Leicestershire, England

Memorial Gardens slipway (Melton Mowbray)

Launch — A slipway on the River Eye's bank in the Memorial Gardens. The Melton and Oakham Waterways Society (MOWS) has approval to build a dock for its two workboats immediately beside the slipway in a Town Estate compound, so the bank here is shared with that operation.

Parking — Wilton Road Car Park, run by Melton Borough Council, is a short walk away with 112 standard spaces, 6 disabled bays and public toilets, though the entrance has a 2.4 metre height limit.

Access — The gardens sit where Wilton Road, Leicester Road and Asfordby Road converge at Lady Wilton Bridge, with a pedestrian gate onto Leicester Street beside Egerton Lodge Care Home. The Town Estate, a charitable trust that maintains the town's parks, does not publish a specific policy for launching craft from the slipway itself.

Season — No seasonal closure applies to the river or the gardens. The Town Estate's neighbouring parks occasionally host large public events that add to footfall and parking pressure nearby.

Regulations — This reach forms part of the historic Melton Mowbray Navigation, maintained as a recreational waterway above the town's last lock; the Melton and Oakham Waterways Society leads its restoration. Upstream of the town, between Stapleford and Melton Mowbray's eastern edge, a stretch of the River Eye is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, which restricts dredging and bank works there without Natural England's consent.

The River Eye runs through Melton Mowbray's Memorial Gardens, a riverside park the Town Estate bought in 1929 as a memorial to the town's war dead, and this slipway sits beside the derelict Melton Mowbray Navigation, an 18th-century canalisation of the same river. Paddling downstream takes you under Lady Wilton Bridge and along Egerton Park before reaching Eye Kettleby Lock, the best-preserved structure on the old navigation, now cleared and maintained as a weir. Most of the navigation's other lock chambers survive but need repair, and the Melton and Oakham Waterways Society is leading restoration work along the route.

A volunteer-built slipway on a working restoration

The slipway was built by volunteers from the Waterway Recovery Group as part of the long effort to bring the derelict Melton Mowbray Navigation back into use. When the navigation was abandoned in 1877, the engineer A. W. Dalton replaced its lock gates with crescent-shaped weirs. That is why Eye Kettleby Lock, about 1.5km downstream, no longer works as a lock even though its chamber survives. Volunteers have since cleared decades of vegetation from the site.

Arriving on foot, paddlers pass the Jerusalem Arch, a stone gateway at the Leicester Street entrance to the gardens dating from around 1480. It is the only survivor of a former manor of the Order of St John of Jerusalem that once stood nearby on what is now Nottingham Street.

Nearby

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Wilton Park Pavilion Cafe

Cafe in Wilton Park, a short walk from the slipway, with outdoor seating.

Sysonby Acres Leisure Park

A 49-pitch touring park on Asfordby Road, owned and run by the Melton Mowbray Town Estate, open to tents, caravans and motorhomes.

Website

Conditions to check

Weir

Eye Kettleby Lock, about 1.5km downstream, is the best-preserved structure on the old navigation but is not passable as a lock; crescent-shaped weirs replaced the original lock gates when the navigation closed in 1877.

Source

Other

The Environment Agency's gauge at Melton Park, on this reach, recorded its highest level (2.59m) on 2 January 2024, well above typical levels, indicating the river can rise quickly after heavy rain.

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