Bradgate Park Walk

After our windmill walk last week, it was great to be able to get outside again and go out for a slightly longer walk. I briefly lived and worked in Leicester and remembered that there was some lovely countryside surrounding it. Once again I checked out OS Maps for inspiration and this led me to Bradgate Park, just north of the city. This week I remembered to download the route and we set off up the M1.

I decided to park in the Hunts Hill car park (LE6 0AH), as that is the closest one to Old John Tower. It cost £3 on a weekday and £4 on weekends and bank holidays for a full day parking and has toilets. There is another car park in Newtown Linford at the bottom of the park, which is great for pushchairs as there is a tarmac path from there up past the reservoir and visitors centre.

From the car park it was a short, sharp  walk up to the tower.

 

From the tower, we headed down the hill, past the ruins of Bradgate House and towards Cropston Reservoir.

At the ruins we picked up the tarmac path for a while. This runs from the Newtown Linford car park, past the visitor centre to Roecliffe Road. We stopped at the tearoom for a breather and snack stop. I’d brought along a flask of tea, but had forgotten to put milk in it. D’oh! Up until that point I felt very clever. Anyway, after buying a glass of milk and a cake, we had a lovely break looking over the water.

Once we reached the road, we turned left and followed the wall of the deer enclosure back up the hill towards the car. It was quite muddy which made it a long hard slog, especially for Luke who had Finn on his back. Luckily the views made it worthwhile.

I can’t believe that we’d never been to Bradgate Park before. Such a lovely place for a stroll, it looked great in winter but we can’t wait to go back and see it in the spring and summer. There’s also parts that we didn’t get to explore, like the war memorial.

Have you discovered anywhere new lately?