North of Leicester the River Soar is joined by the River Wreake. The Wreake used to be navigable as far as Melton Mowbray, where there was a basin beside the railway station. From there a canal ran to another basin close to the centre of Oakham.
The Queen Elizabeth Theatre of Oakham School is housed in an old warehouse that stood beside that basin. I managed to get a couple of photographs of it on Saturday, though the theatre is now surrounded by other school buildings.
That was five years ago. Today I was in Oakham again, hunting for the canal elsewhere in the town.
I found it among new housing south of the Burley Park Way bridge and out in the fields beyond it. By the bridge itself you find an explanatory panel and a milepost from further up the canal. There's not much water and what there is looks stagnant, but the canal is still there.
The Oakham Canal ran to Melton Mowbray - there was a large basin in front of the railway stations, which is hard to imagine now. From there, the River Wreake was navigable to to the Soar, which it joined a little to the north of Leicester.
As I said five years ago:
There has been talk of restoring navigation to Melton, which certainly looks possible. Getting all the way back to Oakham would be more of a challenge.
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