Distance: 4.5 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: easy

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

Walk from Mansfield town centre out to the former Nottinghamshire coal mining village of Clipstone. Home to the listed Clipstone Headstocks, disused for 20 years but still the tallest mining headstocks in the world.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

World’s Tallest Mining Headstocks

Clipstone is a large village just east of Mansfield, in the heart of what was until pretty recently, the Nottinghamshire coalfield.

Clipstone Colliery opened in 1922, being nationalised along with the overwhelming bulk of the rest of the British coal industry in 1947.

Shortly after nationalisation a decision was made to expand production at Clipstone Colliery.

A stunningly modern powerhouse and accompanying headstocks were commissioned in 1953 to facilitate this expansion.

Strikingly and pretty uniquely these structures stand to this day. Remarkably, given that they are now coming up for 70 years old, the Clipstone Headstocks remain Europe’s tallest. True Midlands record setters.

Having been listed in 2000 three years before Clipstone Colliery closed for the final time in 2003, the former power house and twin pair of headstocks have been preserved.

This makes them pretty unique in the UK with the only other examples in the region coming from the incredibly well preserved former colliery at Chatterley Whitfield due north west of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire.

There have been proposals, despite their listed status, to clear away the power house and headstocks. However, in recent years work has been done to stabilise and conserve the site, and the current users occasionally use it for events. The Clipstone Power House and Headstocks recently appeared as a rave location in the ITV drama Without Sin featuring Vicky McClure. And the current owners hope to turn it into a more permanent museum and events venue with the historic landmark at its heart.

So maybe, this unusual and dramatic piece of the Midlands recent industrial past will be sustainably preserved for the future.

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 Edwinstowe near the Major Oak and numerous other sites in Sherwood Forest associated with the legend of Robin Hood begins from Mansfield Railway Station which lies on the line between Nottingham and Worksop. Fittingly this railway is called the Robin Hood Line.

If travelling north from Nottingham upon alighting at Mansfield walk up the platform towards a gateway on your left out onto a path beside the main station building.

Here turn right and walk down a sloping path towards some steps which lead you down towards Mansfield Bus Station.

Once level with the bus station, walk forwards a short distance following the line of the tall viaduct which carries the railway above central Mansfield.

Upon reaching a main road just past the bus station turn right and walk beneath the viaduct following the road for a short distance.

At a junction straight ahead, take the wider left hand fork.

Keep walking straight ahead for a short distance until you see a road running off to the left on the other side of the road.

Turn left and follow this road downhill into Mansfield’s historic quarter.

Presently you come out at a junction opposite St. Peter and St Paul’s Church.

Here turn left passing the church, then right once you have passed it.

Follow the road you are now walking along, called Bridge Street, for some distance crossing a bridge over the River Maun, as it curves around until you reach the A60 dual carriageway.

Here use the crossing lights to your left to cross the busy main road.

On the far side keep walking straight ahead along a road called Radcliffe Gate, passing a pub called the Brown Cow.

A little after the Brown Cow pub you come to a road called Newgate Lane off on the left.

Turn left down Newgate Lane and follow it for quite some distance through suburban Mansfield.

After some distance you come to a junction with a church near its apex. Here take the wider right hand fork running uphill.

Presently you come to a junction with a dual carriageway. Use the crossing lights situated on your left to cross, then carry on straight ahead walking down the continuation of the road you have just walked up from the town centre.

Continue straight along this road for quite some distance.

Eventually you come to a modern flat roofed pub on your left called the Ling Forest Inn. Just before the pub there runs a residential road called Pump Hollow Lane.

Turn left and walk down Pump Hollow Lane, continuing past a bend in the road.

Just after the bend the road stops and there is a wide footpath running straight ahead through woodland.

Continue along this path a short distance as it runs gently downhill.

You emerge onto a housing estate.

Here turn right and follow a road past some bungalows on your left and a variety of other houses on your right, across the estate.

Soon you reach the busy Pump Hollow Road. Cross the road at this point via the traffic lights on your left.

On the far side of the road turn right following the cycle route signs for Clipstone onto what claims to be a bridleway, but is in actual fact an access road for several closely packed estates of houses of varying vintages from very modern to late 19th Century.

Keep on walking along this bridleway-cum-road for quite some distance.

Continue walking straight ahead when you come to the end of the paved road and it turns into a gravel track (a bit more akin to a regular bridleway) instead.

As you walk along it the gravel track steadily narrows.

Presently you reach a road right on the edge of the Mansfield built up area, which you cross, continuing along the bridleway on the far side.

A little way beyond the road you come to a junction where the track forks. Here take the narrower, more foot worn segment off to the right, running into a thicket.

Walk through the thicket until you emerge onto the forecourt of a camping and caravanning site.

Here follow the signs pointing to the right, and continue along the bridleway approaching the edge of the village of Clipstone, home to the rightly famous preserved post-war modernist Clipstone Colliery Headstocks.

Keeping on straight ahead you approach the Vicar Water Country Park, passing a car park on your left.

Vicar Water is a fishing lake created by the Earl of Portland in the 1870s and now managed by Newark and Sherwood District Council.

At the far side of the car park serving Vicar Water Country Park on the left you come to a path which leads across the edge of the car park to an access road.

Turn left and follow this path across the car park towards the access road.

Upon reaching the access road follow it around past a visitor centre and cafe for some distance approaching the edge of the houses comprising Clipstone.

Presently you reach the main road running through the centre of Clipstone. Here turn right.

Follow the road through Clipstone approaching the edge of the village. Soon the village’s huge towering headstocks appear in front of you.

Continue walking towards the headstocks and power house so that you can get a good view of them.

This is where the walk ends.

Getting Back

At the time of writing (in September 2023) Clipstone was served throughout the day by a very frequent bus service back towards Mansfield running into the town’s Bus Station. Mansfield Bus Station is adjacent to Mansfield Railway Station making it a simple matter to switch from one form of transport to the other. Mansfield Railway Station is served by an hourly service north to Worksop (for trains to Sheffield and Lincoln) and a half hourly service south towards Nottingham (for trains to the west, east and the south).