Walk to Work

5.5 miles.

On Friday we were on Bedford Park examining Elm leaves and seed pods.  I am therefore noticing Elms at the moment.  I remember picking up fragments of dry bark when about eleven, like ancient book covers, inside riddled with squiggly writing,  This was the so called dutch elm disease era, but I don't know why that poor nation got the blame.  I photographed the Bedford leaves to check there authenticity.  It was exciting to discover these phoenix trees.

There in the gutter as I walk to work, I see the same seed pods. Elms growing in a street near me.  I walk down the familiar London road, past the site of the Stoneygate turnpike.  This was once the edge of Georgian Leicester; the race course, now Victoria Park.  The route across the park joins the New Walk.  Naturally this ancient walk follows the course of the Via Devana, a Roman motorway.

Via Devana goes to Chester

At the end of the New Walk I pass the growing buildings rising up from the heap of rubble that was the old city council buildings.  I remembered visiting the building in the past and reading the Health and Safety warnings on the doors.  "Only 5 people in this room at a time". "No desks to be placed beyond this line". Apparently the building didn't even reach it's 25 year projected life span.  I hope this new building will look all right.  I hear there is going to be another casino, not a good omen.

The New - New Walk Centre

I'm now walking down the controversial bike lane and foot path towards the Magazine.  As a cyclist I'm fully in favour of the road being halved in size and turned into a super cycleway.  But it soon peters out, like so many cycleways in the UK.  Demontfort University has smartened itself up greatly,

An old factory- now university property

and now has a fine position next to the river, and castle gardens.  I note that the old castle buildings is also looking fine.  I've not visited it and its time I found a way in.
The river walk leads to an old coal wharf.  This is an important site in Britain's industrial history.  The second railway line was constructed here by Stevenson.  It was built to bring coal from Coalville to Leicester.  My route goes through Rally Park, site of large coal tips of the past, up a gentle continuous gradient to the Glenfield tunnel.  This is now bricked up, but the tunnel vents can be seen like a dot to dot of stubby chimneys, across Glenfield. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicester_and_Swannington_Railway

City Centre view

The old railway route

My route cuts up though Gilrose cemetery.  This is a city cemetery, vast, packed with tenement graves, for the poor and the rich, packed cheek by joule.  A rich tapestry of names and cultures.  Then across the outer ring road, past the two smelly fields, home to at least 50 crows and magpies.  The fields belong to a giant property developer, and will soon disappear.  At the moment a gypsy keeps his horses there, The magpies ride on the horses backs.  The fences look like one snort and the horses could be free.

Many graves in various languages, many deaths aged 50 -60.  A urban message

Footpath through the cemetery