Leicester Canal walkClick on a photo for a large version. |
Leicester waterways are a bit confusing. There is a river (the old River Soar), and running alonside it, a canal, which is closer to the city centre. These sometimes meet, so there are islands between them. This walk is from Frog Island to Bede Island.
This is to the south of Abbey Park, the whole making an island. We got to the start of this walk using A Frog Bus. I think the official term is Hop! buses. They say Ribbit! They are free to use, and go round the city centre, anti-clockwise. This is their first year - I don't know if they will continue. It seemed an appropritae way to get to Frog Island.
This is the view along the canal from the bridge onto Frog Island.
Walking along the canal a short while, we visited Bitsy's Emporium of Awesome for toasted cheese sandwiches for lunch. We chose medium sandwiches - small would have been quite enough for us! And we watched people buying aerosols from GrafHQ, for street art, while eating the sandwiches.
We assumed that GrafHQ were responsible for the plaintive (and ineffectual) notices.
A certain amount of graffiti along the tow path. (Doesn't worry us! Nice and cheerful.)
We walked along the tow path to Soar Island. (I suspect this isn't its name, but it's what we called it!) The tow path stays on the west side of the canal, but the river joins it at this point, so the tow path ends on a bridge between the two.
The tow path continues along the island (all boarded up and rather boring), then returns via another bridge to the west bank of both waterways, combined at this point. There is a sluice, and interesting machinery.
You can get to the Rally Community Park here, but we didn't enter it. There is a good artwork here, celebrating the Imperial Typewriter Company, which used to be a Leicester company. I remember when typewriters contained things like this!
We continue along the tow path.
We left the canal at The Newarke bridge, because we wanted to see the tram stop on Western Boulevard, which was, indeed, worth seeing. Apparently, it was never actually used for trams!
We are now on Bede Island. There is some interesting art in Bede Park, a rolled map of Leicester, and some standing stones decorated with children's drawings.
© Jo Edkins 2023