Distance: 10.8 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: medium

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

Walk across western central Derbyshire, partly rural, partly urban, it traverses one of the world’s oldest industrial regions, following the route of the old Cromford Canal closed in 1944.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

Lost Sections of the Cromford Canal

Constructed in the final decade of the 18th Century to serve central Derbyshire’s industrial boom villages, the Cromford Canal north west of Ambergate to Cromford, today, is long disused (albeit partly still navigable) and has since the 1970s been a much loved local nature reserve and linear park.

The fate of the canal east of Ambergate towards Langley Mill where it historically met the now long disused Nottingham Canal, and the still in use Erewash Canal, both of which run south towards the Trent, has been more varied. In many places the canal has completely vanished from the landscape, while in others it is preserved in a condition akin to much of the stretch between Ambergate and Cromford. Elsewhere along the route it is in a kind of limbo, a dry, canal shaped cutting through the Derbyshire countryside and large villages of the northern part of the Amber Valley District, that remains a public right of way, but whose waterway’s heritage is obscured. 

A couple of canal’s reservoirs remain in use to this day, the Butterley one, remarkably, still owned and managed by the Canal and River Trust. The Codnor Park Reservoir by contrast appears to now be managed by the local council. Interestingly sections of the canal today, while disused, have evidently flowing water in them, unusual for a constructed inland waterway rather than a naturally occurring stream.

Eastern Derbyshire is pretty, and the towns and villages which dot its landscape are interesting, quiet today, but deeply shaped by their place at the forefront of the industrial revolution in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries. Whereas the northern west stretch of the Cromford Canal served the Derwent Valley’s textile mills and the southern Peak District’s limestone quarries, the eastern section primarily served the Derbyshire – Nottinghamshire coalfield, and iron foundries.

This part of Derbyshire was the territory of the Butterley Company. Founded by Benjamin Outram, a local civil engineer and proto-entrepreneur, whose family money came from facilitating the land enclosure process, the company had interests in iron founding and coal mining alike. In the words of his own wife Benjamin Outram was “hasty in his temper, feeling his own superiority over others. Accustomed to command, he had little toleration for stupidity and slowness, and none for meanness or littleness of any kind.”

Evidently a disagreeable man, and a fairly short lived one, having died of a stroke aged forty one in 1805, the Butterley Company was created from the remains of Benjamin Outram’s industrial holdings in 1807. It endured in one form or another until 2009 when amidst the post credit crunch recession it succumbed to economic forces. Housing now occupies most of the site, though the oldest surviving parts of the works remain lying derelict, awaiting a plan to conserve it for the future coming to fruition. 

Despite Benjamin Outram’s early demise, the Butterley Company retained much of his unpleasant character, even by the standards of early 19th Century industrial employers. It is therefore not surprising that its fortress-like ironworks in Butterley were attacked by the former Luddites of 1817’s doomed Pentrich Revolution enroute to their eventual rout between Langley Mill and Eastwood.

Signs of their commitment to the early massification of production can be found in the Butterley Tunnel, a nearly three kilometre long marvel of late 18th Century engineering. Running beneath the plateau Butterley sits upon, the tunnel has a wharf deep in its bowels beneath the Butterley Ironworks site, where coal was loaded onto barges from one of Benjamin Outram’s collieries. His civil engineering work and connections having enabled him to take advantage of the Cromford Canal’s development to better move his goods to market. There are almost no comparable examples anywhere else in the UK and this part of the tunnel was declared a Scheduled Ancient Monument in 2013.

Ultimately it was the Butterley Tunnel that proved the Cromford Canal’s undoing. The roof first collapsed in 1889, putting the canal’s northern reaches out of commission until 1893, only for another more substantial cave-in to occur in 1900. This was deemed to put the canal beyond economic repair, with the northern and southern sections now cleaved in two. 

This said the canal did carry on being used as a means of goods transport until 1944 when it was officially closed. In common with other waterways around the Peak District like the Peak Forest and Caldon Canals the Cromford Canal benefited longer than other inland waterways from extensive trade due to the fact that the bulky mineral traffic they generally carried was an efficient way of carrying relatively low value raw materials.

After closure parts of the canal remained, albeit in various states of repair, serious efforts at conservation and reopening began in the 1960s, with a certain irony around the time that major features like the Amber Valley Aqueduct just east of Ambergate were demolished. In the decades since then new housing estates, warehouse units, and for a time in the 1970s and 1980s, opencast mining in the River Erewash valley right on the boundary with Nottinghamshire, chibbled away at parts of the old Cromford Canal cut.

Building on its former course, the sterling efforts of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Wildlife trusts to create nature reserves, and all of the challenges of reopening the Butterley Tunnel mean that restoration of the Cromford Canal in full is very unlikely to ever occur. Yet, the Friends of the Cromford Canal (President at the time of writing Brian Blessed) remain committed to restoring and caring for the route outside of the well preserved stretch between Ambergate and Cromford. Work has even begun on restoring part of the section immediately after the junction at Langley Mill where the waterway once joined the Erewash and Nottingham Canals. 

Regardless of whether it is in water and navigable or not, the eastern stretch of the Cromford Canal from Ambergate to Langley Mill remains an important local green amenity and source of identity for the communities along its former course.

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 starts from Ambergate Railway Station.

At Ambergate Railway Station, which is the point at which the branch line to Matlock diverts from the mainline and continues heading up the Derwent Valley.

From the station platform turn right and head out onto the forecourt.

Walk across the forecourt heading left. This leads past a short terrace of houses.

On your left you come to a short flight of steps (there’s also a road leading down just after it. Head down these.

At the bottom of the steps you come to a main road. Here there is a bridge which carries the railway line north to Matlock. Walk under the bridge.

On the other side of the bridge opposite The Hurt Arms pub, turn right along the main road.

Continue along the road for some distance.

Presently on the right hand side of the road there is a lane running between an inter war era white rendered house and a much more recent redbrick one.

Head down this lane and walk under the bridge.

Continue up the lane on the other side, walking uphill. The terrain on this side of the railway line is far more rural in character.

After some distance, just before reaching a house, there is a signpost pointing off the lane to the left.

This leads down a short sloping path to the towpath of the Cromford Canal.

Upon reaching the towpath turn right and pass underneath a bridge.

This leads a couple of hundred metres along the tranquil, but incredibly overgrown Cromford Canal. Going the other way leads you eventually to Cromford, five miles up the canal, site of Arkwright’s Mill, the world’s first modern factory opened in 1771.

Soon you reach the end of the canal.

Here turn left and begin walking uphill along a chain fence behind which sits an engineering works apparently making, fixing, or otherwise working with industrial pipes.

After some distance the path emerges from the trees into a scrubby clearing partyway up the hillside.

Here turn right and follow the path as it continues running along a narrow but well worn route across the grassy scrub land above the factory yard.

After some distance it enters woodland. Walk through these trees for some distance.

Soon you come to a wooden gate on your right.

Head through the gate and down a sloping path through the trees.

After a short distance you come to some steps on your left. Walk down these steps.

At the bottom – opposite a new housing estate which was being built when I walked the route – turn left and walk up a well worn footpath.

This leads around the housing estate, heading to the right.

Continue walking along this path down a snicket which leads out beside the main road in the small (but rapidly expanding as new estates go up around it) village of Bullbridge.

Once beside the road turn right and walk downhill.

At the base of the hill, next to the River Amber there is a footpath sign off to your left leading along a track.

Turn left and walk along the track heading in the direction of two newly built conjoined yellow stone cottages.

There is a short tunnel beneath an embankment which you walk through.

On the far side of the tunnel take an immediate right turn. Walk along the footpath through trees for a short distance.

This leads to a new green metal footbridge across the Midlands Mainline. I must have passed beneath this bridge dozens of times over the years, first travelling by train up to York as an undergrad student, and in the decade or so since, on most of the numerous occasions that I have visited Yorkshire.

Cross over the bridge. On the far side you come out next to the busy A610 road. Apparently a stone aqueduct on the Cromford Canal once spanned the road at the point where you are crossing. It became derelict when the canal fell into disuse in the early 20th Century and was eventually demolished in 1968.

Here cross the road then head up a flight of steps cut into the bank on the far side.

At the top you emerge onto a well worn path along a bank, turn left here and begin walking.

The path runs behind a row of houses which front onto the A610.

It soon becomes apparent what the path you are walking along is. Next to you on the right there is the unmistakable outline of a canal cut. This is the former course of the Cromford Canal, fairly well preserved behind the houses and now serving as a footpath and ad-hoc green space. In places it has even been recently cleared. There are information boards dotted here and there which tell the history of the canal.

Here and there the line is broken. Just after a former canal bridge, turn right down a paved slope towards a road. Cross over the road and climb the steps on the far side to get back onto the former canal path.

After the steps keep on walking along the former canal cut, this section is less well preserved, but it is still clear where the canal once ran. The former canal route has now been appropriated by the residents of the houses fronting onto the A610 as outdoor storage space with garages and sheds of various types.

Presently you reach a short former tunnel, which you walk through.

This leads to the car park of the Excavator pub. Once a canal building.

Entering the car park of The Excavator pub, turn to the right.

On the right of the car park beside the A610 next to the side wall of the pub there is a cut through leading beneath a disused railway bridge to a larger rear car park.

Cross this car park heading for a wooden gate on the far side leading into woodland.

Pass through the footgate and carry on along the track on the far side through the woodland.

The track follows the course of the old canal.

Presently you come out into a meadow, keep following the track around the edge.

On the left you come to a fishpond formed from where the canal cut once ran. 

Walk around the fishpond on the left.

Just after passing it on the left you follow an indistinct path around heading for a former canal bridge still intact.

Having crossed the bridge on the right there is a stile leading through a narrow gap, down a short flight of steps down onto the former towpath.

Once on the path turn left and follow a short stretch of semi-preserved canal to a stile out into a field.

After crossing the stile walk straight ahead crossing the meadow.

The path runs clearly, crossing a small ditch marking a field boundary, approaching the small village of Lower Hartshay.

Nearing the edge of the village there is a gate just after a ditch leading onto a path running beneath a short row of cottages.

Follow the path for a short distance approaching a further gate.

Beyond the gate the path runs past the front of a row of cottages.

Past the cottages there is a lane. More or less adjacent on the far side of the road there is a stile leading into an overgrown patch of land.

This is another semi-preserved stretch of canal. Overgrown and largely filled in, it now provides a path and a rough and ready ad hoc nature reserve.

Carry on walking straight ahead along the path for quite some distance. Soon you come to a stretch where the side of the former canal is still edged with concrete, and it is more apparent what the wide ditch to your right once was.

Approaching a road bridge you carry on straight ahead.

On the far side of the bridge you follow a track across a field, past a house on your left, approaching a wooded bank.

Reaching the trees you cross a stile and carry on up a steep flight of steps.

At the top of the steps you are beside the busy A610 once more. Here turn right and walk alongside the carriageway along the verge for a short distance. Look out on the far side of the road for a footpath sign.

Coming level with the footpath sign, taking care, cross the road and clamber over the crash barrier on the far side. Here there is a corresponding set of steps leading downhill into dark woodland.

On reaching the bottom of the steps walk straight ahead, following an evidently recently conserved section of the old canal cut.

Soon the path becomes more overgrown. When I walked the route in July 2024 there was even a substantial tree blocking the path which I clambered over with some difficulty.

Eventually you reach the end of the track. Here turn left and head up a short slope to a path running along the bottom of the embankment carrying the A38. Down a steep flight of steps to your right lies the western portal of the Butterley Tunnel. This nearly three thousand metre long tunnel collapsed in 1900 severing the Cromford Canal into two. Despite this mishap parts of the tunnel remain in reasonably good condition, with a unique wharf section beneath the Butterley Ironworks now being a scheduled ancient monument.

Carry on along the path past the A38 embankment and a plant hire centre.

Soon you approach a road next to a tall concrete bridge which carries the road beneath the A38.

Here, turn right and walk beneath the bridge.

Immediately after the bridge on the left there is a track running uphill. Turn left and head up this track.

Soon on the left there is a narrow snicket bound by two tall wooden board fences which you turn down.

Follow the path for a short distance. Presently it leads out onto the platform of the Midland’s Railway Butterley heritage routes terminal station.

Once on the platform turn left and walk a short distance to a crossing over the line. Here turn right and cross the line heading for a stile down onto a path on the far side.

On the far side of the stile carry on walking straight ahead. Soon you reach the side of the Butterley Reservoir. Still owned and managed by the Canal and River Trust, it was once a feeder reservoir for the Cromford Canal.

Here a short flight of steps on your left take you up to beside the Butterley Reservoir. Once beside the water turn right.

Walk straight ahead following a path around the reservoir.

Upon reaching the far side you reach a small car park which you cross.

Here there is a lane off to the left. Turn left and walk along it, entering a residential part of Butterley.

Walk straight along the road.

Reaching a main road you carry on straight ahead passing the remains of the Butterley Ironworks which operated in one form or another on the site between 1790 and 2009. In its latter year’s casting parts for the Falkirk Wheel and Portsmouth’s Spinnaker Tower.

Just past the ironwork remnants cross the road making for the mouth of a road leading towards a new housing estate.

Turn left onto this road. Follow it around passing through a small estate of new houses and then a long row of low rise flats, possessing a rendering which appears to have been intended to make it look like an 18th or 19th Century mill.

Just after the flats the road turns sharply to the right running uphill.

This soon brings you to a sprawling complex which is the headquarters of Derbyshire Police.

The road running to the left across the top of the hill is a public right of way, one which more or less parallels the subterranean course of the Cromford Canal’s Butterley Tunnel.

Officious looking signs mandate that you should not “film without prior permission” on Derbyshire Police’s land, so while walking straight ahead along the quiet, slightly bizarre land, through police and fire brigade training areas. Not wanting to fall foul of the literal police, therefore did not take any photographs for this stretch which was very easy to follow. 

Approaching Butterley Park Farm the road begins running steadily downhill. A sign for a private road across the farm’s land told me that I had reached the end of the emergency service’s domain so I began photographing again.

Carry on along the road downhill for some distance.

Presently next to a campsite on the edge of the village of Newlands turn left.

Approaching a place where the level of the pavement drops, taking care, cross the road. Walk straight ahead a little further.

Soon on the right there is a steep footpath leading downhill back onto the old Cromford Canal cut.

Pass through a gate and follow the path straight ahead along the side of the old canal. This section is quite well preserved and runs for some distance.

After quite some distance on the right there is a metal footbridge across the waterway which you cross.

Walk straight ahead along the path on the far side of the bridge.

Soon you reach the side of Codnor Park Reservoir. Which like the Butterley Reservoir, once fed the Cromford Canal, and is now the centrepiece of a park for the people of Codnor, Somercotes and Ironville. 

Passing a car park near the far end of the Codnor Park Reservoir  to the left there is a footbridge across the former canal.

On the far side of the bridge turn right. Follow the line of the old canal approaching a prominent old bridge which looks like it once stood over a branch of the canal.

Carry on walking straight ahead past the old bridge.

Presently you reach a road bridge which you walk beneath.

Continue straight ahead along the towpath along a well preserved section of the old canal. A flight of locks once stood here.

At the bottom of where the flight of locks once stood you reach the Pye Railway Bridge which you walk under, taking the rght hand path. This bridge carries the Erewash Valley Railway Line from Nottingham via Ilkeston to Chesterfield over the former waterway.

Beyond the railway bridge you enter the section of walk which is part of the local Wildlife Trust’s efforts to undertake wetland conservation in the River Erewash Valley.

Here you continue walking straight ahead along the line of the former waterway.

Presently you take a slight detour to the left and cross over an old bridge which must once have provided a means of crossing another canal branch.

On the far side of the bridge you take a slight right and carry straight on along the line of the old Cromford Canal.

This stretch is not unlike the former Nottingham Canal linear park and nature reserve a little to the south on the far side of the River Erewash Valley.

Presently you reach a stand of trees. This marks the edge of the section where the line of the old canal was largely obliterated in the late 20th Century by opencast coal mining. Here to the right there is a plank bridge across a stream which flows along the course of the former waterway.

Turn right here and cross, just before you reach the far side on the left there is a stile out into the adjacent field which you cross.

This leads you onto a path which runs through scrubby woodland along the side of the water meadows which have been reclaimed from the low lying former opencast workings.

You follow this path for some distance until you reach a stile out onto an adjacent field.

Once on the other side of the stile continue walking straight ahead across the field.

On the far side of the field there is another stile which you cross (when I walked the route there was a herd of cows blocking the stile so I opted to climb over an adjacent metal bar gate instead).

Over the stile turn slightly to the right and begin walking along a track along the edge of a field.

Presently, approaching a cottage in the middle of the fields, which looks like it may once upon a time have been associated with the Cromford Canal, head left through a narrow stile.

Once through the stile carry on straight ahead walking across the narrow, irregularly shaped field, following a well defined path.

Here there is a stile which you cross, and then head down a slight slope, to follow a well defined path which runs close to the banks of the River Erewash which divides Derbyshire from Nottinghamshire.

Soon you come to a stile which you cross, making for the opposite side of the field on the far side.

Nearing the far side of the field turn left and follow a path towards the river.

Here on the other side of a stile you find a metal bridge which you walk over, passing from Derbyshire and into Nottinghamshire.

Follow the path on the far side of the bridge. It runs through the upper reaches of the Aldercarr Flash Nature Reserve.

It was quite muddy even in July when I walked the route. Indeed part of the path was too overly submerged beneath water for the walking shoes I was wearing. This led me to climb up and walk along the fence next to the path. Which was quite sturdy. Other people had clearly opted to climb over the fence and walk alongside the flooded section of path. Neither is a proper solution really. 

Just after the flooded section you reach fields on the edge of the wetland nature reserve. Here turn right and follow a path along the edge of the reserve.

Soon you reach a junction where the path forks. Here take the left hand fork through a metal gate into a field.

Follow the path, keeping to the right, around the edge of the field. 

Soon you reach another metal gate which you pass through. Once again, follow the path keeping to the right around the edge of the field.

On the far side of the field to the right there is a path leading to a gate out onto a farm track.

Once on the track turn right and walk straight ahead, walking along the base of the Aldercarr Flash Nature Reserve.

Presently you reach a bridge which crosses back over the River Erewash, taking you from Nottinghamshire and into Derbyshire once more.

On the far side of the bridge walk straight ahead along the track.

Just past some farm buildings the track curves around sharply to the left.

Here there is a road bridge – carrying the A610, again – right next to the railway line which you walk beneath.

Carry on along the track on the far side approaching the northern edge of Langley Mill.

Reaching the first houses in Langley Mill carry on straight ahead, along the suburban street.

Soon this turns into a main road, which you walk straight ahead along.

After some distance you reach the centre of Langley Mill, which consists of a range of older buildings typical of a primarily cloth and garment making town which flourished at the start of the 20th Century, and modern retail parks.

At the corner of the main east to west road through the town the A6008 turn left.

Continue along the road for some distance, crossing over the River Erewash (which does not form the county boundary in this section, it having been moved east to the A610 in 1992).

Soon on the left you reach the basin where the Erewash Canal terminates and once joined the Cromford and Nottingham Canals.

This is where the walk ends.

Getting Back

Langley Mill is well served by buses and also has a railway station. Destinations served by very frequent buses throughout the day (at the time of writing in July 2024) include Derby, Nottingham, Ilkeston, Alfreton and Hucknall. All of which have railway stations with trains serving various routes, both north-south, and east west. The most frequent train service from Langley Mill Railway Station (at the time of writing in July 2024) is Northern Train’s hourly Leeds to Nottingham via Ilkeston service. Northbound trains go to Leeds via Chesterfield, Sheffield and Barnsley. There are also a few stops each day by the Liverpool to Norwich train, which follow the same route between Sheffield and Nottingham as the Nottingham to Leeds Train.