A useful little incline path on the old Cromford & High Peak Railway line in Whaley Bridge is the latest to win big against barriers, confining some awful examples to the bin.
The barriers on the Whaley Bridge Incline were of a truly ugly “K-frame” design with the dastardly addition of a metal grid underneath, which was probably meant to be fitted flush, but ended up raised inches off the path. Just to make things as difficult as possible.
Just days after Marple’s Middlewood Way barriers were bashed, cue a major “what is going onn?!” double take approaching Whaley’s incline to find another fantastic new arrangement.
K-frames and gates top and bottom have been replaced with simple droppable bollards. The lower end has also been resurfaced.
I can’t find anything public about this change, but I believe it’s an initiative by members of High Peak Borough Council, which owns the land as a kind of mini linear park (maybe Whaley Bridge Town Council and others too). A big well done and thank you to those involved!
For cycling the path provides a handy alternative to the main road through the town, connecting Bingswood Road to Old Road. The main road is not necessarily that bad (I mean, a 20 mph limit wouldn’t hurt), but I just find the incline a way more intuitive and interesting route for where I want to go (usually the Upper Goyt Valley) after coming to the end of the Peak Forest Canal and passing the Transhipment Warehouse.
As a railway it was apparently abandoned as recently as 1952 and is now a registered footpath (the bend at the top is where a horse gin drove the chain to pull wagons up). I’ve always been a bit unsure about its status for cycling, but certainly there’s never been anything stated against it and it is already well-used. With the new arrangement it is now so much more welcoming to all to cycle and wheel away from the busy main road, like any other public park space.
Back in 2020, I tried to raise (or should I say raze) several local High Peak barriers with a Freedom of Information request (using the template by Richard @CrippledCyclist, sadly no longer with us): these two, the Shallcross Incline and Peak Forest Tramway Trail. It’s quite amazing that now, for various reasons through different projects, all of these are gone. High five, High Peak!
A couple of points to note on the incline. The lower end still doesn’t have a flush dropped kerb, though the wider opening through the bollards means you can at least avoid that badly placed grid which the K-frame pushed you out onto. This because, in our current multi-layer council system, Derbyshire County Council as Highways authority would have to replace the kerb, not HPBC.
Likewise parking across both access points has no restriction: road markings would require an order from DCC. (Of course you might also hope drivers spot the path and semi-dropped kerb and use common sense to determine it’s not the best parking spot for their enormous oversized vehicle, but need I say more.)
One day wouldn’t you love to see a more complete, signposted route linking the Peak Forest Canal to the Upper Goyt Valley reservoirs and all the way up to Derbyshire Bridge? Let’s call it the Goyt Valley Trail. I’ve done the best I can in escaping Whaley Bridge with the Goyt Valley Grinder cycle route, and there’s another recent win with the excellent resurfaced Shallcross Incline, but still some frustrating gaps where once the railway cut a neat route up into the hills.
At least the Whaley Bridge Incline is ready, waiting and now wonderfully accessible.
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