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LEI Country

Beacon Hill Country Park


Location Plans


Permanent Orienteering Course available soon

View details of other Permanent Orienteering Courses



Beacon Hill

At 245m (802 feet), Beacon Hill is the second highest point in Leicestershire and the site of an 'Ancient Monument'; a Bronze Age hill fort. A toposcope at the summit indicates landmarks that can be seen in every direction.


There are more than 100 hectares of heath and woodland, including an arboretum with a collection of trees native to Britain. A newly-planted area in West Beacon includes a woodland trail featuring woodland crafts, a viewing platform and a shelter built of straw. This new area incorporates an old hedge line, existing field ponds and an open area being managed to support different types of grassland (acid grassland, hay meadow and heathland). An old stone wall provides cover for various reptiles including adders.


The park is also home to the unusual sight of Manx Loughton sheep and perhaps more surprisingly, alpacas. The latter are similar to llamas and coexist happily with the sheep and afford them some protection from any dogs that get through the unfortunate amount of fencing now in the park. Another 'hazard' for those enjoying the park is the droppings from the long horned cattle that wander much of the area.


Mapped with this area for our purposes are the adjoining Martin's & Felicity's Woods owned by the Woodland Trust and Broombriggs Farm and Windmill Hill owned by the County Council as is Beacon Hill itself. A permanent orienteering course is to be found in parts of Beacon Hill (outside that area which is designated an SSSI) with a few posts in the nearby Windmill Hill area. This was created with financial assistance from the National Forest.


Martins Wood was acquired with help from the Friends of Charnwood and named to remember their President, Sir Andrew Martin a former Lord-Lieutenant of Leicestershire who lived at the Brand as his family still do. The Brand is mapped and we are allowed to use it in conjunction with Swithland and Bradgate.


Beacon is one of the earliest areas of Leicestershire mapped for orienteering and has been extensively used. There are now seasonal restrictions to protect the SSSI area and in particular to avoid disturbance to ground nesting birds.


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Broombriggs Farm and Windmill Hill

The farm was presented to Leicestershire County Council in 1970 and is a 55-hectare mixed arable and stock farm. It has a 2.4km (1.5 mile) farm trail and information boards explaining the working of the farm. The trail is interlinked with a network of waymarked footpaths and horse tracks between Beacon Hill and the adjoining Windmill Hill, which got its name from being the site of a 19th-century windmill. For our purposes they are all mapped together and a few permanent orienteering posts are scattered across Windmill Hill. The area is used in conjunction with the adjoining Beacon Hill.


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Felicity's Wood

This small area is owned by the Woodland Trust and was designed and planted with help from the National Forest Company. Also known as Beacon Cottage, it is of about 9 Hectares and is mapped for our purposes with Beacon Hill.


It includes open ground and glades and slopes steeply down to Wood Brook where a permissive footpath links the area to the Outwoods. The open aspects afford tremendous views over the northern parts of Charnwood Forest and into the valley of the River Soar.


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