The Cromford Canal

John and Sarah have been staying next to the Cromford Canal in Derbyshire, another canal now cut off from the main network and therefore inaccessible to Patience.  It was built between 1789 and 1794 by William Jessop and Benjamin Outram to provide a 14.5 mile link between the Erewash Canal and Cromford Wharf, near Richard Arkwright's historic cotton mills. The canal closed for commercial traffic in 1944, but a restored section remains open for a few miles south of Cromford, and on which a horse drawn boat operates as a tourist attraction.

Cromford Wharf

At High Peak Junction, a mile south of the canal terminus at Cromford Wharf, there was an interchange with the Cromford and High Peak Railway, which ran over the Peak District to connect with the Peak Forest Canal at Whaley Bridge, providing a short cut for the shipment of minerals and other goods, thus avoiding a much longer journey via the Trent and Mersey Canal.

High Peak Junction from where the Cromford and Hgh Peak Railway ran behind the buildings

Completed in 1831, the Cromford and High Peak Railway was engineered on similar principles to a canal and comprised a series of relatively level sections connected by very steep inclines (analogous to the locks on a canal), up which wagons were drawn by cables powered by stationary steam engines.

Railway wagon at the top of the Middleton incline

The gradients of the inclines ranged from 1 in 16 to 1 in 8 and it reached 1,266 ft above sea level, the highest point reached by a standard gauge railway in England.  It was in operation carrying freight until 1967 and part of its route now forms the High Peak walking trail.