Take a walk on the wild side
NIGEL HEATH sets out on the second part of his cross Britain walk, heading from Boston to Barmouth
IT WAS to be a day of new beginnings and some sad memories as we walked out from the Leicestershire village of Redmile on a crisp January morning.
Ahead lay our day’s trek along the half-frozen Grantham Canal, where ducks found it difficult to dabble, as it wound its way through the Vale of Belvoir.
Behind, on a distant hill, rose the unmistakable outline of Belvoir Castle.
That was the first landmark on our new 280-mile Macmillan Way Association Cancer Support walk from Boston, in the vast flatness of the Lincolnshire fens, to Barmouth on the Irish Sea.
As the light was beginning to fade, a dog walker told us there was a new teashop ahead in the canal basin at Hickling, but we’d have to hurry because it closed at 4pm.
Luckily, we made it just in time. This turned out to be a most welcome new venture by former paper merchant Chris Grice, who’d converted a derelict grain and coal store he’d spotted while cycling along the canal.
Across the basin was The Plough Inn where landlady Nichola Thompson’s young Cockapoodle called Peanuts had just learned to bark and took great exception to my walking friend Peter’s furry hat, which had fallen on the floor.
Earlier, we’d come across a poignant memorial to the crew of a Lancaster bomber which crashed while returning from France in 1943. Six young men died while one survived, but it was heartening to see fresh wreaths laid at the scene after all these years.
We spent the night at Peacock Farm in Redmile, a B&B run by Nicki Wainwright, who kindly drove out with her husband Steve to pick us up, so leaving us free to drive Peter’s car back to Hickling to resume our walk the following morning.
Now, we climbed steadily up along a spur of the rolling Leicestershire wolds with magnificent views on either side – and another small adventure just ahead. One feature of winter walking is that most cattle are kept indoors, not that I have ever had the slightest hesitation about walking quietly through grazing cows. However, highly inquisitive and frisky horses I do find more challenging. Two such magnificent animals were occupying a small field ahead and I could see they were in a playful mood! I was quickly over the stile and walking on as they approached but Peter was not so lucky, having to fend off their probing noses as he completed the manoeuvre. But he is far more at ease with horses than I and chatted to them as we passed through their paddock. A whole series of bright yellow footpath marker posts kept us en route throughout the day but then a shortage of accommodation forced us to divert off the path to spend the night in the village of Remstone. Rejoining the path the following misty morning, we made our way to Normanton-on-Soar and stopped for coffee on a seat in the parish churchyard close to the rain-swollen river, and here I spotted my first snowdrop of the year.
A watery sun appeared as we crossed the Soar on a series of weir bridges and headed for Hathen where, early in the 19th century, the Reverend March Phillips became so fed up with the cock-fighting and drunken brawling in his churchyard that he declared the village to be a ‘wicked place.’
The enticing appeal of a log fire, a couple of pints and a bowl of soup caused us to tarry longer than was prudent in the Plough Inn at Diseworth, for which we later paid a heavy price as we laboured up hill and down dale over muddy fields.
A golden sun just above the horizon and directly ahead made it
difficult to spot the yellow post footpath markers in crossing hedgerows so it was almost dark when, at last, we reached a road.
Ahead, where lights were beginning to twinkle, was the historic village of Breedon on the Hill and I cursed about ‘villages on Breedon hills’ as we climbed wearily towards it – but a rich reward for our day’s labours lay in store.
Here, our overnight stay was at a Breedon Hall, a magnificent Georgian mansion, lovingly rescued and restored from an office complex by Charles and Charlotte Meynell and now a luxury B&B complete with lovely period furnishings.
Our penultimate day on the trail was to prove the most scenic as we climbed to the Iron Age Breedon hill fort with lovely views, and descended through fields to Melbourne – and its stately lakeside Melbourne Hall. This was the family seat of William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, who gave his name to an Australian city and was the young Queen Victoria’s first Prime Minister, played by Rufus Sewell in the top-rated TV series. From here, we walked beside the Stanton Harold reservoir and through woodland to reach the National Trust’s massive Calke Abbey House set in acres of estate parkland. Sitting and leaning against a fence, we feasted in the park on cheesy scones, bought earlier at the reservoir visitors’ centre, before following a section of the Robin Hood’s Way into the historic market town of Ashby-de-laZouch for our final night’s stay. Somewhere just a little further on the way to the village of Coton in the Elms, we would be completing our first one hundred miles – well on our way to cross Britain.