Discovering Cromford Canal ……. walks in the Lea Woods ….. no. 2

I collect canals, and today it is the Cromford Canal.

The canal, 2024

It was opened in 1794 and just two centuries later “was acquired by Derbyshire County Council as an Amenity Waterway”.

According to my Priestly’s account of the “Navigable Rivers, Canals, and Railways, Throughout Great Britain”, it was “eighteen miles in length” passed the Codnor Park  and Butterley Iron Walks, traversed the Rivers Amber, Erewash and Derwent and disappeared into several tunnels, before being joined by the Cromford and High Peak Railway just half a mile from Cromford.

Had I been transporting goods in 1830 along the canal I would have been charged “1d per ton per mile for coal, coke, lime and limestone intended to be burnt into lime, and 1½d for iron, iron-stone, lead and other minerals , marble, alabaster, and other stone and timber”.

The canal, 1830

We walked just a short section from the former railway station before turning down a footpath which follows the Lea Brook.

The Pumping Station, 2024

But in that short distance we encountered heaps of industrial buildings, including a Pump House, several outbuildings and plenty of ruined structures, all of which are now part of the collection.

Water and green stuff, 2024

Long ago our bit of the canal to the footpath and been drained and nature in the form of trees and bushes and taken over, but in places the water reappeared and along its length there was still evidence of the stone embankments.

Added to which across the length of the walk there was an abundance of wild garlic which fascinated our Arlo who at 5 was full of harvesting as much as he could.

It is a popular "water amenity" and on a bright warm sunny spring day it was fun meeting a host of walkers along with the couple who oblivious to all of us sat and exchanged a long lingering kiss.

So another to add to the my book of canals, and despite its peaceful appearance this would have been a working canal which terminated not far from Arkwright’s spinning mill which had been opened just 23 years earlier.

And so that is it.

Location; Lea Woods, Cromford

The kiss, 2024

Pictures; walking the canal, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and a section of the Cromford Canal, 1830 from Bradshaw’s The Inland Navigation of England and Wales, 1830,  courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

One of many forgotten buildings, 2024

*Priestly, Joseph, “Navigable Rivers and, Canals, and Railways, Throughout Great Britain, 1830