Croft Crags
Crimpy riverside granite
Crimpy riverside granite
A 5 metre granite wall on the banks of the River Soar as it runs through Croft. The wall gives a few easy problems and some harder and crimpier ones. The crag faces north and is one of the best options around on a hot summer's day.
Topo can be found at the archived version of LeicestershireClimbs.co.uk
| croft_crags.pdf |
Parking: Hill Street, Croft LE9 3HG (52.558309, -1.246782)
Approach: Park in front of the green electrical box next to the entrance of the industrial estate, walk down Station Road until you see a public footpath on the right-hand side of the road, take the footpath to reach a field, follow the path along the eastern edge of the field to the crag (ViewRanger Map).
Approach: Park in front of the green electrical box next to the entrance of the industrial estate, walk down Station Road until you see a public footpath on the right-hand side of the road, take the footpath to reach a field, follow the path along the eastern edge of the field to the crag (ViewRanger Map).
Croft stands upon a rock, which may be seen from almost every little eminence in the county. About Croft Hill are some little eminences called Shepherd's tables. It was the custom, in former times, for shepherds to have a day of festivity at certain seasons of the year at these kind of summits, which were cast up for the purpose.
Croft Hill... has by fame been compared to a large wart on a man's thumb, by others to a lemon swimming in a punch-bowl.
- Supplement to the Leicestershire Views, J. Throsby (1790)
In Leicestershire there is an up-standing mass of granite known as "Croft Hill"; and it was suggested some time ago by a worthy local clergyman that this was without a doubt an extict volcano and that if ever Etna and Vesuvius in the South or Hecla in the North ceased to erupt at reasonable intervals, the internal pressue would undoubtedly be relieved by Croft Hill becoming once again active and blowing the neightbourhood to peices. That was a considerable time ago, as we have stated, and the happy resilience of youth enabled us to assimilate this exciting possibility without losing sleep; but the memory remains.
- Hecla, Gas Journal (1947)
Every early nation appeared to have had its Sacred Hill or Omphalos. In ancient Gaul there was said to have been a Mesomphalos in the centre of the country, on the river Legre, or Loire, where the Druids met periodically for special ceremonies and councils. This Mesomphalos was an isolated hill in the midst of a plain, and was surrounded by a wall and ditch. The idea of such a Mesomphalos was said to have been derived from the Druids of Britain.
Now, as no Druidical temple had yet been described in Britain at all corresponding with the description of the Gallic Mesomphalos, and as Croft Hill did so far correspond with it, as that it was an isolated hill in the midst of a plain, nearly in the centre of the country, on the banks of the river Leire or Soar, and having still traces of a ditch round its base, it seemed quite possible that this hill might have been the Mesomphalos of the British Druids.
- Druidical Remains at Croft Hill, T. L. Walker (1853)
