Distance: 3.4 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: medium

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

Walk to the top of Bardon Hill the tallest hill in Leicestershire rightly famous for commanding views across the Midlands region.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

Best View in the Midlands?

Standing 278 metres above sea level Bardon Hill is not especially tall as English “county tops” go, even in the English Midlands.

However, Leicestershire’s county top just south of Coalville in the north west of the county is the highest peak in the south eastern Midlands. This gives its stoney top a spectacular degree of prominence. Reputedly one twelfth of England’s total landmass is visible from the top, including most of the southern and central Midlands.

On a clear day the Malvern and Clee Hills are visible 50 – 60 miles to the west, the Peak District 30 – 40 miles northwards, and looking east the tower of Lincoln Cathedral is visible. Truly a Midlands panorama.

Bardon hill lies within the area historically known as Charnwood Forest. A distinctive upland region in northern Leicestershire which recently began petitioning for UNESCO Geopark status. Something already enjoyed by the distinctive geological regions of the Black Country and Malvern and Abberley Hills in the Midland’s western quadrant.

The hill is formed from granite, the 600 million year old remains of a volcano, augmented by later deposits of sediment.

Additional natural interest is added to the hill by the woodland that rings its slopes including well preserved ancient oak trees. This has led to Bardon Hill being granted “Site of Special Scientific Interest” status.

The woodland forms part of the eastern reaches of the National Forest. A rewiilding-cum-economic regeneration project which has been in progress in the former coal mining areas of south east Staffordshire, south Derbyshire and north west Leicestershire since the mid-1990s.

Which does not mean that Bardon Hill is now part of a completely verdant landscape. On the contrary, in addition to most of the Midland’s major conurbations being visible from its summit, the landscape around Bardon Hill is still being actively quarried.

Granite quarrying existed in the area as far back as at least the early 17th Century. However, with the coming of the railways in early Victorian times exploitation of the granite deposits around Bardon hill quickly accelerated. Today the spectacularly large Aggregate Industries quarry and processing works beneath the hill continues to be extensively worked and is one of the UK’s major sources of granite.

It is served by its own railway line, and the roads all around the quarry are full of HGVs carrying crushed granite flakes away.

The presence of this industry adds a sublime and awesome element to Bardon Hill’s setting. Very different from what we tend to think of as the setting for most county peaks (possibly the West Midlands Turner’s Hill aside) but in its own way fascinating and awe inspiring, spectacular view across the region aside.

The Walk

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

I create the Walk Midlands routes via Ordnance Survey Maps Explorer enabling me to take them on my phone. Subscribe yourself via the banner above.

This walk up Bardon Hill – the highest peak in Leicestershire – begins from the bus stop between The Birch Tree pub and Bardon Aggregates Quarry. If approaching on the 29 bus from Leicester it lies just after the roundabout that the pub sits on.

The day that I walked the route was the day after heavy snow in early March 2023, which gave the hills, woodland and quarried landscape a rather different quality that which it usually possesses…

Upon alighting the bus turn and begin walking towards the quarry (on your left if travelling from Leicester) walking along the side of the A511 road, heavy with HGV traffic.

Soon you cross the road to the right handside, and then pass the entrance to the quarry, crossing a level crossing where trains come off the mainline freight railway into the quarry’s sidings.

Having crossed over the branch line, continue walking along the side of the A511 heading into the outskirts of Coalville for some distance.

After passing sports pitches to your right you approach a new housing estate. Here turn right up an access road for the estate.

A little way into the estate there is a waymarked footpath leading into woodland off to your right. Turn and head down this footpath.

Once in the woodland turn right and follow the path for some distance.

Presently you come to a sharp left turn in the path. Just after the left turn there is a wood bridge across a brook on your right, use a plank bridge to cross the brook.

On the other side of the brook follow the path as it curves steadily to the right.

Before curving to the left, working its way around the edge of the quarry workings.

Presently you reach a flight of steps which you climb leading up to a wooded embankment which the path runs along the top of through the trees.

After walking along this embankment for some distance you come to a place where two paths meet.

Here carry on straight ahead walking down a slight gradient into a thicket of scrubby trees.

After a short distance the path widens into a tree lined avenue, which you walk down.

Having made good time on this section you come to a junction where two paths meet once more.

Here head right, then follow the path through scrubby, relatively young trees, next to a bank marking the edge of Bardon Hill Quarry.

Soon you emerge from the trees onto a well worn path comprising part of the Ivanhoe Way long distance footpath. This 36 mile long route takes in key sights from Walter Scott’s medieval romance novel Ivanhoe which is set in Charnwood Forest.

Walk up this path a little way before turning sharply to the left.

At a gate (blocked by a tree felled during the snowstorm when I walked the route, necessitating a scramble through a ditch) keep heading left along a wide forestry style track.

Presently there is another wide track running off uphill at a fairly gradient to your right.

Turn and begin heading up this track.

You follow it uphill through the trees for quite some distance steadily gaining height.

As you near the summit of Bardon Hill the trees thin.

Here you begin getting good views back behind you northwards into Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire and to the right into Bardon Quarry down below.

The path begins to level out and you reach a fence line near the hill’s wooded top which you pass through.

On the far side you soon reach a place where the path forks.

Here take the right hand fork heading towards the radio transmission station on the hilltop.

Passing the transmitters and the small cluster of buildings around them head to the right following a path around the top craggy, exposed granite of the hilltop through the trees.

After some distance the path curves to the left.

Just after this point there is a path heading off to the right up a short rocky bank to the right.

Having scrambled up this bank it is only a short walk across an open expanse of exposed granite to the trig point and viewing area that marks the summit of Bardon Hill.

It is from here on a good day that you can see across most of the southern and central Midlands, as well as down into the impressively deep granite workings of Bardon Hill Quarry directly below.

After seeing the view turn and head back the short distance you have come back to the path.

Upon reaching the main path once more, turn right and follow the path as it begins curving back around the hill to the left in the direction of the Ivanhoe Way once more.

Presently, just having passed the transmitter station off to your left up above you, there is a stile on your right.

Cross this stile and follow the path making for another stile a little way across a clearing on the hillside.

On the other side of the stile follow the path straight downhill.

Soon you reach a track. Here keep walking straight down the footpath on the other side.

This soon brings you to a wide quarry road, where the path runs to the right taking you to a crossing point.

Upon crossing the quarry road carry on down the clearly waymarked path on the other side.

Follow the path on the far side down through woodland to another road, tarmacked this time, which you cross following the path on the other side out of the woodland into a field.

Having crossed a plank bridge you arrive in an open field. Walk straight ahead across the field following the well worn footpath.

This leads to a point through a narrow thicket where you can easily cross.

Beyond the thicket you are once again confronted by quarry workings.

Here turn right and follow the clearly defined path past the quarry.

Soon you reach a wooden bridge on your left which carries you across the quarry road and conveyor belts serving this part of the quarry.

On the other side of the bridge keep walking straight heading for a set of farm buildings, now mostly converted to other uses.

Upon reaching the edge of the former farmyard, turn left walking up a farm track.

This soon peters out into a footpath across a field which you walk straight across.

By the time you have reached the far side of the field the noise of traffic on the A511 can be clearly heard once more.

Having crossed a hedgerow, turn right and walk along the side of the hedge down the field, the sound of traffic getting louder.

Leaving the field you walk through a small thicket of trees and out onto the pavement beside the A511.

Here if you turn left and walk 40 to 50 metres up the road you come to the nearest bus stop.

This is where the walk ends.

Getting Back

As of March 2023 when this walk was compiled, Coalville lacked a passenger railway station. There are long running plans to reopen the freight only railway between Burton-on-Trent and Leicester once more, but they are unlikely to see fruition until the late 2020s at the earliest. As of March 2023 the 29 bus provides a half hourly service from early morning until after 19:00 when it becomes hourly up until after 22:00 when it stops for the night, between Leicester and Coalville, with some services continuing to Swadlincote. Coalville is a major bus hub for north west Leicestershire, whilst Leicester has services serving the whole county and beyond, as well as a railway station providing trains to the West Midlands conurbation, Nottingham, Derby, London and destinations further east like Peterborough.