28th October 2016 Huncote to Croft via Croft Hill. App 4.5 miles.

We all arrived at Huncote Leisure Centre Car park and were soon ready to go. As it was decidedly chilly everyone was keen to get started.

 Our target could be seen from the leisure centre football field, Croft Hill summit, a tiny dot in the distance.

Out of the leisure centre, through the back door so to speak.

It didn't take long to exit Huncote. Just outside the village on the road to Croft is a raised pathway. This is for when the road floods which happens from time to time.

167 steps to the top of Croft Hill, someone said they had counted them. Not this time, we were going to walk through the nature park first before ascending to the top of the quarry.

A flash back to the sixties.

Back in the coloured world and it's absolutely beautiful.  

Another walkway provided for wet conditions.

The new bridge is now completed - this will extend the walk around the nature reserve.

We will try the new path some other time, today we were off in the direction of Croft Hill. 

On leaving the brook the only way now is up.

And up.

 When you get to the top it's well worth it. The views are great.

Loooking out towards Cosby.

Left a little looking towards Narborough.

And Huncote.

The tree colours are stunning.

Leaving those views behind us we set off for the bird's eye view of Croft Quarry.

For info:Tradition has it that the parish stone pit at Croft, known as Clevis, was worked by the Romans and that their engineers used its granite in constructing the foundations of bridges on Fosse Way. Moreover, some of the Croft stone used by the Romans at their settlement at Leicester was reused for church building by the Saxons in the eighth century after they had embraced Christianity. This was the case, for example, at Brixworth in Northamptonshire where Croft stone, used at Leicester, was re-used in the 8th and 9th centuries in the earliest phase of the church's building. It should not be too readily assumed that quarries used in the Roman period ceased production with the collapse in Britain of Roman urban centred society. The place-name Croft, first recorded in 836, is derived from the Old English cræft, 'craft, machine, or engine', the craft in question being perhaps that of quarrying.


And what views we had.

In 1865 Samuel Davenport Pochin, 1826-1904, acquired the Croft brick works. He came from Wigston Magna where his father was a pillar of the Independent Chapel. Samuel settled in Croft and in 1868 was joined by his elder brother Henry Davis Pochin and together they established the Croft Stone and Brick Company in 1872.

Leaving the quarry we set off for the summit of Croft Hill.

Croft Hill rises up suddenly nearly two hundred feet from the Soar flood-plain, and stands out as an isolated landmark almost at the physical centre of England. Because of its individual shape and its position it was used in Saxon times as a place of assembly where matters of importance were discussed and settled.

Someone had draped the stone on top of the hill with a Leicester City Football Club strip (On top of the world?)

Group photo all smiling.

On the way down you pass Croft church before you get to the Heathcote Arms.

Tea and coffee were most welcome.

On the way back we walked round the base of the hill towards Huncote.

Arriving back into Huncote

Despite a couple of mishaps with two of our walkers, another great walk, must do this one again.