Skeffington - Rolleston - Noseley - Skeffington

Mon, 2014 Mar 3 9:26 AM GMT

Led by Barry, with me and Gordon. Mostly road walking as ground is still wet, and bridleways are hoof-battered in places. About 8 miles in fine sunny weather. Warm in places too! 642 feet of climbing.

We walk through Skeffington and past the church to the village green with the circular seat. Here we turn left along the Gated road to Rolleston.  The road heads south downhill past Vale Cottages, further down and across a bridge over a stream.  The second gate we meet takes us into the Rolleston Estate, with its posts along the road verges, and recently planted trees to form an avenue.  Lots of horses and horse jumps - we see a four horse carriage practising on a nearby field.

We carry on towards the hall, taking the road signed to New Inn. Just before we meet the bigger public road our route turns sharply to the left, still within the Estate.  We follow this to Top Lodge, where we turn left along the Avenue, past the entrance to Noseley Hall to our right, past Nether Cottages (with the date 1937) on our left, and then past the turning to Goadby on our right.  

Soon after this our path leaves the road and makes its way uphill between two hedges on our left. As the bridleway has been very much used by horses we walk up on the other side of the hedge and manage to regain our correct route nearer the top. Through a muddy gate and we're in open country - not bad underfoot, and a good view.

Sunny and sheltered - time for coffee and cake? 

We head downhill to the yellow marker post, then cross a bridge and follow the bridleway which turns into farm track and takes us without much trouble back to Rolleston. This time we pass the lake.

There's a path to Tugby off to the right. Not ours. We stick with the Estate road until it bends round to the left. Our original plan is to take the footpath off to the right - but we turn back after a short distance, put off by yet more muddy fields. 

Instead we follow the gated road back to Skeffington, retracing the beginning of the walk. Although inevitably this goes uphill,  the ending is less strenuous than Thursday's walk.

Map and details

A walk from 2009