Description: Looking north-west towards Awsworth. The main route of the waterway is that to the left; the arm to the right served a wharf. The premises in the background were once a brickworks and in front of that is the residual remains of the Midland Railway's Babbington mineral branch, which linked collieries around Babbington to the Erewash Valley main line at Ilkeston Junction. The branch spanned the disused canal just to the rear of the wooden footbridge on the left.
The Nottingham Canal ran 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.