Windmills, Water Towers and Viaducts - Day Walk

Start your day with a hearty cooked breakfast at IKEA (in the 1990's the former home of construction plant hire firm Dyggor Gaylord) then see the surprisingly green surroundings amidst industrial heritage, wildlife and a hint of a literary connection.

Soon out into that urban countryside of well grazed horse paddocks and the old Nottingham canal provides a pleasant waterside intermission. You'll see Anglers sit under their umbrellas, sheltering from passers by rather than the rain while coot, mallard, moorhen and heron are all attracted to this oasis.  Then we see the Grade II Bennerley Viaduct which once carried tons of coal along the Great Northern Railway's Derbyshire Extension, an incursion deep into Midland Railway territory. The huge steel lattice structure was built this way to reduce the weight of a brick or stone viaduct over unstable ground across the Erewash valley.

After, see the pretty little village of Cossall and its village church with the literary connection being the setting for Cossethay in 'The Rainbow' by D.H. Lawrence who was born in nearby Eastwood. The background hum of traffic is ever present on this walk, along with houses, but just far enough away not to impose on this surprising open space so close to thousands of homes and families.

Later, pause to look south where Ratcliffe on Soar power station offers a marker for views into the Soar Valley and the hills of Charnwood. At Swingate see a water tower, built by the City of Nottingham Water Department, and the Kimberley television transmitter. Both take advantage of this high ground, only 134 metres above sea level but it feels much higher.

For the last leg of the walk we join the Robin Hood Way, a long distance path linking Nottingham Castle with Robin Hood's Major Oak in Sherwood Forest. The path takes many twists and turns along the way to visit a good selection of popular sites throughout the county.  At the site of two former windmills, now a small play area for children, we walk back over fields with the vast site that is the IKEA retail park in view crossing the Giltbrook, or golden stream from which the village of Giltbrook takes its name.


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Image Credits: All images taken by the event leader with permission for ODL use.