Distance: just under 10 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: medium

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

Walk to see and cross the world renown 443 metre long Bennerley Viaduct opened in 1878 for trains and reopened for walkers and cyclists in 2022. The route partly follows the line of the former Nottingham Canal and crosses the River Erewash between Nottinghamshire ansd Derbyshire.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

The Erewash Valley’s Iron Giant

In early 2022 the Bennerley Viaduct reopened having been closed since 1968.

Thanks to years of tireless campaigning by The Friends of Bennerley Viaduct and others, the bridge, known affectionately locally as the “Iron Giant” is once again open to traffic across the Erewash Valley between Awsworth in Nottinghamshire and Cotmanhey in Derbyshire. Albeit this time the bridge is for pedestrians and cyclists looking for a quick way across the wetlands around the River Erewash as opposed to trains.

Bennerley Viaduct is a truly remarkable survival. 443 metres long and 18.5 metres high, it opened in 1878 as a critical component of a new route developed by the Great Northern Railway. 

The Great Northern Railway had made its name running fast services along the East Coast Mainline and constructing lines deep in rural Hertfordshire and Lincolnshire. However, to diversify and strengthen its freight base in the 1870s the company decided to try and grab a chunk of the market for moving coal mined in southern Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire by building a new line between Nottingham and Uttoxeter.

Bennerley Viaduct was constructed rapidly with work commencing in May 1876 with completion achieved in November 1877. From an economic standpoint this venture proved fairly successful, with goods and passengers alike pouring across the Bennerley Viaduct.

After the Britain’s railways were forcibly amalgamated into massive regional groupings in the early 1920s, and later completely nationalised in 1948, it became apparent that there was a lot of duplication on the British railway network. This was due to the fact that during Victorian times private companies like the Great Northern Railway had raced to undercut each other and seize market share building routes which were often inefficient and unsustainable in the long run. This was one of the factors which led British Rail in its first quarter century to close thousands of miles of routes, the line which Bennerley Viaduct served, being one of them.

Most viaducts of the comparatively unusual wrought iron lattice type, of which Bennerley Viaduct is an example, were demolished during this period. Examples of bridges of this type which were demolished in the 1950s and 1960s include Dowery Dell Viaduct on the southern edge of Birmingham and the Black Country, the immense Belah Viaduct in Cumbria, and the equally towering Crumlin Viaduct in south Wales. This leaves Bennerley Viaduct and the Meldon Viaduct in Devon as the only examples of the type in Britain.

Bennerley Viaduct was saved because it was left abandoned in the middle of a coal depot which used to exist alongside it on the floor of the Erewash Valley for over a decade. The concrete hardstanding on which this yard used to sit can still be seen alongside one side of the viaduct. In 1980 when British Rail was taking tenders from contractors to demolish the structure they all came out as too expensive relative to the value of the ironwork that would be salvaged for recycling. This was because the bridge’s structure was impossible to easily cut up, rather it would have to have been dismantled rivet by rivet like a gigantic meccano set.

This meant that Bennerley Viaduct was left to steadily rust in the middle of the Erewash Valley. In the 1990s when British Rail was dissolved and its component parts sold off, the bridge, like thousands of other heritage railway assets was put up for sale. It was purchased in 2001 by the charity Heritage Railway Paths, which looks to find ways of turning disused trackbeds, bridges and other former pieces of railway infrastructure into walking and cycling routes.

The process of reopening Bennerley Viaduct to walkers and cyclists proved long and arduous, but after more than two decades of work eventually succeeded. In 2015 Sustrans who were managing the structure secured a small National Lottery Heritage Fund Grant to work on community engagement and plans for the structure. This enabled them to put in a full bid for £1.4million from the Heritage Lottery in 2017 which funded the necessary works to bring the structure fully back into use. Historic England also chipped in to fund the project, and in 2020 Bennerley Viaduct’s general profile received a boost when it was selected as the only structure in the UK to be added to the World Monument Fund’s World Monument Watch.

This means that today, after lying mothballed and forlorn for over half a century, the Bennerley Viaduct is once again providing a quick and sustainable means of crossing from one side of the Erewash Valley to another. Along with the nearby Nottingham Canal, another long disused means of transport, it also provides the communities it connects with an ingenious form of linear park where people can come and promenade. Much like a seaside pier albeit, almost slap bang in the middle of the country.

Despite the Bennerley Viaduct now being back in use, with the structure having been officially reopened by the Lord Lieutenants of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire in August 2022 the work of the Friends and Bennerley Viaduct continues. Both as advocates for the structure to secure its future, and undertaking work to enhance the environment around the site, including interesting plans to “rewild” the section of the Erewash Valley where it sits. Mitigating centuries of human impact upon the landscape for farming, mineral resource extraction and industry, much as the viaduct itself now enables active and sustainable forms of transport between the communities on either side of the valley floor. 

The Walk

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

I create the Walk Midlands routes via Ordnance Survey Maps Explorer enabling me to take them on my phone. Subscribe yourself via the banner above.

This walk to Bennerley Viaduct begins from Beeston Railway Station.

From the eastern end of the platforms there are sets of steps leading up onto a road running into the town centre.

Walk up these steps to the carriageway above.

Once on the road turn left and walk along the road until you come to a crossroads with a small Co-op on your left hand side.

Here use the traffic lights to cross over the road and continue along the road running away from the cross roads more or less straight in front of you.

Continue along this road for some distance.

It is initially residential in character, but you soon reach the edge of Beeston town centre passing an abandoned pub called the White Lion.

Just beyond the pub you cross a main road where the tram runs from central Nottingham.

On the far side continue heading straight past a large, new, slate grey building on the left, and the side of large branches of both TESCO and Sainsbury’s to your right.

At the top of this road you come to a cross road biscetting Beeston’s largely Victorian era high street where there was a market taking place on the day I walked the route.

Continue walking straight ahead down Wollaton Road (which runs north towards the edge of Nottingham in the direction of Wollaton Park).

On your right you pass a large red brick building which is shaped like a former mill or warehouse, now flats.

Shortly after passing this building on your left there is a residential road called Broughton Street running off Wollaton Road.

Cross over the road here – there are some handy traffic lights just up from where you are stood – and head down Broughton Street.

Walk a short distance along Broughton Street.

Presently you reach a t-junction with Bramcote Road, which is on your right.

Turn right here and walk a short distance along Bramcote Road.

Soon there is a junction, amidst an estate of detached and semi-detached inter-war houses. Here the road curves around to the left.

A little further on the road you are walking along reaches a t-junction where it joins another road.

On the far side of the junction there is a driveway running into woodland.

Head across the road here and walk down the driveway into the trees.

After passing the drives for a couple of houses on your right, the drive turns into a footpath.

This footpath runs through a band of trees across a golf course for some distance, It is pretty handy as it makes crossing the golf course easier than is often the case.

Having crossed the golf course you come to a signpost next to a small electricity substation. This points down a track leading to your right.

Turn right here and follow the track for a very short distance until it turns onto a road of suburban houses.

The houses you have walked past so far have been comfortable suburban homes. The houses that you are passing now – not least one clearly recently built – are in a rather different league.

Turn right here and then follow the road as it curves around to the left.

Soon you reach a t-junction where you take the right hand fork.

Then turn left when it comes out onto another road, a few paces later.

Walk up a tree lined road a short distance until it connects with another larger road.

Here on the far side of the road there is another track, next to a 1980s or 1990s vintage house with a brown fence surrounding its garden.

Follow this track for some distance.

Presently it turns into a very quiet suburban road lined with mid-20th Century period bungalows.

Follow this road as it runs downhill.

At the bottom you come out onto a major dual carriageway.

Nottinghamshire County Council have handily put a tall green metal wire fence along the central reservation of the dual carriageway, so you cannot jaywalk it.

However, there are some traffic lights very close to where you have come out next to the road to your left.

Use these traffic lights to cross the dual carriageway.

Then head to your right and walk a short distance until you come to the mouth of a residential road running along the side of a large school’s playing fields.

Turn left along this road and walk up it for some distance.

Presently you come to the end of the road and it turns into a path running into a sandstone cutting lined flanked with trees.

In some places the sandstone has historical graffiti, etched over the course of generations, visible in it.

Follow the path along this cutting for some distance.

After a little way you leave the cutting next to a modern bungalow.

Just before the house there is a footpath running off, part blocked to stop motor vehicles, to your left.

Turn left and head down this path.

Follow this path a short distance.

You approach some woodland, which the path enters.

Head along the path as it runs through the trees.

After a little way you come to a junction.

Here turn right and walk towards a green metal fence (akin to the one you recently had to skirt on the dual carriageway).

Whoever erected the green fence left a gap for pedestrians to maintain the right of way.

Head left, and walk down a tamarac paved driveway.

At the bottom there is a further gap for pedestrians which allows you to exit onto the side of the A6002.

Cross over the A6002 – which is not especially busy – particularly in the middle of the day, then head left walking past the entrance of Bramcote Crematorium.

Having passed the crematorium, you soon walk past a white painted house.

Once past the house look out on your right for a gap leading into the trees.

This path leads you up through woodland onto Stapleford Hill.

Whilst only 101 metres tall at its summit, this sandstone escarpment is a prominent local landmark. It is also home to the Hemlock Stone, a tall, thin, and enigmatic sandstone inselberg which sits on the edge of the woodland. In Medieval times there was a local story that the rock had originated in Castleston, Derbyshire and been flung there by the devil in a rage. The modern explanation is that it is a naturally occuring promontory, which gained its current obelisk-like form through quarrying.  

Follow the path to the left as it runs up Stapleford Hill through the trees.

After climbing up the fairly steep path for some distance the Hemlock Stone looms up just outside the trees on your left. It is well worth stopping for a look.

Next to the Hemlock Stone the well worn path heads off straight ahead, further into the trees around the edge of the hill.

Follow the path for some distance. This section of the walk forms part of the Robin Hood Way which snakes all around Nottinghamshire. It is waymarked with a green bow and arrow logo.

Keep following the path through the woodland following the distinctive bow and arrow marker of the Robin Hood Way.

The path steadily slopes down off the hillside.

Once on flatter ground you follow the path, still marked out by the Robin Hood Way waymarks to the right.

On the edge of the woodland you come to a wooden bridge across a drainage ditch.

Having crossed the bridge you reach a meadow. On the far side there is a railway embankment.

Turn left and follow the outline of a path around the edge of the meadow.

Nearing the railway embankment there is a well worn path leading back into woodland off to the left.

Head left down this path into the trees walking a short distance.

A little way inside the trees on the right, there is a flight of steps up a bank.

Walk up these steps.

At the top of the steps you come out on the edge of a park. There is a path running to the left.

Follow this path across the park for some distance. The railway runs along a cutting immediately to your right.

Nearing the far side of the park you approach a red brick bridge across the railway line.

Turn right here and use the bridge to cross the railway line.

On the far side of the railway line you approach and enter a thicket of trees. In front of you is the old – long drained – line of the Nottingham Canal. It still looks distinctively like a canal, although now it is a walking and cycling route as well as being a green corridor and nature reserve.

Begun in 1792, the 14.7 mile long Nottingham Canal’s construction was tricky with the works taking longer than expected and going 77 percent over budget. Running from Langley Mill in Derbyshire, the Nottingham Canal connected with the Cromford Canal, running down from the eponymous textile village on the edge of the Peak District. This enabled the transport of raw materials and finished cloth alike to the mills of the Derwent Valley, as well as the transportation of Peak District lead and limestone. However, the bulk of the canal’s freight was intended to be coal mined in the colliery towns and villages along the Erewash Valley. The canal itself ran along the side of the flat, wide River Erewash Valley. Despite its troubled gestation it proved profitable with a dividend being paid from 1804. In the 1840s when the rail network began stretching its capillaries between the interconnecting towns and villages where Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire meet, the company sold up to the Great Northern Railway. The Great Northern kept on operating the canal, albeit with steadily declining traffic, and less profitable cargoes. From 1923 when the government forcibly restructured the British railway system into 4 gigantic regional monopoly companies, so as to stave off having the nationalise the creaking and perennially under invested in network. The railways cut their losses in 1936, opting to lease the southernmost section of the Nottingham Canal to the Trent Navigation Company, and abandoning the bulk of the waterway running from the Trent north of Nottingham city centre. The southern section which was kept open, remains to this day as the 5 mile long Nottingham and Beeston Canal, an attractive and popular waterway and green lung, running from central Nottingham out to its western suburbs from wharfs in the city centre. The northwards stretch of the Nottingham Canal from Nottingham into Derbyshire was abandoned and rapidly decayed. In 1955 Nottingham City Council, concerned about the potential for the muddy remains of the canal in their north western suburbs to be a health and safety hazard, as well as an eyesore, purchased what remained of the canal within their boundary. Having purchased their section of the Nottingham Canal, the city council backfilled it, obliterating more or less every trace of the waterway within the city boundaries and constructing new housing where the water had once flowed. The northern section of the canal from the edge of Nottingham up to Langley Mill was left to continue its decay. At least until 1977 when Broxtowe Borough Council purchased the entirety of the Canal inside its boundary. Like Derbyshire County Council who at roughly the same time decided to buy the north western chunk of the equally abandoned Cromford Canal, Broxtowe’s plan was to convert the Canal into a public amenity. Part park, part nature reserve, part fishing club. The far north of the canal has been severed by open cast mining during the Post War period, industrial estate and new housing construction. However, along the section purchased by Broxtowe Borough Council, which was amongst the most scenic, winding through the countryside between the little towns of the Erewash Valley; it is possible to get a feel of what the waterway was like. Even if at one point the canal has been entirely obliterated by a garden centre. In essence the project was akin to the New York High Line, and other linear parks making use of former transport infrastructure, a generation before New York’s High Line got off the ground.

The bulk of the remainder of the walk is along the course of the former Nottingham Canal, which makes it pretty easy to follow.

Now you are at the line of the former canal turn left and begin following the path.

After a short distance you come to where a garden centre has been constructed across the bed of the old canal.

Here the former canal ditch comes to an end and the path running alongside it turns to the left.

You cross the access road and head up a path leading into a field.

From the top of the slight hill the path climbs there are good views across the Erewash Valley.

Keep following the path as it starts winding down the hill.

After a short distance it takes a hard turn to the right following the line of the hedgerow you have been following.

This leads you around the northern edge of the garden centre.

At the bottom of a slight slope you pass through a gateway into a copse of trees.

A little way ahead of you stands what is unmistakably a canal bridge. It is here that you rejoin the line of the old Nottingham Canal.

Head through this gate and continue along the path running beside the former canal channel, now seriously overgrown with trees and shrubbery.

The canal approaches the M1 motorway which was constructed across the line of the old canal in the 1960s.

Here you take a detour to the right.

This leads down onto a road which runs beneath the motorway.

Having passed beneath the bridge on the far side there is a path off to the left running up into the trees to rejon the line of the canal.

Throughout this section there is an option of two paths you can take. One better made is also used by cyclists, although it is slightly easier walking, whilst the other is more like a foot trodden track, but does have the advantage of you not having to move out of cyclist’s way.

After some distance you reach a small car park serving visitors to the canal.

On the other side you reach a section – the most attractive on the walk – where there is still some water in the canal.

This section is live with plant, insect and bird life.

It also feels quite like a rural canal still in places.

After a couple of further miles of walking you are nearing Bennerley Viaduct.

At one stage the path beside the canal slopes down to beside some mechanic’s workshops, before sloping upwards again.

The line of the canal here runs through a concrete trough, as if to potentially serve as an aqueduct in the (incredibly unlikely) event that it was ever decided to reopen the canal to waterborne traffic.

After this minor diversion you continue a short way along the semi-watered canal.

Presently you reach a main road, where there is a double set of traffic lights. One for pedestrians and cyclists, the other for horses.

On the other side of the road you head slightly to the left and rejoin the canal path.

This is where you enter the final section of canal before you reach Bennerley Viaduct. A stretch of the former Nottingham Canal which is now used by an angling club.

A little further on you cross a country road. Here through a gap in the hedge you get your first glimpse of the 443 metre long span of Bennerley Viaduct stretching across the Erewash Valley.

On the other side of the road you continue a little further along the side of the old canal.

Soon through a gap in the trees to your left you see the viaduct again, this time much closer.

From this point lookout on your left for a gateway.

Upon reaching the gateway turn left and walk through it.

Follow the path on the other side, which heads slightly to the right.

After a short distance you come to a junction where you head right.

This leads to a steep flight of steps. These take you up onto the former abutment that took trains onto and off the viaduct.

At the top of the steps you emerge onto the abutment, with the full span of Bennerley Viaduct stretching in front of you.

Which you can then cross, walking nearly 20 metres up in the air across the meadows and wetlands on the floor of the Erewash Valley, and the little River Erewash itself flowing south towards its confluence with the mighty River Trent.

In the distance to the south the power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, near the points where Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire meet, is prominent on the skyline. Well over 10 miles away, something that illuminates its status. Today it is one of the few reminders of how large coal loomed in this corner of the East Midlands. To the north of the viaduct sits a single wind turbine, a sign of a potential energy future for the area.

Once across the River Erewash you are into Derbyshire and due north of Ilkeston the largest town in the area.

Stepping off the Bennerley Viaduct you continue straight ahead. Follow the network of ramps and steps giving access to the structure downwards.

They lead you to the banks of the – very much still active – Erewash Canal.

Upon reaching the towpath turn left.

Follow the towpath for several hundred metres passing a lock.

Presently you reach a road which cuts across the towpath. Cross over the road and continue along the towpath on the other side.

Soon you pass beneath a road bridge. On the other side you approach a footbridge across the canal.

Upon reaching the footbridge there is a path running off to the left.

Turn down this path and follow it as it runs across a patch of scrubland then over a bridge.

This brings you out next to a cluster of workshops at the end of a road of terraced houses.

Head right here and walk along the road of terraces.

Having walked past the terraces you come out onto a main road.

Here, turn left and walk up a slight hill.

This leads to a footbridge from which you can access Ilkeston Railway Station.

This is where the walk ends.

Getting Back

Trains from Ilkeston Railway Station run south towards Nottingham and north towards Sheffield. There are also (as of the time of writing in August 2022) a few services each day which run to Liverpool or Leeds, as well as down to Norwich. Sheffield to Nottingham trains are hourly throughout the day. From Nottingham it is possible to get trains south towards Leicester, as well as east towards Lincolnshire, and west towards Derby, Staffordshire, and down towards the West Midlands conurbation. Ilkeston town centre is also served by buses running to locations across Derbyshire as well as to adjoining parts of Nottinghamshire.