68 November 2017 Canal Boat canalboat.co.ukT
o a canal boater the name
Erewash means a single canal
reaching northwards from Trent
Lock to a terminus near Langley
Mill on the Nottinghamshire and
Derbyshire borders. But at one time the
Erewash Valley contained no fewer than
five canals, until they gradually began to
close down from the 1890s onwards.
By the 1960s all that was left was the
12-mile cul-de-sac that survives today,
but there are traces to be found of all
four of the others. One of these – the
Derby – features in our Restoration
article this month, while our walk follows
a circuit that takes in part of one of the
others and a small fragment of a third, as
well as the upper section of the Erewash.
We’ll start at Gallows Inn Bridge on the
Erewash Canal at Ilkeston – partly
because there’s a handy place to park by
the playing fields (and also the new
Ilkeston railway station is not far away),
but also because we researched the walk
while enjoying the recent IWA Festival of
Water there – see our news pages.
The Erewash has in the past had
something of a reputation among some
boaters for being rather an industrial
wasteland. You’ll soon realise as you
begin walking northwards that if that was
ever true, it certainly isn’t today. Yes,
there is an industrial estate on the right,
but it’s well screened from the canal by a
line of trees, while on the left, back
gardens of houses run down to the water.Erewash
excursion
There’s more to the Erewash valley than the Erewash Canal:
follow a circuit around the valley’s navigable and abandoned
canals, through a green but formerly industrial landscapeGreat Canal Walk
The rural northern reaches of the ErewashHeading north past Ilkeston