Leicester Easter Meet (and drink)

On Good Friday afternoon 23 Clarion cyclists assembled outside the City Centre Premier Inn which was the Easter Meet HQ. The ride planned and led by Richard Himan (London Clarion) was to the site of the Battle of Bosworth Field where in August 1385 Henry Tudor’s Lancastrian army faced the much larger Yorkist army of King Richard III. Comrade Himan had not only planned an excellent route he had also arranged fine and sunny weather for the entire weekend. The total meet attendance was 30: 25 cyclists and 5 non cyclists

Easter Saturday’s route was again led by Richard Himan, This time we headed south out of the city by way of NCN6, which follows the former route Great Central Railway towards Blaby where we pick up a series of quiet lanes to our destination at Foxton Locks.

Leicester has a good network of cycle paths and with Richard’s guidance we were soon on the mostly traffic-free NCN63 out of the city to Glenfield. Here our route picked up the Ivanhoe trail to Ratby, following the route of the Midlands railway constructed by George Stephenson. It was then to be a combination of well surfaced suburban roads and lanes towards Bosworth. Our return to the city via Kirkby Muxloe we pick up another cycle track at Glenfield and then onto Leicester’s Secular Hall for the reception buffet prepared by Lyn Hurst and Margaret Jepson and the traditional distribution of Meet ribbon courtesy of London Clarion.

The ten locks on the Grand Union Canal at Foxton are the longest and steepest of the entire canal network. It takes about 45 minutes to raise barges the 75 feet from the lower canal to the upper canal. At the beginning of the 20th century faced by competition from the railways the canal owners employed an engineer to build a ‘boat lift’ in an attempt by-pass the locks and thereby speed up the transfer of barges.

The engineer Gordon Cale Thomas designed an inclined plane where a stationary steam engine would haul the loaded barges up a 1 in 4 incline in special water-tight tanks called caissons. Whilst his scheme worked well it only lasted for 10 years and all that remains today is the slope linking the two canals engines. Next, we entered Watermead Park, a vast public park which has numerous lakes and many cycle paths around them. We picked up NCN48 alongside the canal to Cossington from where we followed quiet lanes to pick up NCN48 at Thrussington through to Asfordby and on to the Dickinson & Morris Pork Pie shop in Melton. After lunch we departed for Leicester via the famous Ankle Hill, where in the English Civil war ‘the blood ran ankle deep’ In the village of Scraptoft we had a beer stop at The White House to raise a toast by the portrait of General Thomas Cooper. Leader of the Leicester Chartists. During a pause between rounds the Comrade Jepson took the opportunity to announce the Annual General Meeting. He stated: ‘there was nowt to report’. The Club’s finances were sound and the Easter Meet 2024 would be held in Gloucester. Before any points could be raised from the floor the next round of drinks arrived and brought the meeting to a close. Easter Monday’s plan was to have a guided walk to three sites in the city centre linked to formers Clarion cyclists: Roy Watts, Chair of Leicester Clarion Cycling Club and International Brigade volunteer, Alice Hawkins, Clarion cyclists and a militant suffragette and Clarion member Amos Sherriff, former mayor and cycle shop owner.

After returning to HQ via some rather busy roads through the Highfields district of the city there was just time for a quick shower and a bite to eat before the planned pub crawl. Charles Jepson led the group to what he had been assured were the five best pubs in the city: Duffy’s Bar, The Blue Boar, The Rutland and Derby Arms, The Two Tailed Lion, and The Wygston Arms. The general consensus was The Blue Boar won the Pub of the Meet Award; the only award necessary for a successful Easter Meet.

Easter Sunday’s ride was to be north of the city to Melton Mowbray for no other reason than David Bissett (Bolton Clarion) wanted to eat one or more of the pork pies for which this market town is world famous.

23 cyclists left Meet HQ at 10am prompt and quickly picked up a cycle path to Abbey Park, passing the statue of Cardinal Wolsey and the ruins of Leicester Abbey where he died in 1530. Then we followed the River Soar and the Grand Union Canal, passing the National Space Centre whose design resembles a giant condom and Abbey Pumping Station which houses four massive beam

Unfortunately, though it was raining rather heavily, a small and hardy band headed off for Peace Walk where there is a memorial to Roy Watts who was killed at Gandesa on the Ebro during the Spanish Civil War. Club Secretary read a letter Roy had written to his Clarion comrades shortly before his death urging them to fight fascism. Stuart Walsh

(Yorkshire Coast) read a poem by an Australian nurse who had also served in Spain. We then honoured his name by singing The Internationale. By now everyone was thoroughly wet and cold, so it was decided to abandon the rest of the walk and end the Meet in the traditional manner by singing the Clarion hymn England Arise.