Aylestone Meadows: September 9 2018

in #actifit6 years ago (edited)

A walk around Aylestone Meadows on a Sunday afternoon. The weather had become a little overcast but it still felt good to be in the open, and lots of people were out, in spite of the threat of rain.

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Down by the river, on the way to the Great Central Way.

From Wikipedia:

Aylestone Meadows is an 8.8 hectare Local Nature Reserve in Leicester. It is owned and managed by Leicester City Council.

It is Leicester's largest nature reserve situated on the floodplains of the River Soar and River Biam along with several locks of the Grand Union Canal. It has a high wildlife conservation value, and has trails that are popular venue with hikers, families on outings, dog walkers and cyclists. Many species of plant and wildlife live amongst the patchwork of flood meadows, woodland and wetlands 1.6 miles from the city centre.

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The Great Central Way (previously the Great Central Railway) is part of Sustrans route 6, providing 4.5 miles of off road asphalt paths for cyclists, walkers and horse riders.

Two hundred and fifty thousand years after the Ice Age, the River Soar followed the course of the River Bytham and is now one of the primary sources of the occasional flooding of the meadows. It is home to bird and wildlife together with rare and common flora.

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Everywhere, trees were covered in berries, hips and haws.

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A medieval packhorse bridge provides evidence of trade and previous populations. As this area was the site of floodplains, resulting in fertile land and good grazing areas, a settlement grew from prehistoric times to become the village of Aylestone. The construction of the Packhorse Bridge from local granite enabled transportation of goods across an area prone to flooding and includes several passing areas.

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This wee family were fishing by the river for ...

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Freshwater crayfish! They'd caught two and were trying to entice a third.



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That looks beautiful. Id have been in that river! And a railway reference in there too...you really know how to make a reader happy lol ;-)
Aren't electric pylons a blight though ?

The railway is interesting - the station was in a different place (Great Central Street - would you believe it)! Archeologists recently exposed the remains of the Roman city underneath the site of the old station - it was a huge area of streets and buildings. Very muddy!

I like the pylons 😍

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Somewhere there are also cast iron gas containers, but I didn't see them yesterday.

and when you think of great Roman Cities, Leicester isn't a name that immediately trips off the tongue!
Gas clocks I love, totally different class to pylons!

Leicester was on the Fosse Way linking Lincoln and Exeter, by way of Leicester, Bath and Cirencester (not a word about Birmingham - that city is a real johnny-come-lately, didn't get itself together until the middle ages). I think much of the Fosse Way is the A46 now - notably straight.

Of course, I forgot about the Fosse Way...thank you. Today has been an education :-)

A woman was paddling in the river further down, there were beaches on both banks and couple of simple rope and plank swings hanging from a tree over the river. She told me that the water was very cold, but that this had been a special place for her son who had died. She liked to come there and sit on the swing because she felt close to him there.

Aww thats really sad, but everyone needs to get their peace however they can.

They do. I was touched by how important these places are to people. It is a lovely spot, even on a gloomy day.

Wow, crayfish ! Do people eat those, @shanibeer ?

The family were having an interesting discussion with the two young children about whether they were going to eat them. The water quality in the river is very good, so pollution wouldn't be a problem. According to this article it's a good thing to catch and eat signal crayfish, which are an introduced species and have overwhlemed our native crayfish (similar to the red and grey squirrel problem). You're supposed to have a licence, though - I have an idea that you're supposed to have a licence to fish in waterways and rivers anyway.

Was going to ask about the crayfish. The ones we used to catch weren't as chunky as that and were white or translucent
You learn something new everyday.....
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/678461/Fortune-catching-alien-mini-lobsters-selling

I think the ones you're talking about might be the native crayfish?

It appears that they were! We used to catch them as kids :-)

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