Leicestershire Round: Gaddesby to Ashby Folville

Monday 29th September 2008
It was a nice day so we decided to do some LR. We had been hoping that this would have been the last section to finish the LR but John has not been feeling too good (he has been having problems with his back and neck again) so we cut the route down to a short one. We parked in Gaddesby and walked down the lane to join the footpath going past the church. The door was open so we went in for a look. It was a lovely light airy church with lots of clover shaped windows. It contained a very large equestrian monument which is supposedly the only one in a church in England.

We then continued along the footpath until we joined the LR, where we had last left it. We crossed several fields, one containing some bullocks, but they ignored us. Lots of the fields had been ploughed but they were not too bad to walk over as it was fairly dry. We finally emerged in Ashby Folville. We decided to return here as we didn't want to overdo it. The pub here was closed for renovation and would be opening on Saturday. We thought that was a bit long to wait so decided to walk on to the pub in the next village. We walked alongside the church and then over the fields and along a path through a narrow stretch of woodland and over a stream. We crossed the driveway of a country house and then passed into a field full of cows which were all huddled close to the stile. We bravely walked through the field and managed to get over the stile where we walked into Blaseby. Here we sat on a wall to look at the map and the local postman stopped and told us the way. He was very friendly and looked a little like Billy Bunter! The pub here was now a building site. We carried on walking over fields full of sheep back towards Gaddesby. We finished the walk by passing under a long avenue of oak trees where we found that the pub did not open on Mondays, so it was back to the car for an apple before going home. We only walked 6 km but it was enough.