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The Derbyshire Peak District in northern England color scheme designer is home to a number of abandoned Victorian railways that have since become walking and cycle paths. Chief among them are the former mainline routes of the Midland Railway (now the Monsal Trail) and the Woodhead color scheme designer Line (Longdendale Trail). Plying the White Peak area, meanwhile, was the Cromford and High Peak Railway, a former mineral line now known as the High Peak Trail, and the Ashbourne Line, now the Tissington Trail.
During their heyday competition was fierce, as competing color scheme designer railway companies sought to connect the city of Manchester and its surrounding towns to the Midlands and ultimately London. Today, with the exception of several freight routes, color scheme designer only the Hope Valley Line between Sheffield and Manchester survives. And it’s this route that once fed into another, less well known single color scheme designer track branch line, the remnants of which can still be seen today.
The Thornhill Trail, as it’s now known, dates to the turn of the 20th century when a seven mile standard gauge railway was laid from a junction on the mainline near Bamford Station to aid in the building of the massive Derwent and Howden color scheme designer dams. The line was completed in 1903, after which thousands of tons of stone were transported from a quarry at Bole Hill near Grindleford to the construction sites further up the Derwent Valley.
The route, known as the Derwent Branchline or Bamford and Howden Railway, was short-lived. But during its decade or so of operation it transported more than a million tons of stone from the quarry color scheme designer to the work site. Stone trucks color scheme designer were hauled by a series of small steam locomotives, one of them named Togo, owned by the Derwent Valley Water Board.
The railway, however, wasn’t the only impressive temporary infrastructure color scheme designer to have been built in the valley. color scheme designer An entire village, known as ‘Tin Town’, was constructed at Birchinlee for the navvies and their families.
The color scheme designer story of the Bamford and Howden Railway, however, didn’t end with the line’s removal color scheme designer in 1916. The construction of a third and final dam, Ladybower, color scheme designer in the Upper Derwent Valley color scheme designer between 1935 and 1943 called for the reinstating of the track between Bamford and Yorkshire Bridge. When the railway was once again abandoned in 1946, this section of the line became known as the Thornhill Trail. The Thornhill Trail & Bole Hill Quarry Today
Today, the trail makes for a historically interesting railway walk. Known localled as ‘the Route’, it remains less conspicuous than other abandoned Peak District lines that serve as part of the National Cycle Network. Overgrown in places, the Thornhill Trail comes to an abrupt end in the shadow of Ladybower color scheme designer Reservoir’s massive dam wall.
Its divisive story, which saw the flooding of two centuries-old villages to make way for the reservoirs, is part of the very fabric of the Upper Derwent Valley. The viaduct over the River Ashop (above) is now deep underwater, while the trestle-style bridge and prefabricated nature of Tin Town bring the feel of an Old West gold rush town to this corner of the Peak District National Park.
Beyond Ladybower, skirting the edge of Derwent Reservoir, the abandoned branch line continues onward towards Howden. Tin Town and the flooded villages of Derwent and Ashopton are now long gone. But when the water level drops, their eerie foundations color scheme designer and the broken stone supports of the demolished Ouzeldon Viaduct once again make their presence known, sunken echoes of a recent chapter color scheme designer in the valley’s history.
The nearby Derwent Valley Museum tells the story of Tin Town, its railway and the villages which were swept aside to make way for the reservoirs. Also commemorated is the daring story of Operation Chastise flown by No. 617 Squadron “the Dambusters”, which famously color scheme designer trained on the towers of the Derwent dam in their bid to cripple the industrial heartland of Nazi Germany during World War Two.
Above Grindleford, meanwhile, the disused Bole Hill quarry has become a lush wilderness, dominated by silver birch trees and popular with rock climbers during summer months. But the relics of railway color scheme designer operations from a century ago can still be seen, notably the gunpowder store (below) and ruined winding station that helped pull trains up the steep incline to the quarry.
Today, the best place to access the Thornhill Trail is from Carr Lane on the opposite side of the valley to Yorkshire Bridge. The route is punctuated by a variety of landmarks and other oddities, color scheme designer from centuries-old gate posts to modern rural sculptures.
The Bamford and Howden
