SK4547 : North end of Nottingham Canal, Langley Mill
taken 9 years ago, near to Langley Mill, Derbyshire, England
The Cromford Canal ran 14.5 miles from Langley Mill (where there was a connection to the Erewash and Nottingham Canals) to Cromford on the edge of the Peak District. It was opened in 1794 and for many years traded profitably carrying mainly coal, limestone, iron ore and lead. As with many other canals, however, it suffered from railway competition and was dealt a major blow when Butterley Tunnel had to be closed permanently in 1900 due to subsidence. The southern stretch remained open until 1944 when it was formally abandoned (except for a short distance at Langley Mill). Today there is an active restoration society, the Friends of the Cromford Canal, that hopes eventually to reopen the canal for navigation.
The Nottingham Canal was 14.7 miles long from Langley Mill to the River Trent in Nottingham. William Jessop was appointed in 1791 to survey the Canal but most of the work was done by James Green. The canal was put before Parliament in 1792 and Benjamin Outram made engineer under Jessop who had to give up the post as Chief Engineer before completion due to illness. The canal opened in 1796 after many difficulties at a cost of £43,500, twice the estimate. From the 1840s after the arrival of the railways the canal declined and was abandoned altogether in 1936 by the then owners Great Northern Railway Co. The section between the Trent and Lenton was passed to Trent Navigation Company at this time. Most of the canal was built over from 1955 but the section from Derby Road to Lenton Chain was re-used as a new course for the River Leen and so is still in water and remains in use as part of the Beeston and Nottingham Canal that allows boats to navigate past the shallow water on the Trent at Clifton Bridge and the weir at Beeston.