Urban Circle

Leicester City Cycle Round

As the pedals turn, so churns a new line of thought; as with a dynamo, the motion provides the power.  Here is a record of my thoughts from today's cycle ride.

The First of 11 Leicester Parks

This first bit is the route is taken by Joanna and her friends everyday.  The pavement is worn.  Like Thomas Hardy, who walked the same routes over many years, so my girls have observed these street.  I turn down Linden Avenue.  In Jikin, Czechia, we walked down a linden avenue for two miles.  My thoughts returned to that lazy hot walk with Theo, saved for me by a cherry plum tree, as we had not brought water with us.

(1) Evington Park, like a number of Leicester Parks, was the estate of a grand house.  The Victorian edifice still stands and is used for council staff training.  Across the park I curl through a small estate on the edge of the General Hospital.  This hospital land was sold off some years ago to pay a bill; like a gently declining family, letting go of their Georgian teapot.

The route passes a large green expanse of one of the city's reservoirs.  I wonder why the top cannot be used as a football pitch.  Images come to me of the pitch giving way and players falling... and water being contaminated!  I remember a football pitch we visited in Hong Kong.  It was on a covered reservoir, though it did have big pipes sticking up though it, like ventilation shafts on old steamer.

Lily Marriot,
described as a Leicester radical

Next through (2) Lily Marriot Park.  I know the Marriots where special to Leicester.  It is nice to have a park named after a woman.  I wonder if she or her husband gave name to the primary school.  The road passes by the shadow of two once high and ghastly tower blocks.  I remember going alone into one tower block to retrieve a fourteen year old boy who had run away from his parent.  He lived with a feral community of boys.  As I was there, beer bottles were being flung from the windows, and the scene of dereliction in the flat was impressive.  No 'twin towers' when these came down.

No tears when these came down.

Next through the gap between an old embankment and the (3) Rally Park. This is a great park for dens and adventures as the old steam railway line is now 'open access'.  Across the main Uppingham Road, past the terrace where our Iranian friends first encountered slugs (no slugs where they came from).  Then up to the old mental hospital, The Towers.  This place still has an effect on the older population of Leicester.

A fine Victorian Lunatic Asylum

 One building was named 'Daisy Peak' after a former inhabitant who was perfectly well.  She used to make tea for all visitors, and although became institutionalised, remained a loving and delightful all her life.  The building is soon to become a state funded Sikh School.  It's grounds are now open to the public as (4) Towers Park

The route now crosses the estate of Northfields.  I did a community study of this estate when I was a student.  I remember meeting people who were some of the first to move in.  I was fascinated by the social history.  Fine houses with large gardens, but on the wrong side of the road.

Now the route passes through (5) Rushey Fields.  Across the Belgrave road, I took a path next to a brook, leading to the River Soar.  This is part of old Belgrave, and some of the fine old houses still exist, such as Belgrave Hall.

Then over the old bridge and through a soviet style housing estate up to the route of the old Midlands Railway.  The railway embankment is very impressive, even in winter.  A footbridge crosses over to the Steam Railway centre.  Lots of people have gathered, many retired men with cameras.  Two impressive, shiny engines are there to savour.  Cock O' the North, and Oliver Cromwell are warming up. The path banks high above the tracks before diving off into Bristall.  Bristall, that non-village; an estate for people who can not bring themselves to live in Leicester.

Leicester North Station

Next over to the top edge of Leicester.  Glebelands primary school, with is prison-like yellow roof, surely the cheapest in the catalogue.  I remembered how Margaret's own primary school, was rebuilt in Elswick, Newcastle.  They fitted a climb resistant unbreakable prison roof, knowing that anything else would be easily picked off.  However, intelligence reigns in equal proportion across all neighbourhoods.  Some children managed to break into the school.  They threw bricks up onto the roof to create dents in the metal.  Enough dents, and they had created a climbing wall.  Using the dents as grip holds, they scaled the roof, and were able to drop down into the school quadrangle.

The Northern end of Leicester is the growing tip.  Lots of road drive off to an abrupt end in muddy fields.

A bumpy though metalled track cuts straight through these new estates, on old right of way.  It crosses the (6) Castle country park, down past King William's Bridge, to Anstey.  The western By-pass roars, but is largely hidden.  This end of Leicester has fine views of Bradgate Park.

Bradgate Pak

I am in familiar territory.  My office is nearby, and I am into the lunchtime walking zone. With an increasing large number of colleagues I get out regularly for fresh air and  some lunchtime exercise.

Now past another covered reservoir.

The route crosses the locally famous Gilross Cemetery.  This is where most normal Leicester folk end up.  The graves speak of Leicester.  Not beautiful, but not boring, is my moto for our city.  Many have a variety of languages on them. I see a Ukrainian flag, and a Jewish star no the grave of a black woman.  Even in Leicester, Hindus are largely not represented here. Their dead having been disposed of through cremation, and a possible trip to the Ganges.  If you are not so well off, the River Soar sometimes has to do, and one can see floating boats of ashes and incense, like Chinese lanterns, heading off into the watery unknown. Muslims are not here.  They are over in South Wigston.

Gilross Cemetery from the air (not taken whilst cycling)

New Park Estate has not much of the park about it.  I eventually found the route that cuts though the playing fields of the once infamous New College.  It's building are so enormous, that parts of it seem to be derelict in rotation.  I did enjoy seeing the head of a ventilation shaft down to Stevenson's Glenfield tunnel, once the longest tunnel in the world (now bricked up and only opened once a year for enthusiasts).

Ventilation Shaft

Next come (7) Western Park, a fine Victorian Park, that lead straight into  (8) Braustone Park.  This park was the basis for the creation of the Braustone Estate, the Hampsted Garden Suburb of Leicester (in it's day).

In the centre of Braustone Park is the beautiful but neglected Braunston Hall.  Here Brauston has no 'e', as it relates to the village of Braunston in Rutland.  When the estate was built, the people of Rutland were worried that a confusion would be created, so the e was added.  I remembered working with a father whose life mission was to save the Hall from collapse.  It felt like a metaphor for his family, who were also in collapse through neglect.  Helplessness all round.

Braunston Hall

My route now cuts over the old Fosse Way, and on to the Great Central Way.  This cycle route we first used when visiting Lis, before our Leicester days.  Lis found us bikes and we headed into town, trying to keep up with her on the Great Central Way.

I now turn off at (9) Bede Park.  The old engine shed is now a Tescos.  We are disprove of Tescos at the moment as it is moving into our middle class enclave of Clarendon Park.  How dare they!

DeMontfort University has managed to get the road around their building closed to motorised traffic.  The cycle reigns, and our Mayor seems to be pedalling for them.

This is a route I use to cycle home from work.  It cuts round the fine brick walls of the prison, along the edge of the (10) Nelson Mandella Park (a name change vindicated), and up past Regent College, the Attinborough Centre for arts and disability, to Peace Walk, and the slow climb to the Luyten's war memorial.  I thought again of the war memorial opened by the German Kizar in 1913 to commemorate the end of War in Europe.
(11) Victoria Park, once a race course, during the war, a vegetable patch, now a fine open space, with one cycle path across it.  I moved from the footpath over to my designated area.

Peace Walk

Back home.  About 20 miles.