Ivanhoe Way: Hicks Lodge to Ashby de la Zouch

Today I walked to a village that wasn't really there.

Willesley has several signs but very little substance. The village was demolished (apart from the church) when Willesley Hall was built; the hall was itself demolished (again, apart from the church) in the 1950s, and the long-suffering church of St Thomas has been deconsecrated and now stands in the middle of a Scout campsite. A few farms, prosaically named Hill Farm, Wood Farm, and Valley Farm, now make up the village of Willesley, along with the campsite and a golf course.

I'd started in Ashby de la Zouch and followed a few roads out of town, before turning onto a path through long grass, glistening wet in the low autumn sun. My feet were firmly clad in waterproof boots; I'd learned my lesson from previous dewy walks.

My OS map still showed the footpath looping over to St Thomas' Church, but a diversion has been in place for a long time now, judging by the tattered signs. Now the route skirts the edge of the Scout campsite and, although I peered through the trees, I couldn't catch a glimpse of the church.

At Willesley Wood there's a nice sign to welcome you to the largely non-existent village.

The wood had a war memorial and a small lake. This was marked on the OS as Willesley Basin, and it was once where goods were transshipped between the Ashby Canal and the Ticknall Tramway. A sign, however, named the water Thortit Lake, after the local name for Oakthorpe Colliery. It was called Thortit Pit, as in, "Who'd a thought it, there's coal down there!" The long dry summer had taken its toll; there was not a lot of water in evidence.

technically a lake

I followed a long straight bridleway from Oakthorpe Colliery to Hicks Lodge. This seemed like a rather dramatic way to say "Give Way" at the end!

Stop, Danger of Death

Having missed the tree at the centre of the National Forest on my previous walk, I made a special trip to visit it this time. There it is.

This tree marks the heart of the National Forest

The return to Ashby took me through woods, fields, and housing estates.

In the town, I passed a converted water tower, a sloping cemetery, a grand house, Holy Trinity Church ("Try Alpha") and the tucked-away Congregational Church ("One Church - One Faith - One Lord"). I've been to Ashby de la Zouch several times, walking through it on the National Forest Way too, but there always seems to be something new to see.

Ivanhoe Way - Hicks Lodge to Ashby

8 miles / 13 km 28 September 2026

Comments

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...

Laid-back Lille and Bustling Brussels

After a night in a tiny AirBnB in Canterbury , where there were chocolates on the table and artwork on every inch of the walls, we boarded a ferry with an absolute minimum of fuss, enjoyed a smooth crossing of the channel, and were deposited in the decidedly unscenic surroundings of the port of Dunkirk two hours later. Once we got past the cranes and shipping containers, though, the countryside was flat but pleasant. We stopped at a small town called Cassel, reached by cobbled roads winding up a hill. On the summit was an old windmill and a topograph telling you the distances to various improbable places; St Omer may have been visible in the haze, but Manchester was surely over the horizon. In Lille, we found our apartment, unpacked the luggage (one rucksack apiece), and set out to find food. Our first choice was fully booked, so we embarked on that kind of aimless wandering where everyone is hungry and no one wants to actually choose a restaurant. We reached a Lebanese place call...

Canterbury Cathedral

We were booking a trip to France, and I persuaded the family that it was madness to drive four hours to Dover and get straight on the ferry. "We should definitely stay overnight somewhere," I said. "Oh look, Canterbury is very handy - just twenty minutes from Dover." Of course, my suggestion was not influenced in the slightest by the fact that Canterbury contains England's most famous cathedral. On the way down, we stretched our legs on Dunstable Downs, an area of chalk grassland owned by the National Trust. I was pleased to spot a scarlet pimpernel for my 100 Plants Challenge . We also enjoyed watching gliders ascending and descending. We turned onto the M25 and made our way through busy traffic to the Dartford Crossing. This is one of those mythical points on the UK road network, like Scotch Corner and Watford Gap: the name familiar from traffic reports on the radio; the reality - for someone who grew up west of London - a hazy blur of imagination. It turns ou...

Martha's Marvellous Munchies

Search This Blog