Five miles east of Shardlow: Trent Lock at Long Eaton

I liked Shardlow, where the Derwent and the Trent and Mersey Canal join the River Trent. So yesterday I visited Trent Lock, five miles to the east, where the Erewash Canal and the River Soar join it.

The walk down the canal from Long Eaton station deserves a post of its own, but Trent Lock was also more interesting and attractive than I expected.

Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station dominates the view from the other side of the river, and I once named the Trent Viaducts, which take the Midland main line across it, as one of my five favourite bridges. Thee is a weir beneath them that boats heading north avoid by using the artificial Cranfleet Cut.

Their are two pubs and a tearoom by the lock where the canal enters the Trent. The Erewash (pronounced as three syllables, please) was built to serve the area's coal mines, and one day I will go to Great Northern Basin where it ends. 

That is also where the Cromford Canal once began its journey to the obvious new venue for Parliament.

The mouth of the River Soar is the other side of the river from Trent Lock, but easily seen thanks to a helpful narrow boat.

Let's leave the last word to Auden and Isherwood in the Dog Beneath the Skin (though I think these lines were lifted by the former from a contemporary topographical writer):

As at Trent Junction where the Soar comes gliding; out
of green Leicestershire to swell the ampler current.