The Trent Triangle Walk

1. Long Eaton station building

When the railway opened in 1839 there was a mile of open fields between the small rural villages of Long Eaton and Sawley and there was no station here. The building you see now dates from 1888 when the station opened with its original name of Sawley Junction. One of the history boards Long Eaton’s four railway stations explains why the name has changed.

By Victorian standards it was quite a modest station building, with a ticket office, ladies and gents toilets and facilities to send parcels. Only the ticket office remains in use, but exterior of the building is unaltered except for the rather ugly security shutters over the doors and windows.

Walk around the car park and cross Wilsthorpe Road using the pelican crossing. Turn right past the Sawley Junction micropub and cross Tamworth Road via the central refuge. Beware of traffic turning off the roundabout. Turn right and stop outside the Farm Shop café on the corner of Fields Farm Road to look at the railway bridge over Tamworth Road.

2. Tamworth Road railway bridge

The stone skew arch bridge was built by the Midland Counties Railway in 1838. This was the first main line railway in the area, linking Derby and Nottingham to Leicester and Rugby, where it connected with the London and Birmingham Railway.

The roadway dips under the bridge to maximise the headroom for road vehicles, but this creates a problem of flooding in heavy rain. The smaller opening on the left of the main arch had to be created in 1839 after complaints from the Trustees of the Nottingham to Sawley turnpike road. This has an even lower headroom, but it allows pedestrians and small vehicles to avoid flooding under the main arch.

You can read more detail about this in another of the history boards Tamworth Road Bridge.

Turn left along Fields Farm Road. After a short distance the pavement moves from the left to the right side of the road, and you need to cross over. Beware of fast-moving traffic, the speed limit here is 40mph. Continue until you reach the bridge over the Erewash Canal.

3. Erewash Canal

The Erewash Canal opened in 1779 to link the towns and coal mines along the Erewash Valley to the River Trent. It was very profitable until the railways came along, but nearly closed in the 1960s before being revived for leisure boating. The canal towpath is now a popular walking and cycling route.

From the bridge you get a good view of the entrance to Sheet Stores Basin, just before the railway bridge over the canal. This is now a boatyard and moorings but it was originally built by the Midland Counties Railway in 1840 to tranship goods between the canal and the railway. We will look at this site in more detail as we return along the canal at the end of the walk.

Continue along the road for a short distance and then turn sharp right down a slope to the canal towpath and right again under the road bridge.

4. Site of Trent North Curve railway bridge

This is where the original Derby to Nottingham side of the Trent Triangle, known as the Trent North Curve, crossed the canal. The railway bridge and embankment have been completely removed, but the narrowing of the canal shows where it used to be.

Just beyond this point a low wall constructed from blue engineering bricks can be seen on the right of the towpath. This was constructed in 1912-1914 as a flood defence measure for Long Eaton, and it runs all the way from here to the next lock on the canal in the town centre. It has now been superseded by more modern flood defences further down the canal, which we shall see later in the walk.

Turn right and follow the footpath over an open grass area parallel to Field Farm Road. This is on the route of the Trent North Curve railway line. Stop where you reach a small lake on the left side of the path. This is Barker’s Pond, which is an example of a ‘borrow pit’ excavated by navvies for construction of the railway.

5. Railway construction borrow pits

The railway lines around the Trent Triangle are raised on embankments to pass over the River Trent and the Erewash Canal, and to keep the railway above flood levels. The material to construct the embankments was excavated from ‘borrow pits’ alongside the railway, which then filled with water and are now small lakes popular with fishermen.

Seen on a map, the size and location of these lakes looks rather random, but it was determined by way in which existing fields were chopped up by construction of the railway. If part of a field ended up on the opposite side of the railway from the farmhouse, then that is the land the farmer would be happiest to sell to the railway to use as borrow pit.

Continue on the footpath until you reach a T junction, turn right through a fence onto Fields Farm Road and cross to the other side at the pelican crossing. Turn left and continue along Fields Farm Road, passing housing and then industrial estates until you reach a gate into woodland with a sign for Forbes Hole Nature Reserve. This is another example of a borrow pit, but this one is surrounded by woodland and designated as a local nature reserve.

Pass through the gate and follow the track which curves to the right until it ends at a railway access point used by Network Rail track maintenance staff.

6. Trent North Curve

The track you have been following through the wood is the course of the Trent North Curve as modified in 1862 to allow trains from Derby to pass through the new Trent station on the Nottingham to Leicester side of the triangle. This was famous as one of the sharpest curves on at the main line network.

Looking over the gate you can see the site of Trent station but nothing remains today. The station closed in 1968 and was demolished to allow the tracks to be realigned for higher speeds.

Turn left and follow a path through the nature reserve with Forbes Hole on your left and the railway boundary fence on your right. Continue as far as you can into the north-east corner of the nature reserve. This is the course of a footpath that linked Trent station to Long Eaton town centre.

7. Platt’s Crossing

The railway line to your right is the Erewash Valley line that opened in 1848. You are now standing where it crossed at right angles over the original Trent North Curve. Mr Platt was the railwayman who had responsibility of operating some primitive signals to prevent collisions between trains on the two routes.

Platt’s crossing closed in 1862 when the North Curve was diverted to run into the north end of the new Trent station, and Derby-Nottingham trans were diverted into the south end of Trent station, via a new sharp curve that is still in use today.

Turn left and follow the northern edge of the nature reserve back to Fields Farm Road, emerging at a small car park. This path is on the course of the original Trent North Curve before the 1862 alterations. Turn right along Field Farm Road and continue to the roundabout opposite the Tapper’s Harker pub.

8. J. Claye’s Wagon Works

The pub opposite and the industrial estate to your right are on the site of S.J. Claye’s wagon works. Samuel Claye was a Derby coal and coke merchant who moved to Long Eaton in 1850 to set up a business manufacturing railway wagons. By 1861 the works employed 200 staff and by the 1880s they were building 1000 wagons a year. Many of the customers were ‘private owners’, such as collieries and ironworks who owned their own fleets of rolling stock independently of the railway companies. The business continued into the 1960s but in later years they were repairing old wagons rather than constructing new ones.

The name of the pub refers to the railway wheel tappers who would check for metal cracks by listening to the sound made when tapping a wagon wheel with a hammer.

Cross the road towards the pub and turn right along Main Street over a railway level crossing. Both the level crossings that we cross on this walk are supervised remotely using closed circuit television from Network Rail’s East Midlands Control Centre in Derby.

9. North Erewash Level Crossing

This is where Main Street crosses the Erewash Valley line. The railway runs in a straight line north from here through the centre of Long Eaton and the Toton marshalling yards up the Erewash Valley to the north. There are no regular passenger trains on this line, but it is still used a great deal by freight trains.

Looking south the railway line curves to the right to join the Nottingham- Leicester line at the site of the former Trent station. The footpath that we followed through Forbes Hole nature reserve used to emerge to the right of the railway here.

There was originally a junction here with another line curving to the left allowing trains from the north to travel towards Nottingham, but this was closed in the 1960s as it duplicated the High Level Goods line we shall see later in the walk.

On the other side of the level crossing, turn right at the roundabout along Meadow Lane, and continue until you reach a railway bridge over the road.

10. High Level Goods line

At the end of the 19^th century the Midland Railway was making major investments in widening its most important routes from 2 tracks to 4, giving additional capacity and allowing the separation of fast passenger trains from slower freight. For the Erewash Valley line though Long Eaton, instead of widening the original line through the town a new high-level line was constructed in 1901 slightly to the east of the town centre. This remains an important freight route, and its use reduces delays for road traffic at the level crossings on the original Erewash Valley ground level route.

Continue along Meadow Lane until you come to Meadow Lane level crossing which crosses the railway line to Nottingham.

11. First Long Eaton station

The first Long Eaton station, opened by the Midland Counties Railway in 1839 was located here to the east of the level crossing. This closed in 1862 when a station was opened on the Erewash Valley line in the town centre. The last house on Meadow Lane before the crossing was the original station master’s house.

To the west of the level crossing, the original Trent North Curve diverged to the right, taking trains to Derby over Platts Crossing and along what is now Fields Farm Road to Sawley Junction and the present-day Long Eaton station.

Trains to Derby today continue along the main line towards Leicester as far as the former Trent station and then turn right around a much sharper curve. The massive steel girder bridge that you can see carries the High Level Goods line across the main lines.

Cross over the level crossing and turn right along Trent Lane, alongside the railway. After 400m turn right through an archway under the embankment carrying the High Level Goods line.

12. Trent Cottages

Five pairs of semi-detached houses to your left, sandwiched between the main line and the High Level Goods line, were built by the Midland Railway to accommodate their workers in and around Trent station.

Beyond the cottages, the large brick building is the Trent Power Signal box, which replaced a large number of small mechanical signal boxes when the railways were modernised in the 1960s. It in turn has been superseded by the modern East Midlands Control Centre in Derby, and is largely empty today.

Beyond this again is the former Trent station master’s house, a larger detached building.

Retrace your steps back under the High Level Goods line and turn right to continue along Trent Lane parallel to the railway. Continue until you reach a large house on the left, with the name ‘Trent Rifle Lodge’ on the gatepost.

13. Rifle Lodge and Trent Station entrance

The land to the left here used to be a rifle range, with the targets against a large brick wall that still exists 800 yards away amongst the lakes that have been created by gravel extraction.

Just past here on the right there used to be an arch under the High Level Goods line leading to Trent station. The arch is now blocked and overgrown, but the pediment over it can still be seen.

Trent station opened in 1862, not to serve the local communities but to provide an interchange facility between trains running in different directions through the area. It is a rare example of a station named after a river and not a town.

The station had a single island platform between the tracks, with waiting and refreshment rooms, and living accommodation for refreshment room staff on an upper floor.  It closed in 1968 and was demolished to allow the tracks to be realigned for higher speeds.

Continue along Trent Lane to Cranfleet farm. Bear left in front of the farm until you reach a gate across the track just in front of a canal bridge. The road beyond here is a private road to the sailing club but it is worthwhile going through the gate onto the bridge to get a good view.

14. Cranfleet Cut

The canal here is the Cranfleet Cut, which was constructed in 1797 to allow boats to bypass a bend and a weir on the River Trent.

Look to the right and you will see the railway line to Leicester crossing the Cranfleet Cut and the River Trent and disappearing into twin tunnels under Red Hill. The tunnels have impressive castellated portals, but unfortunately there is no publicly accessible place from which to view them. The original railway bridge over the river was an impressive cast iron arch manufactured by the Butterley Company, but this was replaced by a much uglier steel construction around 1900.

Behind Red Hill you can see the chimney and cooling towers of Ratcliffe Power Station, one of a chain of giant electricity generating stations built along the River Trent in the 1950s and 1960s to burn local coal from the Midlands coalfields. Up to six million tons of coal a year was delivered in ‘merry-go-round’ trains with hopper wagons that were unloaded into a bunker under the tracks without stopping. Ratcliffe is the last coal burning power station in the UK. It is due to close by the end of 2024.

Go through the small gate to the left of the bridge onto the towpath of the Cranfleet Cut and turn right underneath the bridge. Continue along the towpath under the two railway bridges to a canal lock where the Cranfleet Cut rejoins the main river.

15. Cranfleet Flood Lock

This is an unusual lock as most of the time both sets of lock gates are open and the water in the Cranfleet Cut is at the same level as the River Trent. When the river level rises as a result of heavy rain, the lock gates are closed so that the water in the Cranfleet Cut remains at the usual level, protecting moored boats and farmland from flooding.

On the other side of the Cranfleet Cut at the confluence with the River Trent is the clubhouse of the Trent Valley Sailing Club. This dates from 1907 and is raised up above ground level on stilts to avoid the floods.

In the field to the right of the towpath are a number of slightly ramshackle holiday chalets. These are examples of ‘informal development’ for leisure purposes on agricultural land in the early 20^th century, before planning restrictions were introduced to prevent building on green belt and flood prone locations.

Continue on the towpath alongside the river until you reach Trent Lock at the mouth of the Erewash Canal. This section of towpath is often under water when the river is in flood. Go onto the bridge over the canal entrance to admire the view.

16. Trent Lock

Trent Lock is an important crossroads of the canal network. Boats coming from the Erewash Canal can turn left through the Cranfleet Cut towards Nottingham and down the Trent to the North Sea, right along the river to Shardlow to join the Trent and Mersey Canal leading to Birmingham and the North West, or straight on to join the River Soar towards Leicester and the Grand Union Canal to London.

Trent Lock is a popular spot for watching the boats and wildlife and there are refreshment opportunities at two pubs, a café, and an ice cream van in summer. The old canal warehouse and toll house have been converted into office accommodation.

Follow the towpath on the right side of the Erewash Canal, past the Lock House Tea Rooms and the Steamboat Inn to just beyond the canal lock.

17. Erewash Canal Boat Yards

On this stretch of canal there are two long established boatyards, both of which have dry docks. The dry dock next to the bottom lock of the canal was built for the Trent Navigation in 1799 as a weighing station with a crane to load iron weights into an empty boat and record how much lower into the water it would sink for each ton of cargo. This information was provided to the toll keepers along the river and canals so that they could measure the passing boats and calculate the tonnage of cargo and hence the toll payment that was due.

Continue north along the Erewash Canal towpath until you reach the first railway bridge. Look out for the variety of boats moored on the other side. Many of them are modern cruising narrow boats, but there are some much older conversions of working boats, and some very large and impressive houseboats.

18. Erewash Canal Floodgate

The railway embankment carries a railway line towards Castle Donington, which opened in 1868 to allow trains from Nottingham to Birmingham or Crewe to bypass Derby. There are no regular passenger trains on this line, but you will often see very long container trains destined for the East Midlands Gateway freight terminal near East Midlands Airport.

This railway embankment acts as the modern flood defence for Long Eaton, but in exceptionally high floods, it would be possible for the River Trent to rise above the level of the Erewash Canal and water to flow under the railway bridge to flood the town. This is the reason for concrete structure on the canal here, with lock gates facing the ‘wrong way’ on the canal to block the flow.

Continue along the towpath under the Castle Donington line and up to the next railway bridge over the canal, which carries the main Derby to Leicester arm of the Trent Triangle.

19. Erewash Canal Bridge

This bridge is in two parts, a stone arch on the right over an access road to land between the railway lines, and a metal bridge over the canal. The stone arch is the original from 1838, but the metal part is another where an ornamental cast iron arch did not survive the increasing weight and speed of trains and had to be replaced by a mundane steel girder.

An interesting feature of this bridge is that originally there was a footbridge attached to the side of the main bridge. This provided a path from Tamworth Road for workers at the Midland Railway Sheet Stores around the canal basin.

Continue under the railway bridge and onto the bridge that carries the towpath over the entrance to the canal basin on the right.

20. Sheet Stores Basin

This is the canal basin that was built by the Midland Counties Railway in 1840 as a canal to railway transhipment facility. The stone-built ground floor of the building to your right dates from this period, when it was used to store coke used for locomotive fuel.

In later years the Midland Railway used the site for manufacture and repair of tarpaulins or ‘sheets’ used to protect goods carried in open wagons, and additional buildings were constructed in red brick with distinctive cast iron window frames similar to those at stations such as Wellingborough in the line to London.

At its peak around 1900 the Midland Railway Sheet Stores employed over 200 people here and there was an 18 inch gauge internal tramway to move materials around the site. Most of the original buildings survive as the Sheet Stores Industrial Estate, rented out for a wide range of commercial purposes. The canal basin is another boatyard, and the Long Eaton Boat Club have their clubhouse here in a old goods shed.

You can learn more about the Midland Railway Sheet Stores in another of the history boards back at the station, or download an article from the Derbyshire Archaeological Journal.

As you walk north from the bridge over the canal basin entrance keep right to follow the slope up to Fields Farm Road.

21. Wharfingers House

Go a little way beyond the top of the slope and you get a view of a rendered white building behind the modern industrial unit to your right. This is another building dating from 1840, a house built for the ‘wharfinger’ who was in charge of the original canal to railway transhipment facility. In later years it was lived in by the manager of the Sheet Stores, and today it is another unit of the industrial estate.

Turn left along Fields Farm Road and retrace your steps back to the roundabout at Long Eaton station, where you can have another look at the history boards before catching your train, or pop into the Farm Shop café or Sawley Junction micropub for some well earned refreshment.

If you have enjoyed this walk, why not have a look on the Derwent Valley Line website for more ideas for walks from the railway stations between Matlock and Nottingham.