and helped to give me the idea of a changing world and ordinary ancient sites that have been discarded by history, and it may look like lumps in the fields from ground level, but shows up pretty clearly on satellite pictures. I always thought it was too small to be a village, but it's easily comparable in size to the extent villages of Keyham and Hungarton, suggesting that there hasn't been a lot of growth in the local settlements in the last 500 years. Medieval Hamilton might only be known to the antiquarian, but its name has travelled, now attached to the recent housing development on the edge of Leicester, but it also went to Scotland, naming the town of Academicals fame, and thus on to Canada and New Zealand. Exploring the lumps in the fields is a non-starter today though, as the black cows in the field all take a stand that discourages me from venturing among them, and I hit the footpath that leads over the hill to Beeby, and going is slow as I take the route diagonally through a morass of God-knows-what, that feels like massive quantities of weeds grown as the field lies fallow, and I eventually have to find a vehicle-ground track to make easier progress after the clumps of thistles get too tall and challenging. The next field is even more comedic though, corn grown in neat horizontal rows and there's no way that can be traversed at the diagonal when they have grown as tall as I am, and I have no idea where the path exits the field, so hang to the boundary, figuring that there is no way I can get lost doing that, which proves correct.

Beeby

Entering Beeby parish, the growth turns to wheat and the path is clearly cut through the crops and the dried up ground surface proves to be the unknown quantity, but progress is easy again, and that's a relief. Good views emerge, with the hill of Billesdon Coplow looking huge despite its modest height, and a look back indicates the city to the west and the high lands of Charnwood Forest in the distance, all very familiar views from my youth. The passage to Beeby should be obvious, but I get confused for a moment when a huge pile of manure covers the track and I fail to get sight of my destination, but once back on course it's straightforward going all the way down to the village. Beeby does not count as a lost village, as it is still extent, but is about as barely there as a settlement can be and still be considered a village. No more than a dozen houses, and three farms, plus the church for which it is most notable with its stump of a spire and clock face with upside-down numbers, but a place I know well from Car Trek days, when on the first Friday of the Summer holidays, the social group of my parent's church would organise a treasure hunt around the country villages of the county, seeking the answers to many pun-heavy questions. I'm sure the inscribed water fountain was reference many times in those, and it was always a mild annoyance of mine that in the quarter century that it ran, my family only won it twice. After watering, it's on to find the footpath that shadows Croxton Road, a path that passes through the only sheep field in this parish that has remained largely arable, before traversing fields of what appear to be very under-size peas, but is probably rapeseed, dried out and ready for harvest. Strange to suddenly find a plantation of conifers when maps had not indicated the presence of such, and beyond is Beeby Grange farm, which was once at the heart of the pick-your-own fruit business, and I spent many summer days finding out that it is really hard work obtaining Strawberries, Blackcurrants and Raspberries for your mother's jam-making enterprises. All gone now, which saddens me, replaced by cash-crops, an expensive house in the country and a bird-scarer that looks like something off The Prisoner, and as the continuing path describes a straight line whilst the road zig-zags merrily, I consider that this track to be a right of way that predates enclosure.

Baggrave Hall

Broader farm tracks take over as I move over into the edge of the parish of South Croxton (pronounced Crows-tun), and the view over the village into the Wreake valley is the sort that Leicestershire does really well, spired church on the hilltop with the village cascaded down the surrounding southern slopes and showing very little late 20th century involvement. I move on along the bridleway, which takes a crazy detour around the extensive sheep rearing Waterloo Lodge Farm, and from there it's a long walk down the unattractive driveway to meet the edge of the Baggrave Hall estate, indicating carefully planted trees and that false sort of wildness, but also showing up the ridges of cultivation terraces that indicate the formerly arable character, ended after the dissolution of the lands owned by Leicester abbey in the 16th century and the passage into noble hands. Frustratingly, the site of the village is located beneath the lawn in front to the house, and it's hidden from view by a thick hedge of hawthorn and a bank of beech and fir, and no sight line towards it can be obtained from the road (and this estate has always been oddly paranoid about the general public loitering on their lands). So only a look at Baggrave Hall can be had, 18th century and Palladian, not my favourite sort of design and it's apparently suffered extensive internal damage from when it was under the ownership of  entrepreneur, fraudster and all-round swell guy, Asil Nadir. A public path goes along the north edge of the estate, between the long ornamental pond and Quenibororough brook, and it's the wildest corner of the estate offering few vistas that are not overgrown, and a confusing path redirection notice has to be absorbed before finding a plantation has been deposited over the old corse of the path. Easy enough to trace the new route to the fields though, and then follows a trek across half a dozen fields of empty pasture, with little excitement offered aside from trying to get site of the stiles between each of them. Eventually arrive in a field that does have cattle in it, and they seem to be paying me no mind as we're well out of angry cow season, but as I move into the empty half of the long field, a look back indicates that they are following me en masse and get more vocal and irritable as I move to leave the field, no danger of being stampeded but nonetheless odd, I guess not a lot of walkers come this way to disturb them. Plus whoever it was who installed a barbed-wire fence on both sides of the gate? Dude, not cool.

Lowesby Hall

Sight is now had of our next destination, and it's onto a better sort of track we go for a couple of fields before we meet a gate that has been conspicuously painted in British Rail blue marks our entry into the Lowesby hall estate. This is a much more impressive looking country seat, 18th century and built in brick, but without the austere classical forms of Baggrave, and looking altogether homely despite its size, it's also one of the major homes of the Quorn Hunt, which means it's owned by the sort of people that I know I detest. Nice grounds, nonetheless, with the lands to the west and north being the wilder sort of running grounds, with the formal gardens closer, with no real indication of where the right of way crosses the ground, right up by the walled garden it seems, and it would provide a view of the house unchanged in 200 years if it wasn't for the owner parking his 4X4 out front. Skirt around the formal grounds, noting the CCTV and security van that makes the passer-by feel less than welcome, and take a look to the north where Medieval Lowesby was to be found before its dispersal in the late 15th century, and there's not so much to see, so you decide that the concentration of wrinkles in the fields could not be coincidental, and move on into what still endures as a village. Admittedly, contemporary Lowesby makes Beeby look bustling, but it has a church and still retains civil parish status, so it's not to be counted as completely lost, even though everything except the church post-dates the old village by a couple of centuries. The Church of All Saints is beauty though, a prime example of Leicestershire's 14th century Perpendicular styling, built in Ironstone with accents in paler limestone, only possessing a squat tower in this case but still looking bulky and imposing despite its small size. A brief wander is to be had through the churchyard, but somehow lose the footpath and depart via the main gate, and then Lowesby can recede as I descend to cross Queniborough Brook again, ignoring the signs that indicate that the road is closed.

Cold Newton

The ascent to the next lost settlement takes us up Skeg Hill and the reason for the road closure becomes apparent, it seem that the cattle grid has been broken, one of the rails having sheared off at one end, and attempts to patch it up with a large piece of plywood have proved to be predictably unsuccessful. The field beyond again show up extensive cultivation terracing that has endured in the landscape due to not having been repeatedly ploughed over the last few hundred years, and you start to realise that is is only regularly visible in locations without a recent arable heritage, such as the Yorkshire Dales. It's a field full of sheep and cows and almost feels like a piece of common land, despite that sort of use being virtually non-existent in non-moorland areas, and the whole area around Cold Newton feels like it has been abandoned or at least forgotten about. Again, this is a settlement that is not strictly abandoned, as a far stands at top and bottom of the village, but aside from a few more recent buildings around the green, it looks like the village had the middle of it torn out, which is pretty much what did happen in the mid 17th century in the wake of enclosure. The upper farm, named Manor House, looks especially desirable if have a million pounds to burn on a fixer-upper, hard to tell how old it is, but late Tudor or early Stuart is my guess and a particularly haphazard sort of style, but looking semi-derelict or in the earliest stages of restoration at this time, and I would love to own it, so badly. Chalk that one up as 4368 on my list of desired properties, and move on through the old village centre, where vague earthworks indicate the former presence of buildings and your mind can toss around what it might have looked like in the distant past, whilst untended cows ruminate at the roadside. Habitation remains at the south end, and the Scheduled Ancient monument status has probably protected from a revival, and it recedes from view as Hungarton Road is met, and a look back at Highfield farm indicates the sight of more earthworks in the field facing the road.

Quenby Hall

Notice a change in the colour of the gates, from BR blue to red, and all emblazoned with a prominent Q which must mean we are moving into the estate of Quenby Hall, and a bridleway can be found that leads all the way down the back road to the house, and this is another country park with a pleasing lack of landscaping, allowing rough pasture and the remnants of cultivation terraces to remain. It's a long walk down in the direction of the house, always right again of us but obscured by trees the whole way so I don't get an idea of what to expect when it reveals itself, but I get a look when the bridleway moves to go cross country, and after a check to see the local cattle aren't in an ill temper, I finally get a look at the house as I move up to the edge of the southern garden. It's an absolute doozy, and I had no idea that there was such a large early 17th century Jacobean mansion in this county, and my inner Pevsner has a brief euphoric moment, it recalls the styling of Temple Newsam, but is more compact and imposing, with an impressive west front to boot, brick with stone accents and a prominent clock. Such a pity that such a building is not open to the public, but it could be yours as it is presently on the market if you have 11 million quid to burn, though '11 Bedroomed Detached Property' does seem to undersell it somewhat. Remembering that I'm looking for lost villages rather than country houses, a look to the south west is where Medieval Quenby was to be found, and you would have to be especially eagle-eyed to see any of the remaining earthworks hidden in the landscape, but as I'm not landscape archaeologist, I'll just trust my OS map as to the former presence of this one. Moving on, it's nice to meet a couple of other walkers out on the trail as I had imagined that I might have had East Leicestershire's trails all to myself, and I strike off the driveway to take the bridleway that leads cross country over to Ingarsby, and here's no trod to follow, but my homing instincts gets me over the first ridged and furrowed field before I get sight of a brick building and an odd modernistic box that reside on the edge of the settlement. Having figured that I might do the whole route without stopping, hunger pangs eventually stop me and I take lunch with sight of rain clouds about to come my way, but they decide to pass to the east and I get down to the bottom of the hill to cross the stream encountered at Hamilton, and on to the road to Ingarsby without getting wet.

Ingarsby

I didn't have much idea of what Ingarsby amounted to before my pre-walk research, mostly knowing that is had a railway station on the Great Northern Railway's branch of 1882 to Leicester Belgrave Road, a line only really ever useful for seaside specials and closed in 1962 because it didn't really go anywhere. The station and master's house are still present and occupied and amount to about half of the remaining village above the railway bridge, beyond is a sharply bending road hiding below tree cover and having black gates to indicate another estate change for those still taking notes. At the crest of the road you meet Ingarsby Old Hall, dating from the early Tudor period and actually having the feel of the home of the Medieval Lord of the Manor, rather than being a later and more stately house, and it's hard to get a good look at it due to the high perimeter wall. the real points of interest are to the south and a bridleway takes the walker right through them, this is the extensive site of Medieval Ingarsby, which has one of the clearest records of dispersal of all the deserted villages, abandoned in 1469 after the enclosure of the estate by Leicester Abbey, forcing the tenant farmers off the land to allow for the more profitable rearing of livestock. So ruination of communities for economic reasons is not just an accident of the late 20th century, and it's fun to toss the around the conflicting viewpoints of the wealthy screwing the poor for greater profits, versus the final end of serfdom and subsistence farming. The deserted village is a joy, scattered over the hillside facing to the southwest, once home to over 30 families, with obvious rectangular mounds indicating the house sites, with former streets and boundary ditches cut between them. It's another place that you really needed to have an antiquarian with you to give you the full flavour, but for the time I am there, it feels like very satisfying walk back in time. The stretch to the finish thus follows, taking the bridleway that leads past the Monk's Grave, and enclosure ditch and motte of uncertain vintage as I hadn't bothered checking up on it, and the bridleway continues via a gate that feels like it has been tied shut for quite a long time, before striking south past Redver's Farm, and the wheat fields of another arable parish, and then it's down to the A47 and a stride to the edge of Houghton on the Hill, to drop at my finish point outside the Rose & Crown, just before 2pm and mere minutes before my parents arrive to pick me up. Thus back to base and within an hour, back the the trail north and home, but with many thoughts for future exploits in the Old Country, a county I may have left behind, but one which is still residing in my deepest affections.

Next on the Slate: A Delayed Farewell to Wharfedale.


1,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 759.3 miles
(2013 total: 294 miles)