Thursday 18th May 2017 Ashby-de-la-Zouch - Overseal - 5½ miles

Thursday 18th May 2017 Ashby-de-la-Zouch - Overseal - 5½ miles


Thursday dawned bright and fair, a real contrast to yesterday! Only a short section as we planned to visit Calke Abbey on our way home, but over breakfast we decided to aim a mile or so further to make sure we could finish the section to Barton-under-Needwood in a day 'hop'. So after packing up and yet another hearty breakfast, we headed for Overseal and found parking at the local community centre.

After returning to Ashby, you walk out along the main street and up past the old water tower to finally pick up a footpath that takes you out across fields.

Initially it passes the backs of houses, but you are soon in pleasant farmland. This, in turn, gives way to new tree plantations, part of the National Forest scheme.

This is all still the Ivanhoe Way and it takes you on down to the road into Moira. Here we met a woman who thought we were nurses seeing our MacMillan T-shirts! She suggested sending photos to all the local papers on our route. Might be best done when we've finished the whole route - its hard to fund raise in stages - you need to have accomplished something!

You then head for Newfield Colliery - the site of an old colliery and now a nature reserve. Here you follow the course of an old tramway that took coal from the colliery to the Ashby canal. When you reach the canal you cross by the Moira Furnace Museum and follow the canal past old limekilns. It was lovely by the canal - a nice spot on a sunny day!

Soon after the route leaves the Ivanhoe Way to pick up a footpath following the railway. This takes you across a sports field, before turning under the railway via a big brick tunnel and then along the other side of the railway to meet the road into Overseal.

This seemed like a long section of road walking, but at least we had a pavement! A little footpath keeps you away from the main A road

 and popped out in the road to the community centre where we'd parked! Great when it all works out!

Our walk seemed to have taken longer than we had thought - its always the same! So no time to explore Ashby which is another place to add to the list of places to return to! We headed off to Calke and managed to get rather lost! We had walked out via the exit road so no wonder it didn't look familiar! We finally arrived to find we were still ahead of Irene and Linda - they'd got stuck in Ashby!

Still, we had time to look round the house. This has been left as the National Trust were given it, to 'reflect the demise of the country house'. This is really interesting, the last owner was an avid collector, a nature enthusiast who refused to modernise because of its environmental impact, but who was quite happy to hunt and stuff specimens for the collections! Cases and cases of birds, bees, butterflies..........

The most amazing thing was the 17th C Chinese bed, a wedding present that had never been unpacked as it wouldn't fit! The National Trust lowered the floor and it is now on show in carefully monitored conditions - its beautiful. What a find! Another place to come back to when there's more time!