The River Soar is a major tributary of the River Trent in the English East Midlands and is the principal river of Leicestershire. The source of the river is midway between Hinckley and Lutterworth. The river then flows north through Leicester, where it is joined by the Grand Union Canal///CRIMSON TAZVINZWA//

The Leicester Section of the River Soar has now managed to get itself well into the City of Leicester however you would hardly know this as there is a great deal of parkland around. The canal has quite a few trees and so on and the whole stretch is a pleasure to walk through as it’s generally very peaceful with little traffic noise etc. On one side of the canal you do find quite a few old buildings and warehouses etc. which have been re-furbished i.e. converted into flats and so on – also there are one or two old brick chimneys still in existence. Leicester City authorities have gone to some trouble to keep the canal looking like a canal – an example of this is where they have had to put strong concrete bridges over the canal for traffic reasons yet they have adorned and painted up these bridges with nice ornamental metal work. West Bridge is dual numbered – with the canal’s sequence ending at 112 and the other side of the bridge numbered as Bridge 1 i.e. starting off the River Soar’s sequence. Despite this numbering this is not in reality the end of the Leicester Section since at Evan’s Weir the River Soar goes off to the left and the canal continues bearing right between old warehouses. This diversion was built in the late 1800s as part of flood prevention schemes.