Out & About: A Ramble Around Parts of Old Derby

Four of us this week and Geoff wanted to look at some places for the old Derby Canal. It was my turn to drive and we set off at 07:30 straight down the A6 and parked up outside the old Browns Foundry building. We just crossed the road and went into a car park first to have a look at where the Derby canal used to go. From there we walked a couple of hundred yards then over the A52 footbridge. We could see the old building with a clock tower and weather vain with a horse on it and with its proximity to the racecourse we thought this could have been stables. We ended up walking past the Intu Centre then along London Road and did some pics of the statues along there, Florence Nightingale and Queen Victoria both outside the old hospital which has only the towers standing. From there we went up to the "new" road bridge over the railway, then back towards the car via the Royal Mail building and Derby Railway Station. We went into the railway station and had our breakfast sitting on one of the platform benches, we didn't need a ticket to get in. One of the finds of the day was the war memorials in there, several of them including memorials from the Boer War and a VC. From there it was a walk back towards the car but we called into that building that looked like stables. The security chap Manjit let us go into the yard and without doubt this place has been stables at one point in its lifetime. Another quick excursion to the road just beside the Vauxhall dealers at the end of Stores Road where Geoff showed us the remains of where the Little Eaton canal joined the Derby canal, now just some steel beams in the road.

Route around old Derby. Can anyone give any information regarding the levels of the canals and which direction the locks would be operating. (Map supplied by Geoff Sheldon)

3 happy smiley faces, Ike, Rob and Geoff

Derby canal passed through here, there are still rope marks on the stonework

We think this building used to be stables

Sunrise reflected in the windows

Pride Parkway

Florence Nightingale

Queen Victoria

A lot of very caring people worked in here

Whats left of the old hospital

You used to be able to drive up here years ago

The "new" road bridge

Geoff going up in the world.

Bit of an arty shot from the bridge

3 not so happy smiley faces lol

3rd from the bottom Mr. Brown from Belper

Boer War memorial

VC memorial

Each shop had there own memorial plaque

The Wyvern on top of the memorials

In 1839 the North Midland Railway, Midland Counties Railway and Derby to Birmingham Railway set up workshops at the back of Derby station as railway lines started to spread across the country like a spider’s web. On 30th May 1839 the line from Derby to Nottingham was opened and the line to Birmingham followed on 5th August. The line north, through Chesterfield to Mosborough, near Rotherham, was opened on 11th May 1840.

These three companies merged to form the Midland Railway in 1844. The company created its coat of arms, which can still be seen at the front of Derby railway station, adopting a Wyvern – a mythical creature with a dragons head, two legs and a barbed tail – because it believed this was the emblem of the rulers of Mercia. It wasn’t until 1897 that the Railway Magazine pointed out the Wyvern had no links with Mercia.