After a 2 month gap, we finally found the opportunity to
complete the next leg of the Leicestershire Round on Saturday 4th June 2016. Various reasons
had stopped us continuing our challenge – working patterns, holiday, injury –
but we finally found the time today.
The weather was perfect for long distance walking - fairly warm with a light breeze but a
bit overcast. It was quite misty all day so
we were unable to clearly see the excellent views of the
surrounding countryside which was disappointing. This section was the most
hilly so far and we seemed to be continually either ascending or descending a hill. Throughout the walk
the air was full of lovely birdsong including the Yellowhammer and Skylark.
East Langton to Thorpe Langton
We set off early from East Langton, which is one of a group
of South East Leicestershire villages collectively named as “The Langtons”, the
others being Thorpe Langton, West Langton, Tur Langton and Church Langton. With the exception of West Langton, each has its
own distinctive village pub. This was quite
a short easy section. To our right there
was a pretty fishing lake. We entered
Thorpe Langton at the side of St Leonards Church and took a short walk through
the village, leaving it close to its village pub – The Bakers Arms. |
| Fishing Lake between East Langton and Thorpe Langton |
Thorpe
Langton to Stonton Wyville
This section took us over the Langton Caudle, a small hill
to the north with a height of 147 meters.
On the map there is a shorter, flatter route to the west of the hill and
may have been tempted to take this if we had been ending our walk, but we stuck
to the route and were well rewarded with views, albeit misty ones, over the Welland Valley. A windmill once stood on the top of Langton
Caudle. On a clear day, it would have been possible to see all the
Langton church steeples from the top – but we will have to make a return trip on a clearer day to see that. The route up was a gentle climb and the
caudle contains hedged fields so many of the views are not possible before
reaching the summit, where there is a trig point. The route down towards Stonton Wyville was
much steeper |
| View towards Thorpe Langton from Langton Caudle |
 |
| Paul at the trig point on Langton Caudle |
Stonton
Wyville to Cranoe, via Glooston
Stonton Wyville is a delightful little hamlet with its own
church – St Denys - and a little stream running through the centre. In the Doomsday book, Stonton Wyville was
part of Hugh de Grandmesnil’s estate and was one of hundreds of manors given to
him for his assistance at the Battle of Hastings.
 |
| St Denys Church at Stonton Wyville |
After a brief rest at the seat near the
church we continued on across the fields following the course of the small
stream to the village of Glooston.
 |
| Baa Baa Black Sheep |
We entered Glooston via Main Street and passed The Old Barn
Inn on our right which looks a very nice country pub and a row of early
19th century stone terraced cottages on the left called Adelphi Row.
 |
| The Old Barn Inn, Glooston |
 |
| Stone Cottages of Adelphi Row, Glooston |
The onward route to Cranoe was up a long straight uphill road between the two villages, only
made more interesting by the very pretty display of white and yellow wild
flowers along both sides of the road.
 |
| The long straight hill from Glooston to Cranoe |
Cranoe
was once a much larger village which declined in the 20th century
and now just contains a small number of houses and the Church of St Michael and
all Angels, situated on top of the hill.
We made our first mistake on entering
Cranoe. We saw a way marker for the
Midshires Way but we didn’t see the pointer at the back of the same post for the
Leicestershire Round which was hidden from our view so we continued down the
hill, past the church before realising that we must have gone wrong. We retraced our steps up the hill and from
the opposite direction could clearly see the sign for Hallaton and got back on
the right path.
Cranoe
to Hallaton
This was the most frustrating part of the walk where,
through lack of waymarkers, we lost our
way. We crossed fields to Othorpe House but found ourselves in the farmyard which didn’t seem right. The farmer was working on a tractor and didn’t say anything except “hello” so we assumed it was right. The map shows the footpath going right through Othorpe House! On exiting we saw a way marker pointing around the edge of the farm. We continued downhill and across a stream until we reached a point, around 1 km from Hallaton where we were faced with a very big grassed hill, with no visible waymarker to tell us which way the path went. As the map showed it as a straight path from Othorpe, we guessed at the direction but made a mistake and ended up too far to the east in another field. We could see Hallaton village but it was not possible to get out of this field so had to retrace our steps, through very long grass. We eventually saw the waymarker some distance away and got back on track although this mistake was quickly followed by another due to a another missing waymarker near the entrance to the village. We eventually arrived in Hallaton, about 45 minutes later than planned and desperate for a drink and something to eat.
Hallaton is the largest village encountered today. We discovered that it has its own museum, and has a collection of 5000 silver and gold coins found in the area in 2000, now called the Hallaton Treasure. It once had its own railway station. Every year, on Easter Monday, it holds an annual "Bottle Kicking" competition which has existed for over 200 years between teams from Hallaton and nearby Medbourne. The event has virtually no rules and the contest is for each team to move the bottles across two streams one mile (1.6 km) apart, by any means possible. The contest is a rough one, with teams fighting to move the bottles over such obstacles as ditches, hedges, and barbed wire. It started when 2 Hallaton ladies were saved from a raging bull by a hare who startled the bull. They showed their gratitude by donating money to provide the poor villagers with Hare Pie, penny loaves and 2 barrels of beer. The villagers then had to fight over the food and drink. The villagers of Medbourne became involved one year and stole the beer which was the beginning of the rivalry between the two villages.
 |
| Hallaton Village Green |
We stopped for lunch at the Fox
Inn, next to the village pond which was home to several pairs of Mallard ducks, many of which had ducklings.
 |
| The Hallaton Village Pond |
Hallaton
to Allexton
We left Hallaton by the main road before re-entering
fields. We crossed much farmland where
the path between undulating crop fields was very well marked from here on. The path crossed the old Market Harborough to
Melton Mowbray railway part of which has been turned into a cycle track,
and continued on past Fearn Farm and around Allexton Lodge. From here we could see (and hear) the busy
A47. The path went through a small area
of woodland, which was pleasantly cool, before arriving in the very pretty
small village of Allexton. |
| St Peters Church, Allexton |
Allexton
to Belton in Rutland
On leaving Allexton, we crossed the Eye Brook stream which
forms the boundary between Leicestershire and Rutland.  |
| Crossing from Leicestershire to Rutland at Allexton |
We crossed the A47 and made our way up
the hill towards our end point - Belton in Rutland. We made a short detour, towards the Church of
St. Peter to find where our next leg of the walk would start before before
reaching the car. This village was originally
called Belton, but renamed Belton in Rutland in 1982 to distinguish it from the
other Belton in Leicestershire and another in neighbouring Lincolnshire.
Distance
We did a total of 13.3 miles but at least 1 mile of this
was because we went wrong 3 times. The book
says this should have been about 12 miles.
After our recent holiday to the Alpine region of Slovenia where we did
several uphill climbs, we found this less tiring than the previous walk which at 12.25 miles was 1 mile shorter
Next
Walk
The next walk will be from Belton in Rutland to Somerby which we hope to do on Saturday 11th June.