Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Sileby Lock with its two weirs and large weirpool
.
Rothley was the site of a Roman villa and has a granite Norman church with a Saxon cross
and a 13th century chapel with the figure of a Knight Templar. An Elizabethan house in the
village was the home of the Babingtons from the 15th to the 19th centuries and the birthplace
of historian Lord Macaulay. Today it is a hotel. Rothley was also where Helen Locke lived
in Freda Warrington's
The Rainbow Gate
. Rothley Brook joins above the sewage works and
the river is followed by the A6 to Loughborough. Across the fields, Cossington's church has
excellent Victorian stained glass.
At Sileby, the vicar hands out oranges to local schoolchildren on Whitsunday in memory
of the victory at Waterloo. A ring of ten bells serves as a reminder of the presence of the large
St Mary's church the rest of the year.
At the downstream end of Mountsorrel Lock it is necessary for portable craft to relaunch
on the far side of the road that crosses but the wall of the Waterside Inn and the humped
bridge make the approach of traffic blind from both directions. Canal navvies were housed in
huts at the Navins.
The longest brick arch bridge in Europe, carrying a conveyor, and the Railway Inn remain
as reminders that a private railway link of 1860 undermined the viability of Mountsorrel
Wharf, which was built in order to load pink granite from the quarry, that used to coat the
neighbourhood in dust. Mountsorrel has a covered market cross and the Stonehurst Family
Farm & Motor Museum.
The canal passes back under the A6 and rejoins the river before turning sharply left to fol-
low the St Pancras to Sheffield railway again for the rest of the way.
Approaching Barrow upon Soar, there are extensive views over the meadows to the left.
This time it is the river that makes the loop while the canal takes the more usual straight line,
