Lynne About Loughborough: April 2019

Sunday 28 April 2019

Old railway and woods

It's that time of year again, when everyone seems to be out walking in the woods!! So, I thought I'd join them!! Took a bit of a circuitous route, as you do, and wandered along the old railway first, before ending up in Holywell Wood, and from there moving to Burleigh (aka bluebell) Woods, and then traversing a part of the university campus I was less familiar with. Here's a few photos of my journey through our beautiful area.

On the old train line:

On the way to Holywell Woods:

At Holywell Woods:

On the way to Burleigh Woods:

In Burleigh Woods:

On the way back through the university:

You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:

Dyer, Lynne (2019). National Memorial Arboretum and connections to Loughborough. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2019/04/old-railway-and-woods.html [Accessed 28 April 2019]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne

Sunday 21 April 2019

National Memorial Arboretum connections to Loughborough

I recently visited the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas Staffordshire. I hadn't really thought much about what I expected to see, but I was staggered by the size of the place, the thousands of people remembered in the memorials and their inscriptions, by the plaques to civilians, by the extent of the actual tree-planting, and the general poignancy of the place.

Of course, everywhere I looked and turned there were things that reminded me of Loughborough. Here's a few of the connections that struck me as I wandered around.

There were several mentions of Charnwood Forest and the aim of linking up with it:

The site was close to the River Trent and the River Tame, which reminded me of the River Soar and there were some lovely bridges:

There was also a working quarry nearby:

One of the first things I came across was mention of Loughborough's twin town, Epinal:

This was followed by a stunning lion statue: the connection here is perhaps a bit obscure, but it reminded me of the lions at Nelson's column, which was designed by William Railton who was also responsible for designing quite a number of buildings in and around Loughborough, including the Bavarian or Red Arch on the Garendon estate. There was also an obelisk-type memorial which reminded me of the one on the Garendon estate:

Next up was the memorial to the Richard Emmanuel Rendell, which reminded me of our own Rendell Street and school:

The shot at dawn memorial was heart-wrenching, and the name Beaumont stood out for me, as the name of former lords of the manor of Loughborough:

There was a bench with mention of Operation Herrick, the codename for British operations in the war in Afghanistan:

I was then reminded of the lady who used to live next door to me who was in the Women's Land Army:

There were also quite a number of memorials made of slate, though not of the Swithland variety:

Masons were also remembered:

Bells featured quite extensively at the NMA too:

And the memorial to the people of the Showman's Guild of Great Britain reminded me of our November fair, the last in the traveling season:

Sadly, the memorial to the horses that had been killed during wartime was missing, but nonetheless it reminded me of Songster:

There were also extensive information boards relating to the work done at Bletchley Park, and mention of the 'Y' listening stations, of which nearby Beaumanor was one:

I can't easily ignore ironwork, so found the gates into this small memorial garden, quite beautiful:

And finally, the quote from W.H. Davies' poem, 'Leisure' is one close to my heart:

If you haven't yet visited, I would highly recommend it.

You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:

Dyer, Lynne (2019). National Memorial Arboretum and connections to Loughborough. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2019/04/national-memorial-arboretum-connections.html [Accessed 21 April 2019]

Take down policy:

Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne

Sunday 14 April 2019

Garendon and the marathon

Apologies once again for not posting last Sunday: another overly busy week, both at home and at work, but I did manage to get out and about a little.

My most exciting day actually Sunday. I've been trying to avoid visits to the countryside, or anywhere where there are trees at the moment (bit of a tree pollen allergy going on), but so anxious was I to get out and see bits of Loughborough I've not seen before, that I went out anyway.

Sunday was the morning of the Loughborough Half Marathon. For the last couple of years the OH has run this, and I've dutifully stood at various places along the route, as well as at the start line and finish line, of course, and cheered him on. This year, however, he's having a rest, recovering from a bit of injury, so it was looking unlikely that I'd be down on the Garendon Park estate this year.

OH was keen to support fellow runners, and I was keen to visit the estate again, so we decided to go along anyway. It was a bit of a grey day, but not very cold, but my skills with a camera are not particularly good, and grey days don't help! I only discovered this part of Loughborough about 4 years ago, and as I don't walk it very often, I'm always on the lookout for something different.

I love walking the footpath alongside the boundary wall, some of which had been replaced by fencing, and then coming to the view of the beautiful Bavarian Gates or Red Arch, designed by William Railton. We carried on along the path, eventually arriving at the point where the footpath goes up the hill on the right, which takes you out onto the A6 near the milepost, but instead of going that way, we carried on going straight up. This was the exciting bit, for this path is not normally accessible to the public, and I'd certainly not ventured this far when cheering on the OH at previous events.

The path was quite narrow, but apparently wider than usual as lots of growth had recently been cut back. So I saw some different views and lots of runners! OH was enthusiastically cheering them on, especially at the bit where they were coming up the hill from the A6, while I admired the countryside, and wondered how the couple of people I spotted in an enclosed field were going to get out!!

Once we'd walked up the hill, we were then on the descent, and heading towards the main reason for my wanting to walk this path - another Lodge to the Garendon Estate, this one being on the A6 just in Hathern, at the point where the dual carriageway becomes a single carriageway - oh, hang on a minute, that road layout changed quite some time ago, but I think you know where I mean!

So, the path up from the road is behind the large, solid, green gate you can see from the roadside, and the lodge sits sideways onto the road, so faces the normally private path. As such, my previous photos have always been from a particular angle, but now was the opportunity to take some unobtrusive photos from many different angles (see below) - while cheering on friends who were running past me!

Usually, I don't like to walk back the same way as I came, but on this occasion, because I was unfamiliar with the path, and didn't particularly want to walk back along the A6 to pick up the footpath parallel to this one, I retraced my steps, spotting things I hadn't seen before and seeing things from a different perspective.

It was a good walk, that took us about 2 hours by the time we'd lingered talking to friends, and then taken a slight detour to look at the obelisk. I'd heard there was work going on, so wanted to see for myself! Finally arrived home after an interesting morning, ready to face the challenges of proofreading!

Here are some photos of my morning:

To the red arch!