A Sentimental Journey - No. 06
Cossall To Ilkeston - Part 4

w/e 24 February 2008
All this week's pictures were taken with a Kodak DX6490

Gonna take a Sentimental Journey, Gonna set my heart at ease.
Gonna make a Sentimental Journey, to renew old memories.

The route of this sentimental journey was suggested by Joanne Apergi but the first three parts of Joanne's walk are identical to the route from Ilkeston to Cossall suggested by Derek Thorpe which we covered in Sentimental Journey No. 5. Those three parts took us as far as the old swing bridge position on Mill Lane and marked at point A on the map opposite. To retrace those first three parts from Ilkeston Market Place
click here.
Derek's route continues from A and is shown by the yellow line through B to conclude in Cossall Village at C. Joanne's route however turns right and follows the towpath alongside the Nottingham Canal as far as the second swing bridge location at D. I suggested an alternative way at the end of Sentimental Journey No. 5 using the footpaths across the fields shown by a light blue dashed line to combine the two routes to return to Ilkeston but whichever way we reach it, we'll begin this part at point D and continue from there.


Footpath From Cossall


This first picture showing the footpath indicated by the light blue line between B and D on the map above also shows that the former swing bridge has been replaced by a simple footbridge over the Nottingham Canal.
Nottingham Canal Towpath

Turning to the left at the same position, we can see the towpath at the side of the canal which would be our approach if we followed Joanne's route from Mill Lane. Whichever way we reach this point we must now climb over the stile on the left to take a shortcut across the fields picking up the towpath again on the other side of a loop in the canal.
Tormental Field

DrainMuddy FieldThe canal of course follows the contour line around the hillside but our shortcut drops down into a small valley and then rises up the embankment opposite. At the bottom of the valley a drain runs through the field in a concrete channel (left). The approach is by a grassy path but once crossed, the rise to the canal is on soil or when I crossed it, cloying mud (right). I was about two inches taller when I reached the far side!

This field is known locally as Tormental or Tor Mental Field and I was intrigued by the name and its origin. One dictionary definition of "torment" is " something that causes great bodily or mental pain or suffering" and as schoolboys in the 1960s this would have been an apt description of this part of our cross country runs but I hardly think that distant schoolboy memories would be sufficient for a field to be immortalised in folk history.
I searched the local library and museum and contacted the Local History Society for an answer but none seemed forthcoming. Internet searches too turned up nothing until I found a picture by "Lenton Sands" at Flickr of the Tormental Field Steps in 1984. I wrote to Mr. Sands and then all fell into place when I received his reply and also an answer from Stephen Flinders and Danny Corns (Local History Society). As the saying goes "I love it when a plan comes together" and it certainly did with their answers. So with thanks to all three this is the answer:

The Tormental Field was a popular 19/20th century local picnic and beauty spot until outcropping destroyed it in the early 1950s. Mr. Sands remembers it in his childhood as being a sloping grassy field with a winding stream
and bushes and trees for shelter. Children would paddle in the stream and perhaps catch sticklebacks or even newts. He suggested that it had come into being by the creation of the canal and the embankment but it had a character that appeared entirely natural. The field was known as the tormental field because of a flower that grew there.

This was borne out by Danny Corns who also mentioned a small flower and further investigations revealed that it is similar to a buttercup but has only four petals rather than five. I also found that the correct spelling of the flower ends “til” and not “tal” and when you search for that, much more information is forthcoming. There is even a Wikipedia article about it but here are a few facts about the flower found on another website. It is a small plant, with bright yellow flowers and woody roots. It flowers all summer long and has an underground stem that is reddish when cut and has a rose like smell. A red dye was extracted from it and used to tan hides in the past. The English name for the plant comes from the Latin word tormentum meaning pain, which refers to the use of the underground parts of the plant to relieve stomach pains and toothache.

I never cease to wonder at what research into a single word or subject can reveal and it just goes to show once again, that you are never to old to learn.

Tormental Steps

Dead MouseThe world is in a constant state of flux and even the steps up to the canal have been altered since Mr. Sands' 1984 picture but I'll leave the last word on Tormental Field to him. He wrote "It's a great shame that such little retreats are lost forever Canal Towpathbut I fear that the modern world would have no place for it in its heart had it survived. After all it had no car park!" Something else of a more immediate nature that had not survived, probably due to the cold spell after a period of relatively mild weather, was a tiny mouse (left) seen as the side of the steps. But after this diversion into the origins of a name, it's onward and upwards to regain the canal towpath (right) and follow Joanne's route towards Trowell.
Nature Reserve

Walking On WaterPath, Canal and RoadThe Nottingham Canal is of course, no longer navigable and much of it has been filled in. The still water in this section though was ice-covered and water fowl were standing on the surface (left). The road (right) between Cossall and Trowell runs by the side of the canal and where it has been straightened, the old route now forms a small lay-by. This area has been landscaped and a small picnic area created.

A large sign here also announces that it is the Nottingham Canal Nature Reserve and the birds obviously know it is a good place for rich pickings.
Cossall Road Corner

Joanne had written in her email to me "... then we'd go through Tor Mental field as my dad calls it, on to the top canal, past the boatman’s shed ..." but so far there has been no sign of the boatman's shed. I don't know for sure where it was but I strongly suspect that it has long since disappeared as a little further on, Cossall Road swings towards Trowell away from the canal and just out of sight in the picture above and accessed from the corner is a small car park. In fact the car park has been formed on a filled in section of the canal and it is from there that we will continue with Joanne's route back to Ilkeston when we resume in the next part.

Cue song:- Never thought my heart could be so yearny. Why did I decide to roam?
Gotta take that Sentimental Journey, Sentimental Journey home.

Continued in Part 5

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