Land of the fallow and red
Come spring, this vast parkland on the outskirts of Leicester erupts into life – deer roam and graze the grassy slopes, leaves unfurl and cuckoos return with their nostalgic song,
Bradgate Park, Leicestershire
Asmall herd of red deer bounds through bracken blanketing the hillside. Children play on the banks of a meandering river under gnarled oak trees, where lime-green leaves are emerging for their 500th spring.
A keen ear catches the call of a cuckoo returning from its winter migration. These sounds and sights of spring can be found a short 2.4km from the outskirts of Leicester, in Bradgate Park, an accessible wilderness once described by Sir David Attenborough as “a vision of what the English countryside could be like”.
HUNTERS OF THE PAST
The park was donated to the people of Leicester in the late 1920s by businessman and philanthropist Charles Bennion. The first written record of the park dates to 1241, when the Earl of Winchester was given the rights to ‘take deer with nine bows and six hounds’. However, the history of this area is far older; archaeological digs have found relics of Palaeolithic hunters, some 15,000 years ago. This band of hunters butchered deer and worked their skins in the Little Matlock area, so named because of its likeness to the Peak District. People visited here throughout prehistory, with signs of settlement in the vicinity of Old John Tower dating to the Iron Age.
In the south of the park, Bradgate House – the former childhood home of Lady Jane Grey, queen for just nine days in 1553 – has lain abandoned since 1720. This red-brick building, one of the first of its kind in England, now lies in ruins and attracts almost as many photographers as the park’s population of red and fallow deer.
HIGH ON THE HILL
The best way to explore this 336-hectare site is on foot. Start from the car park at Newton Linford and climb up to Old John Tower for views over the rocky hillside and down to the plains. Descend the hill to the reservoir’s clear blue waters, then grab a quick cuppa at the tearooms before following the path to the ruins of Bradgate House.