Description: Looking west from a point just south of Cossall village with Ilkeston visible on the horizon. Although there were 19 locks on the lower part of the Nottingham Canal between Nottingham and Wollaton, the upper part was a level pound that hugged the contours along the eastern side of the Erewash Valley for many miles. This made for a sinuous course and at Robbinetts, near Cossall this was exemplified by the waterway having to inscribe a horseshoe-shaped alignment in order to negotiate a tributary valley. The section seen here forms the return portion of this horseshoe bend.
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.