Part of the old Nottingham canal, my dad played there as a child when it was known as Jacksons Hollow, they nicknamed it the Dump as there was a nearby scrap yard, where the Lego Land estate is built.
The hollow was surrounded by Barley fields, and before the dreaded game console invention, they watched trains, barges caught sticklebacks and newts, My Dad swears there are a couple of sunken narrow boats buried
The area itself was part of the Nottingham canal, the Canal was a 23.6 kilometres long canal between Langley Mill in Derbyshire and Nottingham, England. It opened in 1796, and most of it was closed in 1937.
The route selected required the construction of twenty locks. The first was at the Trent and the second just below the Castle Rock. The next three were in Lenton - one by Abbey Street, the second just beyond Derby Road and third positioned half way between the Derby and Wollaton Roads. On the far side of Wollaton Road was the sixth lock, the first in a flight of fourteen which took boats up to the summit of the canal just beyond Wollaton, after which it ran level all the way to Langley Mill where a set of stop locks were positioned. By latter part of the 19th century the canal could no longer compete financially with the railways. In 1928 the company announced that commercial traffic would cease on all but the City section of the canal and in 1937 it finally abandoned the canal. With no one to care for it, the Nottingham canal became overgrown .
Now it has become nature reserves and fantastic habitat for wildlife the array of wildflowers in spring is stunning a lovely walk in its entirety.
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The paths are popular with dog walkers, ramblers and cyclists please take care when retrieving caches.
Paths can be muddy during wet weather. Mind the ditch at dusk
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