High Leicestershire: Billesdon to Great Dalby 24/03/14

Spring has sprung in the way it should, not bringing the blast of late winter like it did last year, but me being not the most ambitious of souls ensured that I had no serious plans afoot when the last week of holiday for the financial year came around. A shame, because this would be the sort of day to embark on a long distance trail, setting out your plans for the blooming Spring. Instead, I'm down country, visiting my parents whilst I'm NIW for the week, and realising that I have to temper my walking ambitions as I'm only a marathon's distance away from reaching my 1,000 mile target and it would not be the done thing for an odyssey that has been made of so many miles in the North Country to be completed in the Midlands. So, onto the summer list goes my 16 mile walk along the canal, and I look back to East Leicestershire for inspiration, and it might not be the highest portion of the county, a title claimed by the Charnwood Forest, it's a distinct (relative) upland that is broadly known as 'High Leicestershire' by the locals, our own slice of Alpine country (or Pyrenean if we want to be pedantic).

Billesdon to Great Dalby, via Tilton on the Hill, Marefield & Burrough on the Hill  11.5 miles

Billesdon village green

Three days into Spring and we've already had hours of sunshine when my Dad drops me off in the village square in Billesdon at 9.40am, and I pause for a few moments to take in my surroundings, across from the village green and the war memorial and in front of the pub, the New Greyhound. It's one of the more substantial villages along the main road between Leicester and Uppingham, but it's days as a wayside hostelry have long passed, even more so now that the A47 has bypassed the village, leaving its considerable collection of farm buildings and lodes to be used by the upwardly mobile. Indeed, on a bright day like this, its picturesque qualities are enhanced and looks like as desirable a town as you could want for, so it's a pity I can't linger for a journey through history, heading out along the Uppingham Road as far as the village cemetery (which I can immediately recall from Car Trek days), finding the bridleway that leads north to rise over the A47 and cross country towards Billesdon Lodge farm. I feel like I have cheated a bit on this venture into High Leicestershire, having picked a start point at an altitude over 170m, so my early ascents will be extra modest, but even when you are above the 200m contour, you can look over to Billesdon Coplow and think that it looks like a considerable hill, when it is only a modest 195m high, with its crown of trees giving it its extra height, and its placement at the western edge of the high lands making it distinctly prominent. My trail takes me along the edge of a plantation that hides the Seldom Seen Farm (another haunt from the days of gathering your own fruit), and the going is horrible, dry field replaced by a carved up quagmire, and on a rising track too so it's extra slow progress, and whilst I don't fall despite all the sliding, I still somehow manage to get my E233 OS map covered in mud, and I've no idea at all how that happened. Back to fields to traverse my way over to the B6047 Melton Road, and arriving on one of the flatter section of the high land, you can look out to see one of the primary uses of it, for we are in an empire of masts, for microwave and radio masts are visible in four directions, and once beyond the main road and Digby Farm, a good sightline is obtained towards Tilton on the Hill and the hills beyond. Which include Whatborough Hill, the highest of all the hills on this side of the shire, a modest 230m high, and lacking distinction because of the eye's inability to judge heights from a distance, but if the family myth is believed if you were to travel east on the same latitude, you would not reach a point of greater elevation until you reach the Urals, a quarter of the way across Russia.


Tilton on the Hill

A farm lodge building, passed by the footpath seems to have had an expensive executive makeover, looking like affine site in weather like today's, and it has had a considerable driveway installed, complete with caged trees, and that needs to be followed downhill to cross the branch of Eye Brook before a path needs to be beaten uphill towards Tilton. That involves crossing my first field full of livestock, placid sheep thankfully, admiring the craft and design of pylons, and noting the farmhouse with the outsize playhouse and undersized ponies in its grounds, and the fields past Skeffington Glebe Road (which I only mention because its name is amazing) require the avoidance of a farmer and his seed drill in one, and more herding sheep in another. Soon enough, the path rises to meet the edge of Tilton on the Hill, and I join Main Street, which doesn't really seem to be the main route through the village, walking up between the buildings in glowing Ironstone, up to St Peter's church, where to path takes me through the churchyard and alertness is needed as workmen are busy about the scaffold clad spire. I move up to the junction in the middle of the village, a good place to stop and water, opposite the Rose and Crown, and ponder that the available vistas do not give ample evidence that this is the highest village in the county (219m at its most elevated), and to me the land only appears high because I know it is. There are people to acknowledge out on their travels along here though, passing by on bicycle and horse, and I press north, getting a view that suggests that the next stretch of elevated land must include Burrough Hill, but the woodlands seem to be obscuring it, and whilst the busy Melton Road races past to my left, no view can be obtained towards the remains of Marefield Junction, the sizable railway triangle where lines to Leicester, Nottingham and Newark, and Northampton and Peterborough once converged. Before Marefield Lane takes me away from Tilton, a couple of thoughts still have to be rolled around, as it seems that council house even in the most pleasant of locations seem to be developed with minimal reference to style, but contemporary developers have made an effort in materials and accents to fit it, and even where they haven't, the last house on the right has massive picture windows to take in all the views towards the north of High Leicestershire and the Wreake valley beyond.


Marefield Lane

Descending Marefield Lane, Tilton rapidly recedes from view, and the traverse of the dip between Tilton and Burrough commences, almost to the point where you might consider yourself as leaving High Leicestershire, but that would spoil my thesis, so I'll ignore that fact, and note that this is another road which seems to have lost its function, nowadays acting only as an access route to Red Lodge Farm. I get a route division next, with the tarmac continuing eastwards, and my choice being the rough track of Marefield Lane or the footpath going cross country northwards, and I choose the track because I do enjoy the ancient tracks that somehow failed to get introduced to the modern world, not that this one is easy going, heavily rutted and still used by farm machinery as I have to dive out of the way of a descending tractor towing an agricultural gouging apparatus. I don't get views, but do enjoy seclusion as the track is enclosed by trees, so much to the point that as it passes Marefield and Black Spinneys, the visible surroundings do not change, and the one source of immediate interest is where the track dips below the embankment of the GNR & L&NWR joint line. Sadly the bridge is absent, demolished to allow the access of large farm vehicles, but this is not going to be our only interaction with this classic white elephant of a line, active from 1879 to 1964, so ruined bridge abutments will not be the sum for my day's railway relics. The track bottoms out twice, crossing branches of Gaddesby Brook, before rising to Hyde Lodge lane, and I turn west, not taking the shortest route possible, to enter the hamlet of Marefield, only a settlement of three farms and half a dozen houses, but as picturesque as can be in the spring sunshine, and the passing horse riders acknowledge me with a cheery 'It really has turned out nicely, hasn't it?'. Indeed, this is what spring should feel like.

John O' Gaunt Viaduct

Onward to aim under the Joint line with an acronym that is too long to type repeatedly, and this is a nicely preserved bridge, looking like it is built in alternating course of red and blue bricks, and the embankment dominates the locality, but still offers no views of the triangular junction or the GNR branch to Leicester. Rise up towards Twyford Road, looking west and noting that I'm only a mile distant from Lowesby, before turning attention north to await the appearance of John O' Gaunt viaduct, which my Dad assures me isn't there anymore, but I'm glad to find that he is wrong (almost certainly he was thinking of the viaduct at East Norton, recklessly demolished a decade or so ago). It would have been a tragic mistake to lose this 14 arched beauty, plainly styled in brick, though it's hard to tell if it's red brick or blue brick which has extensively weathered. I'm paying so much attention to it that I almost fail to notice the trailers parked by the roadside that have been there so long they have grass growing on them. A convenient bridleway takes me east, so that I can be led right beneath the viaduct, the sort of path that I love to find, even when it doesn't fit with the trajectory of my day, and it allows me to get another 700 pics or so into my file of various viaducts, and the bridleway leads me out across open field until the viaduct recedes from view, hidden by the folding landscape, and this is a good spot to stop for lunch. Never had pizza with a hot dog crust before, not sure if I will again, as eating over 70cm of low grade sausage cannot be good for you, and I ponder the Joint line as greenway option, thinking that if I landed a £108M lottery win, I could be tempted into burning it on a pathway that would link Leics, Notts, Lincs, Cambs and Northants. I also have no idea at all why the nearby settlement (to call it hamlet would overstate it) shares a name with John of Gaunt, third son of Edward III, first Duke of Lancaster and father of Henry IV, and of the division of the House of Plantagenet (he did die at Leicester Castle in 1399?).

Burrough Hill

Following refuelling, it's onward along the bridleway through another herd of sheep and an undulating filed of tame horses to meet Dawsons Lane by White House farm, and this seems to be another Leicestershire country lane that attracts no traffic whatsoever, so easy going as we descend to the bottom of the day's route, crossing Gaddesby Brook at only 116m up. Then the long, but relatively easy, ascent towards Burrough on the Hill starts, and a climb of 90+m in this county turns out to be much easier than it is in, say, Calderdale, but it can prove beastly to the cyclist as my Sister found out to her discomfort a few weeks back. My road walk takes me as far as Burrough Court farm, which really looks like it has been completely rebuilt on its original plan in new materials, oddly, and a field walk over to Burrough is made much easier with the line of the path having been burned in with weedkiller (though the plant growth is not above a couple of inches at this time of year). This leads me into the village behind someone's back garden, and then through what feels like the back yard of what transpires to be one of the most attractive terraces that I have seen anywhere, Indeed this is another village to win on the attractiveness stakes (if you ignore the council bungalows), with enough sandstone buildings to make you feel like you never need to visit the Cotswolds, and an outsized and Italianate pile standing opposite the church of St Mary the Virgin, and Grant's free house offering another destination for my High Leicestershire pub crawl. Leave the village via Somerby Lane, which finally offers a view over to Burrough Hill, with its Iron age fort atop it, and also giving me my first prominent edge that really gives you a sense of altitude that has been conspicuously absent through the day, and looking south give some extra definition to the distant high lands around Tilton, and also emphasises that Burrough stands on a steeply sided hill, the scale of which you do not appreciate when approaching it from the south.


Burrough Hill Iron Age Fort

Having had enough of dodging the traffic whilst attempting to photograph the views, it's time to hit the footpath past the underground reservoir and through the fields of farm debris to meet the path that leads up tot the Burrough Hill country park, which is securely guarded by another flock of sheep. I cannot be honestly sure if I have ever visited this site before, and if I have not that is some sort of mistake, as it's the sort of site which the family used to visit in other parts of the country. It all seems extremely novel to me as I meet the main entrance of the Iron Age hill fort, extremely well preserved despite being abandoned in the medieval period and not being enclosed until the 17th century. I immediately climb to the 210m summit at the trig point and am glad that I chose to stick with wearing the woolly hat and gloves as a wicked wind tears in from the south and rips up the steep sides of the hill. Dive to a sheltered spot for a second shot at lunch, and to call the parents with a progress report, before ascending to walk around the high rampart wall that surrounds the substantial enclosure, and its location as a defensive site is obvious as it is only easily approachable from the east, and commands views through a 270 degree panorama, looking from High Leicestershire in the south, round over the distant towers of the city and the granite bulk of Charnwood Forest, to the distant Soar valley and the Wreake valley to the north. The viewpoint rose suggests Lincoln Cathedral can be seen, but the most obvious thing in that direction is the transmitter at Waltham on the Wolds, and the whole vista is one that I could enjoy for an age, but I need to move on to my finish point and to get out of the wind, so I'll make my way along the rampart of this univallate fort, making three-quarters of a circuit before dropping down to make a descent through the steep valley to the north.

Great Dalby village green

The track I am aiming for is listed as an 'other route with public access' on E233, but the way-marked paths on the ground seem to fall on either side of the one on the map, so I err between them, descending over rutted turf and between gorse bushes to eventually run out of path and have to make a cut across a ditch and down a field track to meet Burrough Road at the correct point on the map, but uncertain if I was ever on the right track. Set course for Great Dalby, which means taking a field walk to avoid Moscow farm, emerging by the barns where extensive log processing is going on and taking the farm track that rises in the direction of Melton Lane, and looking back you get views of Burrough Hill, looking like a hillfort again once the profile re-emerges from the trees which cover its northern flank. Northwards the view open out to the Wreake valley and the town of Melton Mowbray reveals its size, and the large level area that sits between me and them from the site of Melton Airfield, once home to Leicestershire's legendary bank holiday markets back in my childhood days. I think we can count ourselves at the limit of High Leicestershire once the main road is met, and it's the first yellow road that has a lot of traffic on it, so care is needed as we tramp down into the village, and do I need to note that this is yet another extraordinarily pretty settlement? Less by way of ironstone buildings here, but we do have thatch for extra quaintness and a number of imposingly tall Georgian farmhouses, and the village green is a sight of blossoming spring, with daffodils surrounding the war memorial, and I'm delighted that the day has managed to keep its brightest face on for the whole day. Only one more corner to traverse, down past the church and meeting the B6047 for the last time, to find my patents awaiting me in the yard of the Royal Oak, in their car rather than with drinks in hand, but it's 2.40pm, just a little later than my overall scheduled arrival, but it is only one hour out from my phone call, so my personal reputation as a punctual and predictable walker continues.

Next on the Slate: EDIT. Back Up Country for Two Three Collieries, One Two Railway(s) and a no Stately Home(s) (Sorry Temple Newsam, you'll have your day at a later date).


1,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 985 miles
   (2014 total: 71.8 miles)