This leaflet can be used in conjunction with The National Forest Way OS Explorer 245 (The National Forest) The National Forest Way takes walkers on a 75-mile journey through a transforming Stage 9: landscape, from the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire to Beacon Hill Country Park in Leicestershire. Rosliston to On the way, you will discover the area’s evolution from a rural landscape, through industrialisation and its decline, to the Branston modern-day creation of a new forest, where End 21st-century life is threaded through a mosaic Length: 5½ miles / 9 kilometres of green spaces and settlements. Start The trail leads through young and ancient woodlands, market towns and the industrial heritage of this changing landscape. Burton upon Trent About this stage Swadlincote Start: Rosliston Forestry Centre (DE12 8JX) Ashby End: Branston Water Park (DE14 3HD) de la Zouch Coalville Leaving Rosliston Forestry Centre towards Branston Water Park, the Way takes you through young woods and farmland before crossing the River Trent via the Bailey bridge at Walton on Trent. The river is your companion for a while before you enter the flat plains of mineral workings and skylark country. The National Forest Way was created by a partnership of the National Forest Company, Derbyshire County Council, Leicestershire County Council and Staffordshire County The National Forest Company Council, with the generous Bath Yard, Moira, Swadlincote, support of Fisher German. Derbyshire DE12 6BA Telephone: 01283 551211 Enquiries: www.nationalforestway.co.uk/contact Website: www.nationalforest.org To find out more, visit: Photos: Jacqui Rock, Christopher Beech and NFC www.nationalforestway.co.uk Maps reproduced by permission of Ordnance Survey on behalf of HMSO. © Crown copyright and database right (2018). ver 3 (10 May 2018) All rights reserved. Licence number 100021056. Route directions: Westbound Rosliston to Branston 1 From Rosliston Forestry Centre car park, 8 Go through the kissing gate and walk 10 When you get to a second stile, set further head to the far side of the visitor centre, straight across the field and across a stile. away from the hedge on your left, go then walk in front of the Hub cafe. Turn left, Head diagonally right, across the next field diagonally right across the field to another just after the café, to walk downhill on a to the corner before passing through onto stile. Cross the stile, and bear right towards concrete track. a track. Turn left to walk up to the edge of the hedge and walk along the edge of the the field on your right. Cross the stile on field to a gate and stile onto a road. 2 When this surfaced route ends, turn right your right, and walk straight on along the onto an unsurfaced track, just in front of 11 Turn left to walk along the road into Walton the water treatment works. Follow this path edge of the field with the hedge on your on Trent. At the junction with Coton Road, straight on for about 500m, ignoring paths left. Follow this to the end of the field and follow the road as it bears to the right and to the left and right, and on past a wooden across a bridge. on to the T-junction with Main Street. bridge and bench to your left. 9 Pass through an area of scrub into the next 12 Head diagonally across Main Street to field and continue to follow the footpath 3 When you reach a junction of four paths, take Station Lane, opposite the White follow the route straight ahead onto one ahead, keeping the hedge to your left. The Swan pub. Follow Station Lane past the of the smaller paths. You will pass a sign path turns right and then left at the end of church and over the River Trent (using the directing you to Rosliston village and then this field before continuing ahead for about footbridge alongside the Bailey bridge used enter Snowdrop Wood. Continue through 450m (through a gap and over a stile). by vehicles). the wood and pass through the gate at the far end. 4 Walk along the edge of the next field and take the footpath between two houses, past the church and out onto Main Street. 14 3 5 Turn right and follow Main Street as it bears right. Just before the Bulls Head pub, turn left off the road on to a 12 footpath. Follow this footpath past the 13 houses, for about 125m, to the edge of 2 the village. 11 1 6 As the fencing for pony paddocks finishes, continue straight on along the 1 edge of the field, keeping the hedge 2 on your left. 10 7 After about 400m, the path begins 9 to pass through new woodland plantation. Follow the footpath 7 4 3 past a pond on the left and on to 8 a bridge on its far side. Cross the bridge and walk straight across the 6 narrow woodland to a kissing gate. 5 Link to Burton 13 About 100m after the bridge, turn right onto 18 Turn right immediately before the railway a track and then over a stile into a field. line and follow the footpath for 500m until Two paths lead from the stile. Take the path you reach a stile on your left, leading to a that bears to the right and follow it across 21 bridge over the railway. Cross the bridge the field and through a gate to where it 20 and then turn right to head in the same meets the river. End direction as before, with the railway to your right. 14 As the river curves to the right, keep following it (ignoring the track straight Footpath Please note: There is a temporary footpath closed ahead). Keep following the bends in the 4 diversion in place on the public footpath river as the path goes through a kissing between the railway line and the Gate Inn. gate, then through a small woodland This is due to the construction of a new plantation. housing development. 19 15 As you leave the woodland, look out for 19 Continue forwards along the unsurfaced a stile and a bridge to your left. Cross path, keeping the railway line on your right. these then turn right to walk alongside Follow the path round to the left, keeping the river with a lagoon on your left. 18 the trees to your right, and join Acacia Lane. Turn right and continue to the shops. 16 At the end of the lagoon, go through a gap and turn left to follow its edge 17 20 Turn left at the junction (Main Street) and to the end of the field. Turn right and 3 take the first right (Court Farm Lane) to cross a pair of stiles before turning 16 access the subway under the A38. Just left to follow the edge of the next 15 before the end of the subway, turn left field, keeping the hedge on your rather than heading straight onto the road. left. 21 When you leave the subway, continue along 17 When you reach a wooden bridge the path and then turn right into Branston with a stile either end, keep Water Park. Follow the path until you reach following the path alongside the a play area on your left, then turn right and hedge. on the left Ignore the stile 14 walk to the car park. to your left just before the end of the hedge. Instead, follow the path as it turns left (keeping the 12 hedge on your left). 13 2 11 Link to Burton upon Trent Points of interest along this stage To visit the nearby town of Burton upon Trent, which 1 Rosliston Forestry Centre 3 River Trent has a range of shops, pubs and things to do, follow the 2½ mile link below. This popular visitor centre was The earliest human presence in The National To Burton: From the car park at Branston Water the first to open in The National Forest area was probably alongside the River park, walk to the Trent & Mersey Canal and turn Forest. You can walk and Trent, with primitive stone tools revealing that right to follow the towpath into Burton. After cycle through the woodlands, people lived there as long as 25,000 years ago. 2,750m you will reach Shobnall Marina. Turn right spot the wildlife or take part Ever since, it has been a focus for settlement, here onto Shobnall Road and follow it for 500m in the Centre’s environmental transport and industry. Today it is also a haven to the second of two roundabouts. Turn left onto education programme. for wildlife, with otters, kingfishers and herons Wellington Road for 400m and then right onto all to be found here. Borough Road. Burton station is 200m on your right. 2 Walton on Trent 4 Branston Water Park From Burton: Turn left out of Burton station car park. Follow Borough Road for 200m and then This attractive village is an ancient crossing These restored gravel pits turn left onto Wellington Road. After 400m, turn point of the River Trent. It was here that King feature one of the largest areas right at the roundabout and follow Shobnall Road Edward II crossed the river in pursuit of the of reedbed in Staffordshire, for 500m to the Marina. disaffected Earl of Lancaster. Built in 1974, the together with wet woodland, Turn left onto the Trent & bridge over the Trent is the second temporary open grassland and wildflower Mersey Canal towpath Bailey bridge to cross it.