It had been a long wait for this walk. All through the Christmas holidays, and an inset day, and weeks and weeks of appalling weather. Now it was the end of January and there was still a dull grey layer of cloud, but at least it wasn't raining. I set out.
If you like a good ex-industrial landscape, the Erewash Valley is the place to be. It is veined with old canals and railways, freckled with former factories and mills, and pitted with coal mines. The M1 and a railway run north to south through it, but parts of it still feel surprisingly rural. I had been drawn in by all that there was to discover, so I'd shelved the Portway for a little while and diverted onto the Erewash Valley Trail.
I parked in Bramcote Hills Park again and had a quick look at the walled garden, overlooked by the Hemlock Stone.
Hickings Lane heads towards the centre of Stapleford. It looks like it should be a dual carriageway but it's not; there are two separate roads with a wide grass strip between them. At the bottom is a large new community centre with sports pitches.
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| oops |
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| Hickings Lane |
Turning onto Church Street, I was soon at St Helen's Church. The Anglo-Saxon cross was certainly worth seeing: dating to the 9th century, carved with intricate looping patterns on all four sides, and towering over the street in the elevated graveyard.
I passed a pub which surely must be a contender for the longest name - The Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren - and a shop called Bethells which looked like it hadn't changed since the 1990s. "We are still using the same phone number," said a sign in the window.
A sign directed me to the Erewash Valley Trail. I crossed the railway and river to get to the Erewash Canal, and followed it south past a vast mill building, now flats. I found out later it was called Springfield Mill and had suffered a serious fire in 2020.
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| River Erewash |
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| Springfield Mill |
Sandiacre Lock was where the Derby Canal once joined the Erewash Canal. There were rows of houses backing onto the canal. I have to say, a garden with a swing right next to the water looks quite appealing.
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| Derby Canal entered under the bridge to the right |
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| Sandiacre Lock Cottages |
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| canalside tree with swing |
At the next lock there was an opportunity to walk through the river washlands. It wasn't much more exciting - a muddy track along a flood embankment - but it made a change from the towpath. The Erewash had been straightened here, but I could see from the map and as I walked along that lots of the wiggles remained as marshy ponds.
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| remains of a wiggle |
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| old railway bridge |
I eventually came out by a sculpture by the back of Asda. From here I would cross some of the formerly vast area of Toton Sidings. This was once a vital hub of the railway network, handling hundreds of coal trucks delivering coal from the mines to the many power stations in the area. Our History Underfoot had recently made a really interesting video with archive footage and photos interspersed with Ant wandering around in the snow. I'd already recognised a few locations and was keen to explore further.
But it gave me the creeps. There was a heartbreaking amount of rubbish dumped in and around a stream. The ground was black with coal dust and rough with ballast, the floodlights loomed overhead like the stalks of alien trees, and it felt desolate and dangerous. I wasn't at all inclined to go poking around in the undergrowth looking for old railway sleepers.
I made for the edge, and within minutes I was on a bridle path with dog walkers marching up and down like ants. My sense of unease instantly vanished. Still, I stayed close to the main path, only venturing off onto an embankment at the top, which gave views over what remained of the sidings.
Turning right, I crossed a couple of fields, reached a road with a very logical pair of names, and went round the edge of the Toton Park and Ride on a path lined with brown beech leaves and green catkins. A tram went past, heading for Nottingham, just after I crossed the tracks.
A wide, well-used path headed uphill, gradually converging with the A52 dual carriageway. I think the views would be quite nice in brighter weather. I didn't cross the A52, but turned right towards Bramcote Woods. This used to be the grounds of Bramcote Hall. I guessed there must have been a building nearby when I saw the remains of stone walls but, not knowing what it was, I missed out on the crumbling stone steps which are all that remains of the formal gardens, over on the south side of the woodland. Once again, Our History Underfoot had covered it in a video.
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| murky view |
There was a bench overlooking the spire of St Michael's Church in Bramcote village which looked too nice to miss. I sat and ate an apple, enjoying the scenery.
Bramcote looked like it would be worth exploring a bit more, too. That's the trouble: there's always something interesting that you don't quite get to, and when you come back to see that, you discover something else! I saw the White Lion, with its odd overhang, and St Michael's Church, but missed the sunken tower and the framework knitters' cottages.
I crossed the footbridge across the oddly-shaped A52 roundabout (the main road runs through the middle of the island) and was back in Bramcote Hills Park. This, as the walled gardens suggested, was once the grounds of a mansion; red bricks showed the outline of Hills House. Now there is a large grassy area with wooded hills rising behind it. Even on this dull January day, there was a beauty in the patterns of the trees. There's always something more to see.
26 January 2026
10 miles / 16 km
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