The Hallam Fields Industrial Trail - Part 3 - To The Canal
w/e 18 September 2005
All this week's pictures were taken with a Kodak DX6490

Hallam Fields Industrial Trail

In Part 3, we continue along Hallam Fields Road to the Erewash Canal.
 GNR Bridge

I have to admit that the thought of taking photographs for this stage of the Industrial Trail did not fill me with any great enthusiasm. I am not sure that the extension of Hallam Fields Road from Crompton Road down to the Erewash Canal has been formerly adopted and the pot holes in the road surface, the lack of pavements on either side and a general uncared for feel did little to change my opinion. Bricks have become dislodged from the top of the Great Northern Railway bridge which crossed the Stanton branch line and sidings. The view (inset) along the route of the old line towards the Gallows Inn Playing Field shows only that it has become overgrown or built on and no evidence of its former use remains.
Primary School Site

Just beyond the bridge on the right hand side there now stands, as the sign tells us, the works of a "Timber Engineer". From a historical point of view however, the wall along the frontage is more interesting for this is all that remains of the Hallam Fields Church of England School site. This view will no doubt be almost unrecognisable to anyone who has been away from the town for some time as an email I received only a couple of weeks ago from Jan Wasley, now resident in America proves. In it he wrote, "I recall that one could go past St Bartholomew's Church down a small dead end road that ultimately led to a primary school where from time to time there would be theatrical productions. I dimly seem to recall an amateur production of Oklahoma." The school was actually demolished in 1976 after being used as a Sunday school. It had closed as a day school in 1939 due to its proximity to the ironworks, a prime target for German bombers in the Second World War.
Canal Bridge

The school had originally been built on the site of Job Severn's farmhouse and between the school and the bridge over the Erewash Canal at the bottom of Hallam Fields Road (above), were bricklayers' and plumbers' shops which offered fine views of the New Works furnaces in Stanton Ironworks.
Hallam Fields Road

Looking back up Hallam Fields Road today, the view whilst still industrial bears, little resemblance to that of Stanton's heyday. The time office and power house were adjacent to the canal bridge but the only constant now from years ago is probably the tower of St Bartholomew's Church. That beacon in the distance on the corner of the then Crompton Street would be where early Stanton workers and their families who arrived by canal from the Black Country would head to make their homes in the cottages there.
Hallam Fields Lock

And it would have been somewhere near here, Hallam Fields Lock, seen from the bridge over the canal that those early workers would have disembarked. The next lock along the Erewash canal at Gallows Inn was also used as a disembarkation point.
Narrow Boat

Bridge Over Erewash CanalI have made several comparisons between the scenes of earlier times and today in this part but zooming in over the lock gates revealed a view of a narrow boat that is almost timeless. Even so, I suppose comparisons can still be made for I imagine this tranquil view would have had a much busier countenance around two hundred or so years ago. The Erewash Canal was opened in 1779 at a cost of £21,000 but was abandoned in 1930. It was used again in the war years between 1939 and 1945 and, still navigable, it is now used mainly for leisure activities. Our route from here is not in the direction of these views but the opposite way towards Sandiacre.

Back to Part 2
 Hallam Fields Index
 Forward to Part 4

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