Nostalgia Corner (2)

Some pupils at the primary school I attended went to the Regal cinema on Saturday mornings. I went two or three times and decided it was not for me. I, along with a few friends, decided it was much more fun to explore the great outdoors.

We would head off towards the railways and canal which ran along the valley carved out by the Rother. Heading down Lockoford Lane we came upon the canal where its passed beneath the lane. On one side the derelict lock and lock-keepers cottage and the route to Chesterfield, the other side led into the country and Brimington. Which way to go?

In the Chesterfield direction we passed a breakers yard and saw the hulks of former London Underground carriages being dismantled and burned. A little further on we crossed a bridge over the canal and headed towards Tapton Park.

Tapton had within its grounds a school, Tapton Hall, which had been the residence of George Stephenson, the railway pioneer who surveyed the route for the Stockton and Darlington Railway and the North Midland Railway.

To reach the park from the canal we had passed over the North Midland Railway on a bridge known locally as the Skull and Crossbones. Why the name, I know not. I believed it had something to do with the ninety degree bend at one end of the bridge and the propensity of vehicles to leave the road. We left the park via a narrow footbridge over the railway. Here we would linger and watch the trains go by. We enjoyed standing over the track on which a train was approaching and being enveloped by a cloud of steam and smoke.

Then it was down the path to the railway footbridge over the Great Central line and in to Wharf Road. Here we passed derelict warehouses built alongside the basin of the Chesterfield canal. When constructed, the Great Central cut the basin off from the rest of the canal.