Exploring the history of my local area. Derbyshire, Leicestershire and beyond! Any history is fair game, railways, canals, industrial sites. I also love exploring old castles, Roman roads and ruins as well as older Iron Age and Bronze Age hill forts.
It's such a shame we wont see it restored in our lifetime. Being a boater in the area i would of enjoyed it and been so handy to be a continuous cruiser
I have happy memories of a childhood when Swarkestone was in the country with market gardens growing vegetables and the canal bed which still had water in places which was a wonderful playground for kids. Sadly the canal route has not been well looked after, a new road has been driven through it recently further educing any likelihood of restoration. Housing built on the market gardens now encroaches almost to Swarkestone lock, and will continue to do so, and the continuous sound of the nearby A50 road has taken away the peace and tranquillity. Like everywhere else Derby continues to gobble up land for building houses and commercial estates and the once outlying villages have become mere suburbs. Still the days of kids roaming the countryside, cycling, building dens, getting up to mischief are gone, they spend their time playing games on their I Phones with their mates online and even if they want to go out their parents probably wont allow them because "its too dangerous". Its a very different world to my childhood when my Dad and I would go fishing here and never see a boat (it was after commercial carrying ended but before the boom in recreational boating) and as a result the canal water was gin clear and full of vegetation.
This is great thanks. I’ve always had a fascination for the old Friar gate station and the abandoned line that runs through Mackworth/ Mickleover, I grew up playing around there and walk my dog around there pretty much every day.
Sadly the Sinfin branch isn’t connected to the old GNR Friargate line in any way. The Sinfin branch was once part of the Midland Railway and ran from Melbourne Junction, through Weston on Trent and towards Ashby de la Zouch where it ran over a rebuilt section of the old Ticknall tramway, part of which which is covered in my most recent video
Interesting video of beautiful Derbyshire, thanks. One point on the sound is the cars and wind were quite badly drowning you out. An external microphone with a muffle would probably help if you get a chance to get one.
I used to live near here 20+ years ago. This spot hasn't changed much at all. I would have thought that they may have restored the canal under the bridge and a bit further towards Derby. Used to occasionally cycle from here to the city centre on this route, way before Chellaston grew massively and that big pub on the roundabout was restored !
This is great. I was commuting from Derby in the mid 90’s and used to be fascinated by the Sinfin ‘train’ on the timetable (‘Contact the station manager’ ) The taxi service was still in use till its closure and some people appealed to the rail regulator when the station finally closed. Can you get anywhere near the Rams Halt line platform?
Sadly not, while the Sinfin platform is now part of a footpath, there’s zero access at all to the old Ramsline Halt, and as a railway employee I wouldn’t dream of even trying to get access
Good to see your new video. guess you have seen my flights over the entire derby canal route : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TET5m2q_plc.html The culvert at 12:20 is overflow from the canal into Cuttle Brook.
From Aberdeen here, I really enjoyed that. I've seen several video's from around England where they are working to restore the canals in their area. I think it's all a fantastic thing to do. I had only ever saw the Barge long boat homes on TV via kids programs and other British made programs until at age 30 when I lived in Stoke on Trent for a year. They had active canals and I saw some gorgeous barge's there up close and not on TV, lol. I loved the experience and others deserve to have the same joy as I did. Bring the British tradition back. I've visited Derbyshire Stone Museum while I was living in Stoke, beautiful countryside there. Thank you for sharing your experience.
i have many clips of vid from other end near sinfin and peartree end from out of cherry pickers and off the roof of the line and being used as i worked building on the waste site for 5 years
