A photo described as "near Whatstandwell"

(Photo from the collection of John Hopkinson)

The eastern portal of Gregory Tunnel

View, from above Gregory Tunnel, of Gregory Widehole, a natural widening of the canal caused when the embankment on the river side was built. In the 1840s, two boatbuilding docks were located here. Along the canal can be seen Leashaw Farm, Robin Hood, with Dawbarns timber works in the distance in the valley floor.

Our Archivist, Hugh Potter, says of this picture: "This image is a really exciting find, as it is a very sharp copy of an old print of Robin Hood, the hamlet between Whatstandwell and Gregory Tunnel. The site was a stone saw mills, built there presumably because of its proximity to Duke's Quarries (which supplied gritstone for the construction of several well-known buildings in London) and the water power offered by the stream which runs through the hamlet before passing under the canal by a deep culvert. On a map of 1811, a Stone Wharf is shown, but no buildings. The original cast iron windows can be seen on the lower floor of the main building to the left. A steam engine was once installed here, but is thought never to have operated, possibly because of the stone traffic transferring from canal to railway. The canal is narrower now than it was, and the workshop to right that is no longer there."

The original building on Hay's Wharf was extended at both sides and for many years was used as three separate dwellings, the far one being a shop. Later it was used by St Johns, and now is restored as a private residence, sandwiched between canal and railway.

A pre-1909 painting of Crich Chase Bridge (the most recorded spot on the Canal?) - compare with:

A photo of the same spot - do you think one might have been copied from the other? Note the stop planks of the left, conveniently omitted by the artist in the picture above.

Yet another coloured postcard of the same spot - the postmark is August 1907 so it dates from some time before that.