Pegg's Green Dismantled Railway
Selected Wild Place / Other Wild Places / Public Rights of Way / VC55 boundary
Parking is available on Zion Hill or the playing fields car park opposite the New Inn. Follow public footpath signs at the edge of the field to reach the southern part of the disused railway line or, alternatively, walk down Zion Hill and onto Bakewells Lane and follow footpath signs to northern section of former track.
Public footpath
Site species count:
Sir George Beaumont of Coleorton Hall had the Coleorton Railways built in 1833 to take coal from a mine on his land at Smolie (Newbold) to join the Leicester to Swannington Railway at the bottom of Swanning Incline (see Swanning Incline Wild Place). This section of the dismantled railway line is relatively steep with embankments on both sides and is likely to have been landscaped from materials excavated from the nearby Coleorton tunnel.
The former track is now a wide grass pathway with scrubby banks of bramble, elder and hawthorn. Fruit trees have been planted in the central section where it widens out and the path leads up to the playing fields and site of the former tunnel (now filled in). Although only a short section of line is accessible, the route provides a pleasant green corridor which is well used by birds, butterflies and small mammals.
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