A short section of the Trans Pennine trail close to the western entranct to Rother Valley Country Park. At the end, it cuts to the left on the park entrance path, crosses a bridge over an active railway line, before dropping back to run alongside the tracks to the north for half-a-mile or so. This area was covered in a lot more foliage until the last year, when some tree felling and trimming has taken place. Just off to the left of the scene where the trail curves around the path is a pile of thin logs that remain from the work.
Curving path heads on Up north and to points beyond And then east and west
The two bridges shown here once spanned both railway and canal. They are both almost identical, functional, no-frills affairs. The railway lines have been lifted for almost forty years now and I’m unsure how long it has been since this stretch of the canal contained water. The bridges now span a path used by foot traffic (plus bicycles and – maybe – horses). The canal remains empty of water and canal-boats for the forseeable future – although many other stretches of the Chesterfield canal have been restored, so hopefully it may see use again in years to come.
Barges and bargees Once floated by while nearby Locomotives passed
Killamarsh is a village in North-East Derbyshire with a population of around 10,000 so it seems hard to believe that, at one point, the place had three seperate railway stations serving it. To the east was Upperthorpe & Killamarsh station, the the west was Killamarsh West station, and between them the appropriately named Killamarsh central.
Only one active railway line remains – the line that served Killamarsh West, although there are no longer any stops and the station on that line has been long removed and, if there are any remains, they are out of bounds to the public. I’m uncertain if anything remains of the eastern station.
As for Killamarsh Central, there ramain the northbound platform and the pedestrian footbridge, both of wich can be seen in the two photos shared today. The first looking south towards Renishaw and Chesterfield, the second north towards Beighton.
The station originally opened in June 1892, remaining active for the next seventy-one years when it finally closed in the summer of 1963, although the line remained in use until 1983 when the track was lifted. The track bed now forms the route of the section of the Trans Pennine Way that runs between Beighton and Chesterfield.
Line for rail travel Both for goods and passengers Falls to memory
The path beneath the bridge in the background of this photo leads to Rother Valley Country Park and the signs in the foreground identify the southern route along the Trans Pennine Trail. As the lockdown continues so I become ever more familiar with this area close to where I live. The next announcement about restrictions is scheduled for Monday when we may find out when some of them may start to be lifted. I’m not expecting a full return to freedom, or even an immediate losening of the rules, but it will be good to have more information at least.
Freedom to exercise But no more than once a day Like a gilded cage
I’ve got a couple of days off work, making for a long weekend. I’d decided long in advance that I would use these two extra days to take a walk or, more specifically, a long walk. Due to the current lockdown restrictions, I’m still limited in where and how I can travel, but local exercise is permitted so I decided to go for a hike along the Trans Pennine Trail (TPT) on the stretch that heads south to Chesterfield. My plan was to walk to Renishaw, then head along the road towards Eckington, before cutting through Renishaw Golf Course and looping back to the trail for the return leg.
The weather forecast looked promising, with a hope of some sunshine, but the temperature was still forecast to be low, -1° as I left the house, so I wrapped up warm.
I took the Yashica Mat 124G with me along with three spare rolls of film. I also had a few frames left to shoot with the Canon Sure Shot Supreme that’s been in my coat pocket through the winter, and I took an extra roll of 135 in case I finished the existing one. My light meter and a bottle of water finished off the stuff I carried.
This section of the TPT runs along a disused railway line, crossing a number of bridges (and going beneath a few others), and there’s even the remnants of the disused Killamarsh Central station along the way, complete with the northbound platform and pedestrian footbridge. It also runs alongside the Cuckoo Way for part of it’s length – the Cuckoo Way being the towpath beside the Chesterfield canal. Much of this length of the canal is derelict and clogged with vegetation, but there are still stretches with water, which today was frozen over with a frosting of snow laid on the surface.
To the west of the trail lies the valley where the River Rother snakes it’s way northwards and recent heavy rain has left large swathes of the floodplain submerged in water, again now coated with a layer of ice. One of the footpath spurs down into the valley that I’ve walked before was completely blocked by this floodwater, but I ventured to its edge to make a few photographs.
I managed to shoot shoot two full rolls of 120 through the Yashica (as well as finishing the roll that was already inside when I set out) AND finish the roll of C200 in the Sure Shot. I now have a backlog of four rolls of B&W to develop, plus the roll of 135 colour to send to the lab. You’ll be seeing many of these pictures on the blog shortly (I hope!).
In total I was out of the house for around four hours and (if my phone is to be believed) walked for the best part of nine miles and my legs and feet are now letting me know just how hard they worked… It was a good walk and good to be out of the house in the fresh, bright air for so long. I saw plenty of robins along the TPT, plus a few squirrels re-stocking their winter supplies. I might also have quite a nice picture of a horse as well if I didn’t mess things up somehow.
The only downer was when a roll of film didn’t load properly, necessitating my re-spooling part of it while stood in the middle of a field. I hope I’ve not introduced any light leaks onto the film, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Thanks to the nature of film photography, I can’t show you any shots for the walk until I get them developed and scanned, but they’ll probably start landing in a week or so as I get through my backlog. So, to illustrate a little what the day was like, here’s an older photo from three years ago made during a walk around Linacre reservoirs.
Steel City Snapper photography 