Mountsorrel Common
Selected Wild Place / Other Wild Places / Public Rights of Way / VC55 boundary
Mountsorrel Common is dissected by Wood and Bond Lanes, and parking is best on the road edge of Bond Lane near the junction with Wood Lane. The easiest route by public transport is the number 127 (between Shepshed and Leicester) with a stop at Castle Hill, a walk up The Green, past Castle Hill, along Cufflins Pit Lane and onto Bond Lane (a one mile, pleasant walk). You can even get to the site occasionally on the Great Central Railway (Nunckley Hill or Mountsorrel Station)! There are numerous pathways into and through the woods as it is public access land. There is little antisocial behaviour, but there is a potential issue with scrambling motorbikes, so just keep one eye up if you are looking down!
Registered Common Land, part of the contiguous Buddon Wood and Cocklow Wood ancient woodland network. Part of Mountsorrel (heritage) Conservation Area.
A large chunk of the site is threatened with destruction due to a proposed expansion of Mountsorrel Quarry.
Total species seen at this site:
Mountsorrel Common (sometimes mistakenly called Rothley Common) is a remnant part of the Mountsorrel Hills habitat complex, which once stretched from Castle Hill in the east, through Broad Hill, Hawcliffe Hill, Cocklow Wood and to Buddon Wood in the west, but has now mostly been lost to quarrying. Overlying pink granite, the site has slightly acidic to more neutral areas and is best characterised as W10 (Quercus robur – Pteridium aquilinum – Rubus fructicosus) woodland, with small acid to neutral grassland glades & rides, and disturbed woodland scrub to the east. The site has small pink granite outcrops, some of which have been surface-worked historically. Mountsorrel Common is the closest you can get to visiting the near legendary Buddon Wood (the remains of which are inaccessible)!
The site has a run of Ancient Woodland Indicator plants such as: Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta), Pignut (Conopodium majus), Greater Stitchwort (Stellaria holostea) and Sessile Oak (Quercus petraea), all of which can be found in abundance; with some species such as Wood Anemone (Anemone nemorosa), Three-nerved Sandwort (Moehringia trinervia), Crab Apple (Mauls sylvestris) and Common Figwort (Scrophularia nodosa), much more localised. The site is one of a few in the county where Navelwort (Umbilicus rupestris) can be found. The site is also habitat for a good run of fungi, bats and deadwood invertebrates.
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