 |
| The canal bridge at Kiveton Park railway station |
My walk from Harthill to Kiveton Park took much less time than I thought and, with no pubs open to tempt me, I decided to make the most of the sunny day by walking along the Chesterfield Canal towards Kiveton Park railway station and then making my way back towards Todwick.
 |
| The Cuckoo Way |
Leaving Kiveton Community Woodlands at the entrance on Hard Lane, I crossed the road to join the Cuckoo Way, a long distance footpath that follows the Chesterfield Canal from Chesterfield to West Stockwith on the River Trent – a distance of 74 km.
 |
| A view across the Kiveton Fault |
For the first 500 metres, the path runs alongside an area of wetland that adjoins Broad Bridge Dike and which coincides with the line of the Kiveton Fault, an extension of the Spa Fault that I had previously investigated during previous walks to Spa Farm and Guilthwaite.
The land rising to the north here forms part of the Kiveton anticline and the easternmost houses and woodland beyond are set on the Permian Cadeby Formation, which here dips to the south and south-east. Also, east of Hard Lane, between Broad Bridge Dike and the railway line, there also features in the land that look to me like a ridge and furrow field system.
 |
| A ridge and furrow field system |
Arriving at the east entrance of the Norwood Tunnel, which at 2663 metres was the longest in the world when it opened in 1775, I couldn’t get a photograph of it without danger of falling into the canal and had to be content with a view east along the canal. It has suffered extensively from subsidence due to the coal mining here and after decades of repair, the tunnel was never reopened after a major collapse in 1907.
 |
| A view from the eastern portal of the Norwood Tunnel |
Passing a few walkers and cyclists on the way, I carried on along the towpath for a few hundred metres, where much of the surroundings were overgrown with vegetation and it was mainly a few gabions and the enormous carp in the canal that particularly caught my eye.
 |
| Gabions along the towpath |
I had never explored the Chesterfield Canal or any other canals before and I was therefore interested to encounter the rather grand feeder just before Kiveton Park railway station, which is linked to Harthill Reservoir by the Broad Bridge Dike, together with a winding hole for turning.
 |
| The feeder and winding hole |
As with the bridge at Kiveton Park railway station, where I left the canal, it is built from dolomitic limestone which was no doubt supplied by one of the many quarries that once operated in the immediate area.
 |
| The canal bridge at Kiveton Park railway station |
No comments:
Post a Comment