An Early Sunny Start… Ideal for a Canal Side Walk

Cromford Canal was the destination.   An early start but the Swans were up well before me.

Not long after, the Trip Boat was getting into place ready to take visitors on a slow gentle ride along this very old canal. 

Late September and the canal is shaded by trees, no real autumn colour yet but just refreshing scenes of light and shade.

We can easily forget that this was once a very busy ‘highway’  built before railways… but not long after progress demanded that a link to the first railways would be need.  The start of that Railway link was here in the canal side Railway Wharf where rail tracks once terminated in the building.  A real multi-purpose building, a reminder of our Industrial Heritage.

Walk a short distance further and you would be surprised to see a tall stone chimney reach high above the woods.   This is Lea Woods Pumping House…

It is here that the canal crosses the River Derwent via this aqueduct.  The pump house was built in 1849 ( some 50 years after the canal). It was built to house a steam powered lift engine.  Its purpose was to lift water from the River, up nearly 500ft to feed the canal.  In itself the pump house is another industrial heritage achievement…..  much to the quality of build, the steam pump is operated at regular visitor days.

Crossing the Aqueduct you reach the Lock Keepers Cottage.  It is at here that the Nightingale Branch joined the Cromford.  Sadly the Nightingale branch is not, as they say ‘in water’.  But the Canal Conservation organisation has dreams of restoration.

Always hard to visualise how busy and important this small corner of Derbyshire.  Arkwright’s Cromford Mills came to  depend upon canal and rail transport for raw materials in and manufactured goods out. But with the peace of the woods all arround it is easy to forget this heritage…

Passing the old Railway Workshop, I was surprised that the forge in the visitor centre was working…. when I say working, I mean a demonstration, where visitors can done a Blacksmiths leather apron, then under guidance, fire up the furnace and try their hands, and a hammer at creating a piece of metal work…looked hot but also fun.

As for the trip boat, well the passengers were enjoying a much quieter Canal cruise experience.

 

Not a bad way to spend a sunny September morning…. but now the weekend looms….. so maybe more time to relax…

I hope you can and as always….

Please Remember ….
Stay Safe …. Be Kind…. Look After Each Other

26th September
(C) David Oakes 2025