Miller's Dale & & Viaduct

30th May 1863 saw the opening of an exceptional section of railway, eventually forming part of a main line link between London and Manchester. Built by the Midland, it cut a route through the limestone landscape of Derbyshire’s Wye Valley between Hassop and Buxton, demanding eight tunnels totalling 2,426 yards, two major viaducts and a number of smaller ones in the space of just 11 miles. But the audacity and investment did not live long. Barely a century after it opened, most of the route became an unlikely victim of the Beeching-era cuts, officially closing on 1st July 1968.

The most westerly of those two viaducts is adjacent to Millers Dale Station, crossing the Wye at a height of around 80 feet. Elegant in design, it comprises two parts: three 30-foot masonry arches at its west end and a longer section to the east involving wrought iron segmental arches of 95 feet, three in number. Each of these consists of five offset ribs with lattice work struts filling the spandrels between the arch members and deck. Rock-faced limestone and gritstone dressings were used for the abutments and piers, the latter being hexagonal in plan and skewed to align with the river. The parapets incorporate iron railings.

A second viaduct was built on the north side – opening in August 1905 – to provide additional capacity, forming part of a 683-yard loop used by traffic on the Fast lines. The new viaduct also has a masonry section – this time of four spans, with the arches themselves in Staffordshire blue brick – whilst three longer steel spans cross the valley involving pairs of braced Pratt trusses. Above is a trough-section deck with latticework railings. The piers and abutments are in gritstone. Contracted to build the viaduct were Whitaker Bros of Leeds, with the steelwork erected by the Butterley Company. They took a little under three years.

In 1981, the Peak District National Park Authority concluded lengthy negotiations with British Rail to secure the trackbed. Along it was laid the Monsal Trail – a nine-mile path linking Blackwell Mill Junction, east of Buxton, with a bridge over Coombs Road on the Matlock side of Bakewell. This crosses the original viaduct. Since the summer of 2011, four of the tunnels – which had previously been closed for safety reasons – have been opened up for walkers, cyclists and horse riders to use, creating an easy linear connection between the Trail’s two ends.

The North viaduct still languishes in redundancy but receives an annual inspection by its owner, the Highways Agency Historical Railways Estate.

Millers Dale is a valley on the River Wye in Derbyshire, England, where there is also a hamlet of the same name. It is a popular beauty spot in the Peak District of England, much of the area being preserved as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Nearby are Ravenstor and Chee Dale, both popular with rock-climbers.

Chee Dale Nature Reserve, River Wye and Water-Cum-Jolly Dale

Chee Dale is a steep-sided gorge on the River Wye near Buxton, Derbyshire, in the Peak District of England. The Wye valley continues upstream towards Buxton as Wye Dale, while downstream are Miller's Dale village and valley. Chee Dale has a protected nature reserve, which is overseen by the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust.

Water-cum-Jolly is a particularly scenic little dale on the River Wye close to Cressbrook Mill. It is situated downstream of Litton Mill and Millers Dale, and a short walk upstream fromMonsal Dale. There is limited roadside parking for Water-cum-Jolly at grid reference 178722 on the riverside road to Cressbrook off the B6465, but a large pay and display car park is sited at Monsal Head which is about a mile away.

The view from Monsal Head or Headstone Head as it was previously known is one of the most noted in Derbyshire, looking down into the depths of Monsal Dale with the famous viaduct in the foreground and the little village of Cressbrook in the distance.

To access Water-cum-Jolly you follow a footpath to the rear of Cressbrook Mill which in recent years has been refurbished and converted into luxury residential apartments.

Across the road from Cressbrook Mill and Water-cum-Jolly is the site of the original Cressbrook Mill where there is a pond which once fed its waterwheel. John Baker, a hosier and entrepreneur developed this site in the 18th century. He constructed a distillery for peppermint, lavender and other aromatic herbs which he grew or found locally. He erected the first Cressbrook Mill building about 1785 but this was to be destroyed by fire. A new mill was then built and taken over by Sir Richard Arkwright. Arkwright died in 1792 and Cressbrook Mill changed hands yet again. In 1815 the impressive 12-bay Georgian building was erected by William Newton who was a self-educated poet. He later befriended Anna Seward of Eyam fame who gave him the title of ‘Minstrel of the Peak’.

The River Wye is a limestone river in the Peak District of Derbyshire, England. It is 22 miles long, and is one of the major tributaries of the River Derwent, which flows into the River Trent, and ultimately into the Humber and the North Sea. The river rises just west of Buxton, on Axe Edge