Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ted. At the bottom of the flight is Foxton Junction with a horse-drawn trip boat using horse
and crew in traditional dress. The Foxton Locks Inn can be very busy with visitors. It was the
first to be taken into ownership by a British Waterways partnership but is now back in private
hands.
The Market Harborough Branch was originally the main line, with traffic including coal
and animal bones for a glue factory. It passes Gartree prison and Foxton church, which is
built on a pre-Conquest site and has a Norman font and Saxon remains.
One change on the older part of the canal is that bridges have names as well as numbers,
useful in this rural area. One of the first carries the Leicestershire Round footpath up towards
Gumley, where King Æthelbald of Mercia held council in 749. Gumley Hall has an Italianate
tower. The canal has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest all the way from
Debdale Wharf to Kilby Bridge.
Saddington Tunnel is the shortest of the canal's three at 800m, short enough for the tunnel
profile to be visible all the way through even without lights. It was built crooked, although
not enough to affect the line of sight. There were slips in the approach cuttings during con-
struction, mounds of soil from these being left near the canal to contrast with the ridge and
furrow fields. The horse path over the tunnel is the most direct and obvious of them all. The
tunnel acts as a bat roost and has a ghost, Anna, a headless woman.
Once the canal comes out of the cutting, there are extensive views back past Fleckney.
Powerlines cross over, converging on a substation on the edge of Kibworth Beauchamp. At
the time of the Domesday survey, Chiburde was the farmstead of Ciber or Cybba and de
Beauchamp was the name of the family who were to act as the king's chief panteler for cen-
turies, a combination of dresser, butler and banner carrier.
From Kibworth Bridge, the canal drops down through Kibworth Bottom Lock and Crane's
Lock to cross the River Sence on a brick aqueduct, a river which the canal is to follow to the
River Soar. As it does so, the St Pancras to Sheffield railway line arrives alongside and is to
follow closely to Wigston Harcourt. Both keep to the right side of the valley, giving extensive
views over the sheep pastures below. On the far side of the valley is Wistow with its Jaco-
bean hall rebuilt in the 19th century, 18th century church with Norman work, model railway,
model village and garden centre. Wistan was the Saxon heir to the throne of Mercia, who op-
posed the incestuous marriage of Britfardus, his godfather, to his mother, Elfleda. Britfardus
spilt Wistan's skull in order to improve his own chances of getting to the throne. A shaft of
light appeared above Wistan's grave and human hair is reported to grow from the ground for
an hour on 1 June where he was killed. Britfardus went insane and Wistan became a saint.
