17th August 2010 On Me Bike

2010-08-17 @ 20:39:35 by ashtonboatman


On me Bike

I unloaded my little bike with all its dangling bags and pots and pans through the narrow doorway of the train and carried it over the footbridge. Duffield used to be the junction station for the branch line to Wirksworth. I was pleased to see that, under the name of the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway, http://www.e-v-r.com/ the tracks are now relaid ready for train services to start next year.

I mounted my bike and rode up the hill to the strangely quiet A6. A handy co-op enabled me to stock up with various provisions and I was soon on my way. The reason for the road's tranquility was the total closure of this former trunk route through Duffield. I zigzagged my bike between hi vis clad workers with pnuematic drills and bumped over dug up sections of road until, clear of the roadworks, I turned left towards Dufield Bank.

I stopped on the railway bridge and watched a couple of Voyagers streak by as I snacked on some of the food I had bought, I tried, fruitlessly, to increase the pressure in my back tyre, then carried on to the other side of the valley.

Duffield Bank was once the home of a wonderfully eccentric Victorian country gentleman named Sir Arthur Heywood. He was fascinated with the idea of constructing the smallest practicable railways and envisioned a world where these tiny lines would serve the needs of farms, factories and country estates. Though I have little time for aristocracy, the idea of networks of tiny railways (allied of course with narrow canals) serving our transport needs seems to me to be the kind civilised of world that I would like to live in. For me though, everyone would need to be of equal standing rather the master and servant relationships of Heywoods day.

In an old quarry behind his house Sir Arthur had built a complex layout of lines to 15 inch gauge. He designed a range of little locomotives, along with goods wagons, passenger coaches, a dining car and sleeping carriage. On occassion he would get his bemused servants to drive the train round and round the circuit all night while he slumbered in the sleeping car.

Sir Arthur Percival Heywood, 3rd Baronet (25 December 1849 – 19 April 1916) was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Percival Heywood. He grew up in the family home of Dove Leys at Denstone in Staffordshire.

He is best known today as the innovator of the fifteen inch minimum gauge railway, for estate use.

,_3rd_Baronet

Though narrow gauge industrial railways were once common, Heywoods ideas never really caught on. One of his locomotives, however, much rebuilt, is still in regular service hauling tourists on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway in Cumbria. http://train.spottingworld.com/River_Irt

Duffield Bank certainly lives up to its name and I struggled up a hill before the road levelled out a little and I pedalled my way towards Little Eaton. My tyre was still feeling very soggy and I kept my eye out for somewhere that might sell a bicycle pump, though I knew this was unlikely.

Litlle Eaton, now a pleasant suburb of Derby, was once the transhipment point between the Little Eaton Gangway and a branch of the Derby Canal. This ancient transport system for locally mined coal lasted until 1908, when it was superseded by a railway.

The Little Eaton Gangway, or, to give it its official title, the Derby Canal Railway, was a narrow gauge industrial wagonway serving the Derby Canal, in England, at Little Eaton in Derbyshire.

I searched in vain for the site of the former transhipment basin, then followed a road that led towards Derby. I noticed a parallel ditch hidden in rough woodland and, on investigation, realised that this was the old canal. 

The Derby Canal ran 14 miles (23 km) from the Trent and Mersey Canal at Swarkestone to Derby and Little Eaton, and to the Erewash Canal at Sandiacre, in Derbyshire, England. The canal was authorised by an Act of Parliament in 1793 and was fully completed in 1796. It featured a level crossing of the River Derwent in the centre of Derby. An early tramroad, known as the Little Eaton Gangway, linked Little Eaton to coal mines at Denby. The canal's main cargo was coal, and it was relatively successful until the arrival of the railways in 1840. It gradually declined, with the gangway closing in 1908 and the Little Eaton Branch in 1935. Early attempts at restoration were thwarted by the closure of the whole canal in 1964. Since 1994, there has been an active campaign for restoration spearheaded by the Derby and Sandiacre Canal Trust and Society. Loss of the Derwent crossing due to development has resulted in an innovative engineering solution called the Derby Arm being proposed, as a way of transferring boats across the river.

Further along the road was a roundabout where the local road met with the Derby ring road and the old canal was oblitterated by the thundering new routeways. I had strayed a little from my line on the map and, to rejoin it, I would have to follow one of these dual carriageways. Here commenced the least pleasant bit of my journey as I laboured uphill, harried by uncompassionate trucks. I reached a point where a trackway that seemed to go in the right direction dived under the rubber strewn highway. Thankfully I scrambled down the banking to join this milder road, which I followed across the fields to the village of Breadsall.

I coasted steadily down Rectory Lane into the main Village. My ancient map showed various routes going in the South Easterly direction that I required, but the only one that I could find, Station Road, very firmly stated itself to be a private cul de sac. I rode out of the village in the direction of Derby, but, not wishing to get entangled in the urban sprawl, decided to follow a bridle path that I spotted going the right way. After a few hundred yards I was surprised to see a set of level crossing gates ahead of me in a wooded area. This turned out to be the trackbed of the old Great Northern line from Derby to Nottingham, now transformed into a footpath and cycleway. Near the crossing the old Breadsall station remains had been excavated and put on view. 

It was now past 4 PM and I was concerned to find a bicycle pump. It was clear to me that the ratty old pump that I had brought would not achieve sufficient tyre pressure for a comfortable ride. I found a good camping spot in the corner of a field and hid my survival packs under some bushes before whizzing off down the old railway track, which was surprisingly steep, towards Derby.