Skip to main content

National Forest Way: Normanton le Heath to Ellistown


This 9-mile walk took me through the Queen Elizabeth Jubilee Woods and Sence Valley Forest Park, and into the heavily-quarried countryside south of Coalville (no prizes for guessing what was mined there!) I originally planned to walk from Normanton le Heath to Donington le Heath, which had a pleasing symmetry. But I decided to go a bit further, to the hamlet of Ellistown.

 

It was a cold morning. I'd been in shorts the previous weekend, but today there was a frost. I added a flask of coffee, a scarf and gloves to my kit, and set off.

For a small village, Normanton le Heath has a surprisingly wide road. I parked there rather than using the car park for the Jubilee Woods. That meant I was at my starting point straight away. I followed a road past some rather nice houses, crossed a field, and entered the Queen Elizabeth Jubilee Woods. The NFW leaflet told me that I was on the route of the Via Devana, a Roman road from Colchester to Chester. There isn't much left of it.


a mosaic, but not Roman

 I had to cross a couple of fields which were newly sown with winter wheat. The blades glowed in the sun, and I felt bad trampling across them. Still, I was glad the fields hadn't been freshly ploughed. That would have been very hard work!

 

After a short section on a road, a byway took me across the Sence Valley to the Forest Park. I dutifully followed the Way to the car park there to view the Noon Column, the second that I'd encountered. (The first was at Jackson's Bank.) There are six all together; tall columns with a slot cut into them, positioned so that the sun will shine through the slot at true noon on Midsummer's and Midwinter's Days. It's a nice idea, but that's a rather short timeframe in which to be interesting.

Noon Column
 

On the next byway I met two ladies on white horses. I crossed a large field with only a faint trace of footpath, then splashed through a very boggy section next to the River Sence. My feet got wet.


over this bridge was the wet bit!
 

Fortunately I was soon back on hard surfaces and coming into Donington le Heath. I perched on a bench for a quick cup of coffee. It was only a few more minutes' walk to Ellistown, so I decided to keep going. That gave me a good route for my loop back. 

The Donington Arms

There was a surprisingly nice footpath sandwiched between a road and a quarry. It brought me out at the landscaped entrance to Ibstock Brick; I then followed the road to the outskirts of Ibstock. Google Maps was more useful than the OS map for showing me that there was a route through a housing estate back to Sence Valley Forest Park.


Several families were enjoying the gravelled paths past the lakes in the Forest Park. I realised it must be half term in Leicestershire - somehow the county has different school holidays to the rest of England. A cormorant flew over as I settled down to my lunch. The bench I sat on was dedicated to Connie Porter, "who would have enjoyed this seat and your company". Isn't that lovely? That one phrase gives such a nice picture of her.

lunch view

 


I said goodbye to Connie Porter and cut across to the village of Heather. A ginger cat barred my way, I met Goofy in a telephone box, and encountered heaps of pumpkins. These "ghost" pumpkins have become very popular.


 

Soon I was back in the Jubilee Wood, and then climbing up the hill to Normanton church. It's a very pretty building.

Previous sections:

Ashby - Normanton le Heath

Calke Abbey - Ashby de la Zouch

Hartshorne, Foremark, Calke Abbey

Overseal - Hartshorne

Rosliston - Overseal

Rangemore - Rosliston

National Memorial Arboretum - Rangemore

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mr White Watson of Bakewell

Once upon a time, back in 1795 or so, lived a man who was always asking questions.  The kind of questions like, "Why is glass transparent?" or "Why do fruit trees grow better in that place than in this place?" or "What does the earth look like underneath the surface?"  This last question was one that he was particularly interested in, and he went so far as to work out what the rock layers looked like where he lived, and draw little pictures of them.  Now he was a marble sculptor by trade (as well as fossil hunter, mineral seller, and a few other things) so he thought it would be even better to make his little pictures in stone.  That way he could represent the layers using the actual rocks they were composed of.  Over the course of his lifetime he made almost 100 of these tablets, as he called them. Then he died.  And no one else was quite as interested in all those rocks and minerals as he was.  His collection was sold off, bit by bit, and the table...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rotherham Minster

I read another blog post which started, "There comes a time in everyone's life, when one simply must go to Rotherham." And I thought that was such a good first line that I've nicked it. I had not, it is true, previously given much consideration to going to Rotherham. Then I worked out that Sheffield Cathedral and Rotherham Minster were not far apart, and the train ride from Derby was reasonably cheap. Moreover, my cousin Vicky lives in the area and I could pay her a long-overdue visit. Great, I thought, I'll schedule a trip in a few weeks' time. On Friday morning I looked at Rotherham Minster website and discovered that the church isn't usually open on Saturdays, but there was a Community Day the very next day. A bit of hasty texting later, and I had a plan: Rotherham Minster in the morning, Sheffield Cathedral in the afternoon, and Vicky would meet me in Sheffield city centre after that. Rotherham Minster The train to Sheffield was busy but uneventful. A...
Post a Comment
Read more

A mini-pilgrimage to Derby Cathedral

On a sunny day near the end of June, I set out to walk from my village of Findern to Derby Cathedral. If this had been 1826 or even 1926, this would have been a perfectly normal activity. In 2026, no one spends two hours walking to the nearest city. They drive, or catch a bus. It feels faintly subversive to ignore the more obvious modes of transport and to set off on foot. Priory Way, the footpath north out of Findern, is on the Six-Inch series of OS maps from the late 1800s. It has probably not changed much, give or take a few electrical pylons. The fields and farms are still there. Butterflies flew over bright yellow flowers of lady's bedstraw; a hare paused to look at me; a squirrel panicked and almost ran over my toes. After a few miles I came out at Heatherton Pond, greeting its more manicured path with relief. This is now the edge of Derby city; the boundary runs just south of the lake. However, I was surprised at how much more green space I encountered. A cycle path took me ...
Post a Comment
Read more