Charnwood Forest Golf Club

Accessing Nature in Charnwood

33 002 from QUORN AND WOODHOUSE to ROTHLEY

ROTHLEY station, which was once derelict, has been painstakingly restored by volunteers to give the atmosphere of a bygone age. Spend a while here if you can and step back in time. Complete with working gas lamps and parcels office all the rooms have a historic theme. Old fashioned posters and signs adorn all the buildings. The station is officially listed as a haunted site. The present signal box has come from Blind Lane near Wembley in London, the original box (demolished by BR) once had an eccentric signalman who bathed nude in the water trough. The area around the station boasts some ancient sites including an Anglo-Saxon burial ground and Rothley Temple (13th Century) now known as Rothley Court Hotel.

Leaving Rothley towards Leicester you past the new carriage maintenance shed and sidings before crossing Rothley brook on a high bridge. In Roman times this natural waterway was used as a canal. The line borders the exclusive Rothley Park Golf Club to the east, and to the west the famous hilltop Leicestershire landmark of Old John can be seen. Thurcaston village runs parallel to the line, which on an embankment passes by Breech and Fox Covert spinneys. The new Leicester North relief road crosses over here. The route passes through a deep cutting at Birstall village. The line ends at the site of the former Belgrave and Birstall station, where the new terminus is called Leicester North.