Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
shows rural canal architecture at its best. Just above is the end of the Derby Canal. Aban-
doned in 1964, it joined the Trent & Mersey Canal at Swarkestone.
The reach leading down to Long Eaton Lock has timber and pipe depots, a petrol station
and an electricity substation. A mill chimney by the canal has no less than three tiers of aerials
around it. Below the lock, the canal is flanked by the playing fields near Trent College, by
a school and a fire station and by a tree-lined urban boulevard, the playing fields continuing
opposite another school. Facing the canal and its swans is the Barge Inn.
The canal flanks an urban boulevard in Long Eaton
.
The canal turns sharply under the road by the 15th Long Eaton Sea Scout & Guide Group's
premises. It again bends left by a public house with a canalside garden.
The canal company's dry dock is now part of Mills Dockyard moorings. Houseboats line
the bank down to Trentlock, overlooked by the garish Steamboat Inn with its funnel and vent-
ilators on the front. The Trent Lock pub on the other bank has a landscaped children's area
and public toilets in the car park at the back.
Below the lock is a complex junction with the River Trent. A navigation cut comes off at
this point and the River Soar, the northern end of the Leicester arm of the Grand Union Canal,
enters opposite. Above it all, aircraft descend into East Midlands airport at Castle Donington
over the cooling towers of Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station.
