Photo Archive - Ambergate to Bullbridge
This photo gallery shows a number of the images within the FCC archives picturing the canal between Ambergate and Bullbridge. Please note that the galleries are due to be updated in the near future to use a better viewing system.
Click on any of the images to see a larger version.
A view of the Ambergate lime kilns which once stood beside the canal where the gas works site now severs the route and causes the towpath to be diverted up the hillside behind. The diagonal track beyond is the line of Stevenson's rope-worked incline by which railway wagons loaded with limestone were lowered from the Crich quarries, across the canal (the level of which is just discernible as a hoizontal line at the level of the top of the kilns) to the kilns
This is Bull Bridge itself, taken before Stevenson's filled in the far side for their yard
An 1840s image of the limekilns alongside the canal at Ambergate. They did not use the canal at all; the lime came by rail from Crich down a steep incline, across the canal, and the burnt lime was taken out by rail
Looking east from Hagg Tunnel towards the bridge carrying the water mains pipes. The bridge is still in place today, but now crosses the road running through Stevenson's Dye works. (Photo - Brian Lamb)
This shot, taken from the "uphill" side of the canal, shows what appears to be a stockpile of some sort with a metre gauge railway running into it.
In 1968, Stevensons (Dyers) were in the process of creating a road on the line of the canal which they had purchased from British Waterways
The view from under Bullbridge road bridge looking west to what is now Stevenson's (Dyers) property; most of the line is not built on but is used as a roadway
Another later view of the kilns, taken from the opposite side of the valley
Eventually East Midlands Gas dug a Big Hole on the site of the lime kilns and put THIS in it - it was a works to convert oil to town gas, to meet the rapidly increasing demand. The plant was a 'stop gap' as Natural gas was coming in and it only operated from 1968 to 1973.
The western portal of Hagg Tunnel which took the canal under the ridge of land between what is now the Transco depot and Stevenson's Dye Works. It is thought to be still intact, although both ends are blocked off. (Photo - Peter Stevenson)
Stevenson's (Dyers) bought the line of the canal between Hagg Tunnel and Bullbridge road bridge from British Waterways in the 1960s and converted the length adjacent to the tunnel portal (still visible above the concrete stank) into a huge reservoir, which is still there today
 to the kilns)
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![This shot, taken from the "uphill" side of the canal, shows what appears to be a stockpile of some sort with a metre gauge railway running into it.](../popwindow.htm?image=images/archive/large/arc000021.jpg?narrative=This shot, taken from the "uphill" side of the canal, shows what appears to be a stockpile of some sort with a metre gauge railway running into it.)
 were in the process of creating a road on the line of the canal which they had purchased from British Waterways)
 property; most of the line is not built on but is used as a roadway)
)
)
 bought the line of the canal between Hagg Tunnel and Bullbridge road bridge from British Waterways in the 1960s and converted the length adjacent to the tunnel portal (still visible above the concrete stank) into a huge reservoir, which is still there today)