Peatling Parva Circular

Mon, 2013 May 13 9:51 AM Western European Time

Led by Barry. With me and Gordon. Fine, with a few showers. 11.6 miles. 433 feet of ascent. A small LR section.

We parked in Peatling Parva, which is actually quite big.  

The seat looks inviting, but we've only been walking two minutes!

Our route is out of the village on the road towards Ashby Magna for almost a mile. Then we turn left on a track to Gilmorton.  

These are less intrusive than the motorway noise.

This is the second track on the left.  We follow it due south for about a mile, before turning right, then left then curving round south west into Gilmorton , an attractive village. We walk through an alleyway and on to Turville Rd, turning left at Ashby Rd, across Main Street.

Gilmorton

 Soon we turn right along Church Lane.

The path turns right just after a house called Moatfield. In the field is - a moat.

The remains of the moated area.

We wander round it before following the path behind the big house and garden, through some trees to a corner of the Ullesthorpe Rd. Our route lies straight ahead, diagonally over a field, then turning right to folllow the hedge, past some farm buildings and into an open field.

Here we have some debate about the route. The paths haven't been remade, but with a little map and grid ref work we have a plan.  We turn left and follow the edge of the field and turn right at the end to join the proper route.

We are now on a bridle way leading almost due west as far as Cotes-de-val.   We ponder the meaning of the name - slopes of the valley/ sides of the valley -  both sound a bit contrived. It turns out that the place was once lived in by a Cotes family. By 1279 it was referred to as Cotes Deyvill.  It was depopulated between the Black Death (1348) and the early 1500s.

We don't detour to look at the moat marked on the map, as our route turns right here and north to the Gilmorton Road.

We turn left, and then right  and walk along the field boundary- but miss our turning to the right. Ok, it's nestled in the hedge, and not immediately obvious. The long and short of it is we notice that we're getting too close to the motorway, and have to retrace our steps, promising ourselves that we'll take a break as soon as we're back on track. We soon find a sheltered and sunny spot.

The path is clear now and we soon arrive at Ashby Magna.

Another timbered building

A post-break break

We go down to Gilmorton Road, turn right then left on Peveril Road, and then left along Old Forge Road. Our path is between Ashby House and the old Forge, and heads north along a track for half a mile or so.  When we meet the waymarker for the Leicestershire Round we turn right to go north east. 

We cross a field with horses in it, then go over a stile into Holly Farm Fishery. A man catches a two-pound carp which he returns to the water.

Not quite so colourful as last October

Another stile, another field and we arrive at the road. We turn left and walk for a few yards to the junction. Our path goes to the right of the hedge.  It's clearly marked and easy to follow, although there are cows there.  They think we want to herd them into the next field, but go peacefully enough.
We follow our route into Willoughby Waterleys along an alley with pansies and dustbins.

We go past the General Elliott of Gibraltar renown.

Our path goes past the church and old rectory.

We walk eastwards, slightly uphill over fields towards Peatling Magna. In a field ahead we think we spy a scarecrow -

but it's moving, and very deliberately. Light dawns - it's a metal detective.

We leave the Leicestershire Round briefly and detour to look at Peatling Magna church.

We take a footpath across the fields to rejoin the Round at the crossroads, and follow it again for a mile. We leave it for good today, by turning right across the stream, below Grange Farm. Almost immediately we turn left and follow the footpath through several fields and then behind Peatling Hall with its fine gardens.

Peatling Hall

the gardens

When we reach the road we turn left and downhill to return to the car.

Map and details

Leics Round 2: Bruntingthorpe to Frolesworth

With Marta. Weather fine, sunny, still a cool wind. Muddy underfoot in places. A flat walk. Lunch at the White Horse, Leire. 9.5 miles.

Blue skies as we make our way towards Peatling Magna

We left Bruntingthorpe along the marked footpath just after the last house on the road north towards the Peatlings.  The path crossed three fields in a north westerly direction, before meeting a stream and heading due north and then slighty to the west again. At this point there is a Telephone Exchange building uphill to the right.  We had no problem following the path here  and it brought us out just before Peatling Magna at a cross roads.  We walked into the village, and turned left just before Postal Cottage.

The drive leads on to an open field, and over to the right where it meets a hedge.  We followed the hedge west to the hedged track called Mere Lane (note to self – not Mare Lane!).  We turned right along the track for a hundred yards or so, then turned left towards Willoughby Waterleys. 

We did wander off-track briefly – blame the way markers for another path which were more obvious – at the time, to us.  It didn’t take long to realize what we’d done, and we entered the village near the church, and followed the path through the churchyard to the main street.

Willoughby Waterleys Church

National Cycle Network Millennium post

They've altered Gibralter

We went past the General Elliott pub, and Orchard Road and turned right (south west) at the footpath sign.

Ha! spot the sign!

Along the tarmac path, which led into an open field – again we went slightly off track following the very clear path straight ahead and over the stream, instead of turning left.  Once again we soon realized our error and made our way back to the junction of Cosby Lane with the main Willoughby- Ashby road.

We walked along the road towards Ashby for about three hundred yards, then turned right over an almost hidden stile.  We crossed a field and then climbed another stile into the beautifully landscaped area of the Holly Farm Fishery.  A convenient bench, and our coffee stop chose itself.

In spite of the warm sunshine, we soon chilled while sitting down, and moved on, through the stile on the opposite side of the fishery.  Here we met some horses who seemed very interested in us,  but were persuaded to move.  One of them proceeded to show his contempt by a virtuoso performance of petomania.  A most musical horse.

After this we walked over a field, and crossed a green lane, then carried on south west with the noise from the M1 growing ever louder.  We crossed a small road, then followed the path alongside and slightly lower than the motorway.  We went up a flight of steps, which took us on to the Ashby to Dunton Bassett road bridge over the M1.

We turned sharp left after the disused railway line, then headed to the right across the field, and in the next field followed the right hand hedge. We had to cross the A426, turn left and then right . The footpath follows the field boundary, then crosses another field before arriving at Main Street. The church is over to the left.

Dunton Bassett

Dragon on roof

We walked through the village, past the DBA (Dunton Bassett Arms, and downhill. When the road turns left, we carried straight on along the bridle way to Stemborough Mill.

This path is indicated with blue way markers and leads a little north of west alongside large fields, before reaching houses and ponds.

The path turns left and follows a minor road south for half a mile or so, then turns right and after another few hundred yards reaches a crossroads. We turned left into Leire (said Leer) and decided it was lunchtime. Panini in the White Horse fitted the bill, and the staff were very pleasant - the salad was fresh too!

Just after the White Horse, we turned right into Station Lane, past Wales Orchard, continuing straight along the track.  We crossed the disused railway track and in the next field we headed for the opposite corner and came out on the road, a little short of the true path – we looked back a few hundred yards further on, and could see the way markers from the other direction – another very slight deviation.

From Hillcrest Farm we walked along the road into Frolesworth village.

Almshouses in Frolesworth

Map and details