Serendipity

Howard Sprenger reported in September 2008 on derbyshirerailways, "Killamarsh station (latterly the premises of an architectural reclaiming company) is now due for demolition and has been offered for sale for £1. This is the last intact MSLR wooden Derbyshire Lines station"

Spurred by the ensuing thread I visited Killamarsh. Pictures of the attractive station are attached. The canopy has been clad in corrugated PVC and can't be seen from the trackbed, though a few small holes high up give a tantalising glimpse inside - although not large enough to identify any features.

Ralph Rawlinson also asked,
>Incidentally am I correct in thinking that there is no trace trace of Upperthorpe & Killamarsh
>station (closed 1930) located where Field Lane bridges a cutting on the nearby Shirebrook line?

I spent a little while poking around the cutting at Upperthorpe & Killamarsh too and couldn't find anything identifiable. The single track platform must have been demolished as there's no sign of it other than an uneven and partial earthen bank along the cutting - no stone or brick remains. Very heavily overgrown as another poster commented so it was hard even to make out where the site had been.

The area where the attached extract (Derbyshire 1:10,560, 1924, copyright old-maps.co.uk) shows the Upperthorpe&Killamarsh station buildings is now encroached by tipping of garden spoil from above, so it's possible something has been built on the site. I didn't think of checking old-maps.co.uk until I got back, and had previously assumed the buildings would have been nearer the bridge so may have missed something.

However the screenshot from Multimap Birdseye view also suggests the buildings are long gone, though one does have to be careful as I belive their 3d views are sometimes synthesized from a single aerial viewpoint.

What may be the original (cast iron?) station gate posts survive, supporting some quite out-of-keeping modern gates. On the old-maps screenshot they are located where the station drive joins onto Field Lane near Old Hall farm; on the Multimap view they are just off the bottom of the shot.

En route to Killamarsh I first called in at Spinkhill (Spink Hill), the next station south towards Langwith Junctions.

According to footpath signboards, the water course under the bridge just north of Upperthorpe & Killamarsh was the Chesterfield Canal. West of the bridge the canal is infilled, but starting under the bridge and heading east for a few hundred yards it has been cleared out and is "in water" as I believe they say, albeit very silted up and overgrown with rushes etc.

Regrettably it then disappears north-eastwards under the barrack-like housing which is rapidly taking over the area and also encroaching on the railway remains, see the contruction hoardings at

The towpath is still open as a footpath even on the infilled section, and seemed to be well used by local people. The path is called Cuckoo Dyke. According to the Chesterfield Canal Trust this was the local name for the canal, which ran from Chesterfield to Retford, Gainsborough and the Trent.

A few hundred yards south, beyond the infilled bridge and some fishing ponds in old workings, the canal (with water) re-appears and on Multimap it can be followed for perhaps a further half a mile towards Chesterfield before its course becomes unclear again.

At Killamarsh the Midland main line, the GCR main line, the GCR Langwith to Beighton branch, plus river Rother and Chesterfield Canal, all ran parallel within a span of a quarter of a mile wide.

This is the site of the Midland's station, on the original York and North Midland line, the "Old Road" from Chesterfield to Rotherham avoiding Sheffield.