Marlou two

Slow Way not verified yet. Verify Marlou here.

Walked from Loughborough to Markfield - this is the route I actually followed while following MARLOU one, except that I changed the line out of Loughborough station to avoid an unnecessary flight of steps and use the more direct marked walking route across the car park. An enjoyable route, though it is not the most direct possible as there are shorter routes further west from Woodhouse Eaves to Loughborough.

Leaving the meeting point outside Loughborough station, we follow Nottingham Road and Baxter Gate into the town centre and turn left onto High Street. More pavements take us out to the pleasantly leafy Victoria Street, and we head straight on between school buildings to reach Shelthorpe Road. A few more quiet residential streets take us to a fenced path that leads through fields and a cemetery to a new housing estate, where we head right and cross the roundabout on the left hand side. We go straight on /half left on a quiet road with no pavement to Woodthorpe, where a billboard promised more housing development. The road gives way to a gravel lane alongside more houses.

Eventually we reach a stile on the left where we join a well cut and popular field path that takes us to the edge of Woodhouse (the line through the final field is slightly longer than the right of way and is marked as a footpath on the OS 1:25000 map. Forest Road has a pavement on the left/south which we follow to the church, where we take the quieter lane straight on, then right through houses and up through fields and a sports field to reach Woodhouse Eaves, where we join the Leicestershire Round and follow more pavements to the edge of the village, then take the well marked path that crosses fields into a golf course. The footpath markers across the golf course are fairly good, but if in doubt the right of way line is a good guide.

The golf course continues beyond Joe Moore's Lane, and we then cross woodland to reach Benscliffe Road. This is a fairly quiet lane with verges, but there is an option to cross stiles and use a path through the wood alongside the road. At the T junction we turn right down a good pavement (here we leave the Leicestershire Round which heads into Bradgate Park and up the hill to Old John Tower) which we follow for some distance down the hill, then turn sharp right up Ulverscroft Lane.

From here the field path through the wood is surprisingly good, and eventually we rejoin the Leicestershire Round before leaving it straight on beyond a farm. The well marked path continues between fences, crossing a field of horses and using the edge of a little wood beyond , then turning left to reach Markfield Lane.

Here we cross and use the old road on the far side to reach the pelican crossings over the A50 (you may have to wait a while for the lights to change, and each carriageway has a separate crossing). Beyond we turn right, crossing Launde Road and continuing onto Leicester Road, then using a fenced alleyway to reach Park Avenue, from where the rather undistinguished meeting point (no benches, and not much in terms of facilities) is a short distance down Main Street. Markfield has a fairly good bus service to and from Leicester, but some of them bypass Main Street and go straight down Leicester Road.

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