Walk 3 - East Langton to Belton in Rutland

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 19^th 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 20^th 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.