Martyn's Blog

I am having a break from long train journeys for a week or two, but today (July 5th 2021), I took a stroll to somewhere in Burton I had heard of, but never been to before.

Between Outwoods Park near the hospital and Reservoir Road, there is a woodland with paths running through it. It is officially called Oaks Wood, with signposts at both ends of the trail. Within the woods is a steep hill known locally as “Devil’s Slide”, which unfortunately has a reputation for not being a very nice place to go at night, with youngsters hanging around and getting up to all sorts of mischief.

Outwoods Park is located on Belvoir Road, near Queen’s Hospital. It originally incorporated Shobnall Fields to the south-east until the 1960s, when the A38 Burton bypass was built through it. There is a footbridge over the A38 which connects the two areas. The main path of the Oaks Wood trail comes to an end at a flight of wooden stairs, which then leads up to… another flight of stairs.

I’m no botanist, so I couldn’t tell you what type of trees or plants are along the trail. I assume they’re oak trees, hence the name. I did see a couple of squirrels running around. The trail is fairly litter-free, which was good to see.

The trail ends at Reservoir Road, one of the steepest roads in the town. As the name suggests, there is a reservoir at the top of the road, but you can’t see it because it is under cover. A new housing estate has been built at the top of the road, so I walked through that, down past the hospital and on to home.

Thank you very much for reading. You can follow the blog on all the social media sites that it is on, go to linktr.ee/martynsblog for all the links.