[1] With your back to the pub, turn right and then left along Church Lane. Keep straight ahead left of a garage to reach a gate into a field. Go all the way down to the far left corner of the field where a gate leads onto a road. Turn right along the road for about three quarters of a mile. Pass under electricity wires, then 50 metres beyond a small bridge with prominent brick walls, turn right on a footpath.
[2] Go straight ahead across the first field to a gate, then follow the left edge of the next field to the corner, with the railway ahead.
Your OS map may still show the footpath crossing the railway at a foot crossing, but this has been closed. Follow the instructions below and use the new footbridge.
(A) The railway is the busy Midland Main Line from Sheffield to London Saint Pancras. This section opened in 1857.
Turn left along a track, with the railway on your right, to reach a footbridge. Use the footbridge to cross the railway then follow the left edge of the field to find a stile on the left, almost level with the 2nd telegraph pole to the right.
Cross straight over the road, which is the busy A6, and take the path opposite. Cross a narrow field to a stile, cross it and continue straight on with a hedge to your right. When level with a stile on the right, start angling left to a waymarker post which is at a protruding corner in the top hedge. From here, keep straight ahead on a good track with a hedge on your left.
On reaching a gap in the hedge, just before the track starts descending more steeply, turn right on a path to a gate in the opposite hedge. Cross the next field to a gate right of a bridge which leads onto the canal.
[3] Turn right along the towpath, which you will follow for some distance.
(B)The canal is the 5.5 mile long Market Harborough arm of the Grand Union Canal. This was originally planned in the 1790's to be the mainline on a route connecting the river Soar at Leicester to the Nene at Northampton, but funds ran out after it reached Market Harborough in 1809 and it became just a small branch to wharves in the town.
This stretch is a good example of a contour canal. Note how it runs along the side of a hill which slopes down to your right. When the ditch was dug, the spoil was deposited on the downhill side to form a raised bank, with the towpath running along the top, that keeps the water in. This technique is cheaper and easier than building tunnels, cuttings and aqueducts, but does mean the canal has to wind around more as it follows the contour.
Eventually, you will reach a swing bridge on the edge of Foxton village. Cross over the road and continue on the towpath to the next bridge. Go under it and immediately turn right, then right again to the main street through the village, which comes down over the bridge.
If you desire refreshments, the Black Horse Pub is just up the hill to your right.
[4] You are now on the Leicestershire Round, and will be following it all the way back. Turn left down the main street. Immediately after house number 43, turn right along the narrow Dalbys Lane. At the end turn left for 10 metres then right along an enclosed path between gardens. On reaching another road turn left, and take a track on the right between houses 21 and 25. Cross a stile at the end of the track into a field, and go slightly left to two gates in the far corner.
Go straight ahead to a waymark post by a black plastic tub. Continue ahead with the hedge on your left through a few more fields to reach a kissing gate. Go through and keep straight on, now with the hedge on your right. In the far corner, cross a small bridge over a ditch and go half left to a tall waymark post which indicates another small bridge. Now go half right towards a waymark post at a gap midway along the far hedge of a large field, 100 metres right of a semi-derelict brick barn. Keep straight on to a gate in the next field corner that leads up to a road.
[5] Cross straight over and turn right for 100 metres. On reaching a triangular road sign with an exclamation mark, fork left down a rough track. After 40 metres angle left to a kissing gate. Go ahead across the field, and 10 metres into the next field turn left through a hedge gap and follow the left edge of the field to a gate leading down to the A6. Cross it and take the path opposite. Go straight ahead across two fields to reach a line of trees. Go straight through and keep straight on across two more fields, then go under the railway at a low bridge.
Cross a stile and go left to a footbridge. Follow the right edge of the next large field to the corner.
(C) Near the corner is a large obelisk with the inscription, "Lottery 1886". Lottery was a famous racehorse, who won the first official Grand National in 1839. He could have won in 1840 too, but ran under a heavy handicap and fell at The Wall. The 1886 date is a bit of a mystery, as it must be long after the horse died, and it is not clear he is buried here. It is known he spent his later life on a stud farm here though.
Go through a gate in the corner and keep roughly straight ahead across three more fields to reach a road junction. Go straight ahead uphill through the village of East Langton. On reaching the Bell Inn turn right, then left along a road opposite Leopards Lodge.
[6] After the last house, take a kissing gate on a sharp right bend. Cross a small horse field then follow the right edge of a larger field. Keep straight ahead on a clear path across a few more fields, with the spire of Thorpe Langton church ahead, and extensive views opening up to the right. Eventually, follow a hedge on your left to a field corner. Go through two gates then immediately left through another kissing gate and follow the track beyond.
Just before a house on the left, turn right on a path. Go across the field to the church, pass to the left of it to reach Church Lane again. Turn left, then right back to the start.