Bardon Hill
I parked at the car park for the Billa Barra nature reserve, near Coalville and started walking along Stanton Lane at 6.35 pm. Once I reached the A511 I turned left, towards Coalville, and walked alongside the road until I came to a path signposted for Bardon Hill. There was a short climb to Rise Rocks Farm, where I first saw Bardon Hill, and I also saw a Sparrowhawk. From the farm the path descended and became boggy for a short stretch, crossing fields and some scrubland. It then went through some woodland, before crossing Bardon Hall Road and a quarry road, and then climbing the upper, wooded slopes of Bardon Hill. The woodland was very pleasant, apart from the constant traffic noise, and there were a lot of small crags and rocky outcrops. Although it was hardly the Himalayas, it was far more rugged than I expected. The summit was marked by a trig point, standing atop a rock outcrop, and I reached this at 7.20 pm. The view was extensive, and included the cities of Leicester and Nottingham, as well as a lot of distant and hard to identify hills on the horizon. According to Jonathan de Ferranti’s website Viewfinder Panoramas it is possible to see the Cotswolds, the Malverns, the Shropshire hills, and more. The overriding feature of the view though was the huge quarry which had destroyed much of the hill, and this stood in sharp contrast to the charming woodland on the other side of the hill. There was a sign which described the geology of the area and it explained how the hill was a site of Pre-Cambrian volcanism. I had no idea that there were igneous rocks in the East Midlands and I have since found out that it is a far more interesting area, geologically speaking, than I had imagined. The quarry impressed with its size but didn’t encourage me to linger, so I soon started the descent. I followed my route of ascent back and reached the car at 8 pm.
The Bardon Hill quarry
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