Restoration feature As we once again use the reduction in WRG work to take a wider look at projects, Restoration Feature: Cromford Canal When we featured the Buckingham Canal in the last issue, I remarked on what a pleasant change it was to be able to report on a restoration where for once we will be able to ‘start at the beginning’ with a reopening in the not too distant future at the very start of the canal, where it connects to the navigable network. And this time we’re looking at another of those rare cases: the next major project on the Cromford Canal should see boats from the national network heading up a newly built pair of staircase locks within the next few years. But let’s go back to the start...
Great Northern Basin at Langley Mill, restored by the Erewash Canal Preservation & Development Association and reopened in 1973 to create a new terminus for the Erewash Canal (its own terminal basin having been filled in), was historically the very first part of the Cromford Canal, which met the Erewash (and also, to further confuse things, the former Nottingham Canal) at this point. Over the years, that initial short length
The restoration back-story: From the above, the Cromford may sound like the sort of ‘start at the beginning’ project that canal restorers dream of (not to mention those of us boaters who are itching to navigate some new water!) but it hasn’t always been that way. Over the last half century it’s often been the familiar story of working on dead-end sections apparently in the middle of nowhere, simply because that was seen as the most practicable option for making progress with the resources available at the time. Having said that, in fact the very first reopening of a section of the Cromford was actually a case of ‘start from the beginning’ too. It’s not generally seen as a part of the Cromford Canal at all, but Langley Bridge Lock and
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The Cromford Canal was authorised in 1789 and built to connect the textile mills in Cromford, the ironworks around Butterley and the coal mines in the Pinxton area to the Erewash Canal (opened in 1779) at Langley Mill - and thereby to the Trent and to Nottingham. It was an expensive canal to build, with four tunnels including the 3083 yard Butterley Tunnel and sizeable aqueducts, and cost double the orginal estimate. However once it was open in 1794 it was an immediate success, helped by the Nottingham Canal and Derby Canal providing links to those cities. Proposals to link it to the Peak Forest Canal via a new canal crossing the Peak District proved impracticable, but instead an unusual early railway using horse haulage and rope-worked inclines, the Cromford & High Peak Railway, was opened in 1831 to provide this link. However by the 1840s the canal was feeling the effect of competition from more conventional railways, freight tolls were reduced in a bid to retain trade, and in 1852 the canal sold out to a local railway. In 1889 mining subsidence temporarily dosed Butterley Tunnel, then a second tunnel collapse in 1900 was not repaired. Some local traffic continued for some years on both sides of the tunnel, but in 1944 the then owners the LMS Railway officially abandoned it The southern length was subsequently filled in; the rest left to decay.
