Distance: 9 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: medium

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

Walk from central Derby, primarily along (current and former) towpaths and railway trails, across the River Trent to the south Derbyshire market town of Melbourne.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

Melbourne 1.0

Melbourne is a little town in the southern reaches of Derbyshire just south of the River Trent not far from the county boundary with Leicestershire. This places it pretty much slapbang in the middle of the Midlands.

If you associate the name Melbourne with a settlement of any size it is probably with the vast city in the Australian state of Victoria, population just over five million strong. As opposed to a little town in the English Midlands with just over five thousand inhabitants. There is a connection, albeit through a person, the Second Viscount Melbourne, an early 19th Century politician, who was a Whig Home Secretary that got his title through Melbourne Hall on the edge of the Derbyshire town.

Of course Melbourne is of far more ancient vintage than this. St. Michael and St. Mary’s Anglican church on the southern edge of the town near the large Pool lake, dates back to the early 12th Century. With its tall spire and Norman era appearance it is a large and remarkably little altered structure. There was a Melbourne Castle, which evolved into a rambling stately home of sorts, during the 16th Century, though became derelict, and is now largely vanished, its stones used to partly construct more humble dwellings in the older parts of Melbourne.

Melbourne has an important place in the history of the development of the world wide tourism industry. This is because Thomas Cook the pioneering Victorian travel agent, commonly associated with Leicestershire to the south, was born in Melbourne.

Melbourne lost its railway station, on a quiet line between Derby and Ashby-de-la-Zouch decades ago. The line is significant for its role in military training (including sabotage) during World War II, and also for the Chellaston Quarry Sidings role in the mid-1960s as a marshalling yard for British Railways steam locomotives awaiting disposal. Today the stretch of former trackbed crossing the River Trent and curving around the town is part of the Cloud Trail and a cycling, walking and horse riding route, starting beside the Trent and Mersey Canal at Sarson’s bridge and running down to Worthington in Leicestershire.

Nowadays Melbourne, in common with many other picturesque small towns and villages right along the River Trent valley, is amongst the most desirable places to live in the Midlands. It has an annual arts festival (not unlike that held in Wirksworth further north in Derbyshire on the edge of the Peak District). and was declared the fifteenth best place to live in the UK by The Times in 2013. Download, the UK’s premier rock music festival takes place at nearby Donnington Park just inside Leicestershire each year. And the town was – remarkably – the first in Derbyshire to become a “Walkers are Welcome” town.

The Walk

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

This walk was created using Ordnance Survey Explorer. To subscribe and also get Ordnance Survey Maps on your phone, click the banner above.

This walk from Derby city centre to the historic little town of Melbourne on the other side of the River Trent begins from Derby Midland Railway Station.

Upon exiting the station cross the concourse to reach Railway Terrace road.

Here turn right, walking along Railway Terrace opposite Derby’s historic, well preserved and maintained, railway conservation area. Believed to be one of the oldest and most complete examples of extensive railway company housing, dating from the early 1840s.

At the top of Railway Terrace stands a flyover in front of the River Derwent. Follow a path beneath this flyover towards the river bank.

Walk down a gently sloping path beneath the flyover to reach the River Derwent path. Upon reaching the path turn right and walk underneath a bridge carrying the Midland Main Line north towards Chesterfield and Sheffield.

Upon walking under the bridge you come to an area known as Pride Park. The land was partially reclaimed as a linear park running along next to the Derwent in the early 1990s following the end of the use of land in the area as a railway works.

Keep walking along the river path for quite some distance walking through Pride Park.

Presently, near Derby County Football Club’s stadium you pass beneath a road bridge with green painted metal beams beneath it.

On the far side you keep on walking straight along the river path passing beneath the bridge which carries the railway between Derby and Nottingham via Long Eaton and Beeston.

After this bridge walk a little further along the river path looking out on your right for a path branching off.

When you reach this junction turn right and follow the new path into the large Alvaston Park with a big lake in it on your right.

Follow the path across the park.

Partway across the path curves slightly to the left before running straight again.

At the far side of Alvaston Park turn right and follow the path as it curves around. Presently you reach a junction and carry on walking straight ahead.

Presently you reach a brick built road bridge above you to the right, which you walk under.

On the far side of this bridge continue straight ahead. At this point you have joined a wide multi use path, and linear park of sorts, which runs for several miles down to the Trent and Mersey Canal following the line of the old Derby Canal, which officially closed in the 1960s and has been largely filled in. A small charity, the Derby and Sandiacre Canal Trust campaigns for its restoration.

Continue along the path for some distance until you reach the busy A5111 road, next to an Aldi supermarket.

Cross the A5111 by some traffic lights in front of you.

Once on the far side continuing walking straight ahead following the line of the old Derby Canal along a cul-de-sac of modern houses.

At the bottom of the cul-de-sac past some semi-prefabricated houses of a 1960s vintage, you come to a surprisingly busy little road, which you cross, continuing along the path on the far side.

Carry on the path for quite some distance, crossing another little residential road along the way.

Presently you pass underneath a distinctive former canal bridge, continuing along the path around the edge of an estate of quintessential 1970s vintage terraced houses.

Beyond the estate the path twists around, now on the edge of the Derby urban area, with fields to your right.

Soon you come to a metal gate put in place to stop motorised vehicles going onto the path, which you pass through, carrying on straight ahead on the far side.

Beyond this gate carry on walking straight ahead. Here to the right for the first time the heavily overgrown cut of the canal remains visible, a clear sign of the waterway which once cut through the landscape, whose course you are following.

After some further distance you reach a road which you cross via some traffic lights.

On the far side to the right carry on straight along the path across a metal bridge, then out into countryside beyond Derby.

Soon you come to a bridge carrying the A50 above your head. The A50 runs from Stoke-on-Trent to the M1 junction just south of Nottingham. In this way it unites the major cities of the northern Midlands while avoiding the Peak District. It was almost upgraded to a motorway in the 1970s.

Beyond the A50, now well out into the countryside, you approach where the Derby Canal terminated at the Trent and Mersey.

Rounding a bend you approach a weathered canal bridge which actual narrowboats floating in water visible beyond it.

Upon reaching the bridge turn left. Follow the path around over a bridge across the line of the Trent and Mersey Canal towards a former lock keeper or toll clerk’s house on the far side.

Here on the other side of the bridge turn left onto the towpath.

Once on the towpath start walking straight ahead.

Continue along the towpath for some distance. There are impressive views to your right across the River Trent’s plain towards the hills in the very south of Derbyshire and north west Leicestershire that comprise part of the National Forest.

Presently you enter a wooded section of the cut, approaching an old metal bridge in front of you.

Just before you reach the metal bridge there is a track running off to the right. Turn right and follow this track for some distance up to the level of the old Derby – Ashby-de-la-Zouch railway line, now part of the Cloud Trail.

Once on the former trackbed turn right and walk across a stone viaduct with impressive views across the lowlands near the banks of the Trent on either side.

Continue towards the bridge across the Trent itself. The river was swollen with autumn rainfall when I walked the route and had clearly recently been in quite heavy flood.

On the far side of the Trent continue along the Cloud Trail now approaching the northern edge of Melbourne.

Presently you pass under a series of bridges and walk through a cutting on the edge of the town.

Here look out on your right for a steep flight of steps cut into the embankment. Upon reaching them, turn right and ascend.

This brings you out to a footpath across a scrap of field towards a road on the edge of Melbourne.

Once beside the road cross over, and head slightly to the left making for a footpath sign across a field.

Cross the field as directed by the sign making for where the path passes just beneath a set of huts.

Here you reach a narrow lane. Upon reaching the lane turn left, follow the lane as it runs into the town. It soon widens slightly and a pavement begins.

Presently you reach a main road running towards Melbourne town centre.

Turn right here and begin walking along the road towards the centre of the town.

Soon enough the Twentieth Century houses give way to Victorian era terraces and you approach a little green.

At the green turn left. Follow the road you are now walking along towards a wide square just up from Melbourne’s large, famous parish church.

Upon reaching the square, you can either continue straight ahead towards the church and the historic buildings around it, or head right up side roads towards the high street and the commercial heart of Melbourne town centre.

This is where the walk ends.

Getting Back

At the time of writing (in November 2023) Melbourne was served by one bus an hour each way between Derby and Swadlincote. As well as the hourly each way bus service between Burton-upon-Trent and East Midlands Airport. Both Burton-upon-Trent and Derby have mainline railway stations, while both East Midlands Airport and Swadlincote have extensive bus connections. The bus services serving Melbourne run at the same frequency from early morning until late in the evening.