River Trent Confluences

Trent Lock is located in Derbyshire, two miles south of Long Eaton, close to Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire borders. Within 3 miles of Trent Lock, the River Trent meets with the Cranfleet Canal, the Erewash Canal, the River Soar mouth, Sawley Cut & Sawley Marina, River Derwent mouth and one end of the Trent & Mersey Canal. In the past, it also included the Derby, Nutbrook and Nottingham canals of which there's little evidence now.
Just to the NE of this area is Trent Junction, a very important 5 way junction on the national railway network.

The Erewash Canal is just under 12 miles long and drops 110 feet through 15 locks from the first lock on the Cromford Canal at Langley Bridge, to lock number 60 on the River Trent. This final lock forms part of an undercover, dry dock which can be drained into the Trent below it. It is used by the boat builders,"Kingfisher Narrow Boats".

The Tent and Mersey Canal is 93.5 miles long. This end of it starts at the River Derwent Mouth where the latter meets the River Trent. The T&M mile posts all give distances from Shardlow, just over one mile up the canal to the west of this point.

The Cranfleet Canal is around half a mile long and was built to allow boats to bypass a wier on the Trent.

Sawley cut gives access to Sawley Marina, as well as by-passing a short unnavigable section of the River Trent.

The River Trent is on our right, flowing away from us towards Nottingham.
The cut to the left is the start of the Cranfleet Canal.
Over to the right we can see Ratcliffe Power Station and confluence with the River Soar.

The Top Gate on the Cranfleet Canal.
Under normal conditions this gate is kept open, maintaining the level of the Trent at this point.

The end of the bottom lock of the Cranfleet Canal.
The Cranfleet is only a short canal, built to circumnavigate a wier on the Trent but the level of the Trent has dropped surprisingly in that short distance.
At this point the Trent has picked up the Derwent and the Soar within the last 2 miles.

From the River Trent, this is the entrance to the Erewash Canal.

The Steamboat Inn at Trent Lock

The undercover dry dock, used by boat builders.

Erewash Canal

The entrance into Sawley Cut.
All craft must take the Sawley Cut route to bypass a short unnavigable stretch of the Trent

Entrance to Sawley Cut

A boat enters Sawley Cut

The normally open gates at the top end of the Sawley Cut

The Trent is flowing from left to right. The upward left cut that the boats are taking is the start of the Trent & Mersey Canal and just to the right of the red boat is the Derwent Mouth.

The Trent is flowing up the RHS of the picture, The Derwent is flowing into it,from the far centre and the origin of the T&M canal is off to the left. We will follow it.