 Hello, thank you for joining me. I'm at the Leicestershire village of Mount Sorel today and we've come to visit the Mount Sorel and Rowfully Community Heritage Centre. It's quite an exciting place. It's a bit of everything really, bit of railway history, a bit of local history and it's a Heritage Centre and it's a pleasant country park, there's tea rooms, a little museum. So it's a very nice place to go and spend an afternoon and I'm going to take you for a little walk around the site. So as we come along the road here, you can see a bridge just there, that bridge looking at its construction. At first glance I'll say it probably goes over a small river, but it doesn't. I'm going to show you what it goes over, those of you who watch my videos regularly probably guess. Of course it's a railway line, but he doesn't look like a railway bridge I don't think because it's not made out of engineering, bricks are made out of stone. This railway is the Mount Sorel branch which comes off the Great Central Railway and if we look on this side you can see Knuckley Hill Station which we're going to go and walk over to and have a look at. So the branch is about one mile maybe a little bit more, it comes off the Great Central Main Line at Swiveland, there's the Tea Room and Heritage Centre so we're going to go in here and I'm going to show you the site. So you can on some days come here by train, I have come here by train in the past, but the railway itself isn't actually running today so we won't be seeing any moving trains on the line today. Have a look round. So the station down there is Knuckley Hill, Mount Sorel is the next station onwards. Now there's a couple of different... take you around up there in a minute and I'll show you down here. First you come down here into what is like a former quarry and there's the Railway Museum. Now it is getting towards the end of the day and as you can see it's starting to rain so they may have already closed it but if they have I have already been inside and taken some pictures so we'll go over there anyway. If it is closed it's not the underworld, I'll post the pictures, I'll insert them into the video for you to see. So as we come down here, signpost so many different things to see. You can see a little narrow gauge track here, so we follow this. We'll see some narrow gauge rolling stock. Oh and this is cool, look this is like a huge digger. It would have once been part of a much bigger machine but that would have you know dug out the the ground, the stone out the ground. If you have a look that's what it would have once looked like so you're looking at just that of a huge machine. It's huge, look it's bigger than me and there's a tyre and that's the small tyres because the bigger ones will be even taller than I am. Now here's the narrow gauge tracks here, standard gauge tracks in the background where the railway museum is. There's some wagons here which could have been pushed by hand or pulled by a horse. I go up here and this goes to there's an engine shed with a loco but unfortunately we can't actually see the loco because it's in the shed which is a little bit disappointing but you know I'll have to come back one day when it's actually out. Here's some standard gauge wagons so the narrow gauge loco is in that shed there so as I said we can't see it what would have been quite cool I think. They could have put a window on the side so you could look in and I could tick the loco off because I can't actually tick it off now because I haven't seen it. Go round the back here in there's a small artifact museum very interesting to read so if you ever come here do have a look in there. See the narrow gauge track it comes round there goes round the back and there's a narrow circle of narrow gauge track now I think what they've done I don't know if someone wants to come and tell me are they making it so they can do rides because that would be cool. The museum is in here but unfortunately they have just locked it but then it's about half an hour before closing time personally I think they should keep it open till closing time but you know they possibly have their reasons for closing now but I will post pictures of inside the museum for you to see. I think it's because it's raining and everyone's kind of left so that's possibly why they've locked up but anyway so round over there there's a narrow gauge track I don't think you can see it but there's a loop around there so and that wasn't I'm sure that wasn't there when I did the branch the time I did it so I'm wondering is that going to be a passenger line to give people a little ride and like I've already said do come and tell me if you know better because if it is gonna be for rides I've come back and have get the loco for haulage so museum joining the branch then it goes just down the hill the newest railway stations in preservation Prince Charles I believe that's the bridge we started on it's very tight clearances so you can't get certain locos and trains you know you won't you won't get certain trains up here so I doubt very much we're gonna see like a black 5 or 9 F it'll be the smaller industrial steam locos which can come up here they do run the 101 DMU's do come up the branch and it's strictly no heads out the windows you pass through the bridge because the clearing is very very tight so crossing the railway line now there's the railway station that way looks towards the Great Central Main Line this here junction goes into the museum I'm just gonna walk up here now and have a quick look there's a really cool nature trail here which I think is a really nice addition the Great Central Railway it's just over there now this nature trail it winds its way around and there's you know all sorts of things to see I don't want to show you all of it because I think you should come here and see some of it for yourself but here this bit I particularly like because great vantage point or the railway that's knuckly hill ground frame we're gonna carry on along here so come down the path a little way which runs still running parallel to the railway line there's a nice little viewing point up here so if you ever come here when trains are running down here would be an ideal place to come and watch the trains go by look at that you got nice to see they've got various bird feeders insect hotel all sorts I'm now gonna take you up here it's quite an exciting path which winds its way around this little woodland so just further up the pylons dominating the background I like pylons so some people don't like them either going up here there's one of my favorite things it's a willow arch I always enjoy walking through a willow arch whenever I come somewhere like this they go around here and it's like a tunnel through the willows might get slightly drier by going through here to go through here as we approach the end it's like there you can sort of you know just sit there and just relax outside very pleasant place and then the path winds its way around there and eventually takes you up to there so I'm gonna run around and I'll show you a bit more when we get to where that benches so just come up the hill out there there's a little outdoor classroom for like when schools come here don't think I'm just picking it up the rain kind of looks quite spectacular it's like a lot of glitters coming down it's really quite an unusual view now when you get to here you get a good view over the rest of the site so no mistaking where we are knuckley hill station there's the railway museum there is another path which goes right the way up to the top over there I don't know if I'll do that today and it's a bit similar to this though a winding path around the woods I think I need to get out the rain and get a cup of tea the way it keeps raining like this but there's a couple more things I want to show you so it's not quite the end of video so the footpath we went right down there we came along there there's the willow arch there's a rainbow it's not going to pick out it's the camera going to pick the rainbow out because if it is that's quite a scene knuckley hill station with a rainbow so it's not always bad when you come somewhere when it rains it does you know you get some quite nice visual effects there's water there so you can water a steam loco when they come here so that's good they are prepared to have steam trains coming up here but it is only on occasions but it does happen so do have a look on Great Central Railways website and you'll see another view of the knuckley hill rainbow so it is worth I would recommend coming here when you can come by train but for me today I was in the area and I just thought it'd be nice to call in and can't promise you'll see a rainbow there if you come here so yeah is it's well worth a visit that's all we've just been that's a map of the winding path we've just taken around the woods so we're gonna cross the railway again it's fairly safe to say that there's not gonna be a train coming and I want to take you to one more place where we get another view over the site so make sure the gate is closed we're now gonna head this way it's another bit narrow gauge track it kind of almost does a triangle you got track goes there track goes to there and like I said it goes all the way around the back of the railway museum and then there's that circuit track and whether there is going to be some kind of passenger rides place I'm gonna take you to I want to finish videos up there whether those picnic tables are because there you get quite a nice view of the site so let's make our way up there from the only person left I think all the sensible people are sitting in medium in the tea room having a cup of tea and I'm the one who's walking around in the rain but I don't mind rainbow still there just for the trees I'll show you before we end the video directly under the pylon support so that's the heritage centre so when you come by car you're part your car here and you go in in that way there but when you come by train obviously you can ride an ugly hill railway station so half here there's another winding path around the woods which is also worth doing you get some good views looking down on the railway I wanted to show you is an ugly hill garden railway it's G scale railway and you can see a few trains running they have finished for today but I did film a train earlier so I shall put that into the video now so there we go at least we got to see a train going technically in my books this is a model village because there is some buildings it's not simply a garden railway you've got obviously the track but you've got some houses you've got a bridge over a little pond you've also got this girder bridge here and you've got a church what you can actually do you can pay I think it's £1.50 for your child to drive a train like their remote control trains that's quite fun so you face what you've got like a big loop here then there's a branch that goes off through the shed and there's another loop here bloom loop and goes back kind of reminding me of some similar layouts that some of the miniature railways we have visited so very very pleasant place and it's actually stopped raining which is you know even better so what I want to do now is take you to this viewpoint oh by the way there's a quite cool looking crazy golf so I've never seen a crazy golf quite like this one before so I'm gonna finish the video here where we get a really nice view over the whole site and show you where we've been so down there is the railway museum just there the branch that way goes to the great central main line there's knuckly hill station we had a walk around the woods over there and the bridge which we came over is just out of shot over there so from the Mount Zoral and Rowfully Community Heritage Center thank you very much for watching if you are in the area you know do call in and visit them it's a very pleasant place you can spend a nice afternoon here or maybe if you're on the great central railway ride up the branch on the day it's running come visit them so thank you very much for watching please do feel free to like subscribe comment tell your friends and