Bestwood Country Park and the River Leen, 17thMay 2026

Starting at the overflow car park on Bestwood Lodge Drive, Dave's 5½ mile walk took 14 members and guests through the woods of the Country Park past Alexandra Lodge and round Bestwood Village to the Mill Lakes on the River Leen.  After returning to the park, we passed the magnificent Bestwood Colliery Winding Engine House before stopping for an early lunch and coffee at the nearby Dynamo House.

Further excellent tracks in the park took us round and then up the landscaped colliery tip for views in all directions before descending through the woods to Bestwood Lodge and the start. 

Thanks John and Terry for the photos.

The start at Bestwood Lodge Drive

Bestwood Country Park

 Alexandra Lodge (1877), now the base for the Park Rangers and a study centre

The Old Rectory on Park Road

Headstocks and miners' cottages

Mill Lakes - now a nature reserve but once the site of a water mill, one of several in the Leen Valley

Coffee stop near the lakes

Some of the advertised wildlife

In the 18th century,  a series of leats were built along the River Leen east of Hucknall as part of the famous Robinson cotton milling empire. These channels took water from the River Leen and used it to power a number of water mills along its course.

Returning to the park on the part of the National Cycle Network

The Winding Engine House is the last remaining part of Bestwood Colliery - one of the busiest coal mines in Nottinghamshire and the first in the UK to produce over a million tons per year. The winding engine lowered colliers into the mine shaft, and winched mined coal up to the surface.  It houses a large winding engine, originally powered by steam.  At its peak, the mine employed 2000 men

The headstock and winding house of Bestwood Colliery, 1875 to 1967

Inside the Engine house, a diagram of how it used to work

Exhibition created by local volunteers

On the recce - a scary trip up to see the winding gear in action

The Dynamo House is the former electrical sub-station serving the colliery and is normally open only between 10am and 12 noon on Saturdays and Bank Holidays.  Tours of the Winding Engine House are run from here

Interesting display of the history of Bestwood dating back to the early days of coal mining in the area.  Other displays go back to the middle ages, the Doomsday Book and the Iron Age

The top of the old tip (124m) with excellent views towards Hucknall and Nottingham

Bestwood Lodge, now a hotel, is a large 19th century country house originally a medieval Royal Hunting Lodge set within what was once a part of Sherwood Forest

How to find the start-points of walks and What3Words , May 2026

Instructions about how to get to the start-point of a walk are perhaps the most important information in the Walks Programme and this is why we usually meet at a significant landmark and provide local driving instructions on how to find it.  Post-codes are always stated but are inaccurate in rural areas; grid references are accurate to within 100m or better but require an OS map which is not useful if you are driving a car.

The Notts Area Ramblers website provides the most comprehensive approach and uses the grid reference provided by the Walk Leader, adjusted manually to improve accuracy, and links to a Google Map to determine a driving route to the start-point.  In addition, it publishes the What3Words which locate the start-point to within 3m anywhere in both rural and built-up areas.

At present, on the Upcoming Walks Programme page of the blog, we provide a link to an interactive OpenStreetMap map showing the start-point and, if available, the track of a walk.  This can be panned and zoomed in and out but there is no link to Google Maps.  The alternative is to: download the What3Words app to a smartphone; locate the start-point manually using the map or input the three words into the Search box in exactly the format ///word1.word2.word3 ; use the Navigate, Maps and Directions tools to determine a driving route to the start.

Starting with this week's Bestwood walk therefore, the What3Words will be included in the Programme.

Belton Park, Syston and Barkston, 10th May 2026

 

National Trust Walk

John Beirne, assisted by another National Trust volunteer Lyn Bacon, led 16 ramblers on the 8½ mile walk starting in Belton Park.  After a short excursion to look at some of the fine buildings near Belton House,we left the Park and took the Green Lane bridleway adjacent to Syston Hall, which was the home of Sir John Thorold and the home of Britain’s first road race circuit.  The route took us up Whipperstall Hill, through Gashouse Plantation and past South Lodge before heading to the edge of Barkston Airfield, a former WWII bomber airfield.  We then descended Minnett's Hill to Barkston Village to stop for lunch adjacent to the River Witham and then followed it for a short distance before heading up to and over Peascliffe Tunnel before returning to the Belton Estate via the grounds of Belton Hotel.

John briefs us at the start with a description of the walk ...

... and some history of Belton House

Former stables of the Belton Estate - now a cafe

Group examining a pond on the Syston Estate

South Lodge, visible from Bellmount Tower and vice versa

The edge of  RAF Barkston Heath

Down Minnett's Hill to Barkston

St Nicolas's Church, Barkston

Lunch stop by the Witham

Family struggling to paddle up the Witham.
Click here to see the video

Air shaft above the East Coast Mainline Peascliffe Tunnel, source of noise from passing trains

And back to the Belton Estate

Doddington and Harby and the Notts Guided Walks Programme, 3rd May 2026

Starting in the overflow car park at Doddington Hall, Angela took just a few of us on an 8-mile, flat walk on paths and tracks through the Doddington Hall estate to Harby, across the old Lincoln to Fledborough railway line and back through Skellingthorpe Old Wood, an ancient woodland.  Some visited the very smart Doddington Hall cafe and farm shops at the end.

Note that Chris Thompson and Neil Stafford have just published the 2026 version of Notts Guided Walks Programme, an excellent source of material for our own Group.

The start - three others behind the camera

Looking back at the rear of Doddington Hall

A bridge (photo) too far

Huge fields of rape in this part of Lincolnshire

Lunch in Skellingthorpe Old Wood - others behind the camera

Approaching Doddington

St Peter's Church

Doddington Hall

And on the way back, a careful choice of route just off the A46, will take you past this life-sized, steel sculpture of a Lancaster bomber called On Freedom's Wings near Norton Disney.  There will be a weekend of events to celebrate its inauguration starting Friday 15 May.  Thanks Paul for the photo.

Lambley Dumbles and Ploughman Wood, 26th April 2026

Starting near the school in Lambley, Howard, led 16 ramblers on a 7.3 mile walk on probably the hottest day of the year so far, taking good field paths and tracks with only two stiles to Lambley Dumbles and Bonney Doles. We stopped for coffee in Ploughman Wood but there was no suitable stop for lunch which a few took in the playground at the finish.

Thanks Steve, John and Terry for the photos and Howard for the route.

Howard's briefing at the start

Our Leader striding out

Ploughman Wood was donated to the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust by the Home Office in 1996. Covering over 32 hectares, this is one of Nottinghamshire’s few remaining ancient woodlands. Documentary evidence shows that it dates back to the 13th century and was part of an area of woodland covering more than 120 hectares. It would have formed part of the south-eastern extremity of the greater Sherwood Forest.

English not Spanish bluebells in Ploughman Wood

More striding out

Coffee stop

On the south side of the wood, two kilns have been installed recently to produce charcoal which is sold through local outlets

Bridge in Bonney Doles, an area of meadow and woodland developed by the Woodland Trust as a Millennium project. Bonney Doles is the traditional local name for this area