Description: Looking south-west towards Newton's Lane with Ilkeston on the horizon. This section of the previously disused canal was destroyed by opencasting for coal in the 1980s but as part of the reclamation process it was reinstated, albeit for fishing rather than navigation. The photographer is standing on the truncated embankment of the Great Northern Railway's Derbyshire Extension line (closed in 1968), which was formerly carried across the canal on a bridge here; the embankment briefly resumes in the right background before passing onto the iron trestle Bennerley Viaduct. The extant ex-Midland Railway Erewash Valley line can be seen in the middle distance.
The Nottingham Canal extended from the River Trent at Nottingham in a generally north-westerly direction for 14.7 miles (23.6 kilometres) via Lenton, Radford, Wollaton, Trowell, Cossall, and Awsworth to Langley Mill where it connected with the Cromford and Erewash Canals. Its main purpose was the movement of coal from mines in the Erewash Valley to Nottingham. Opened in 1796, it was later acquired by the Great Northern Railway but, apart from the Nottingham-Lenton section (which was transferred to the Trent Navigation Company and, via its link with the Beeston Canal, remains in use today), it was abandoned in 1936.