Monument record MDR13388 - Tramway (route of), Morley Ironworks to the Cromford Canal, Ripley

The 1st ed. 25" Ordnance Survey map of circa 1880 indicates the route of a former tramway, in part with hachures showing a cutting or embankment and in part as parallel lines running across fields to the north of Morley Park Ironworks . The tracks had clearly been lifted by that time. Near Morleypark Farm the route is annotated 'Old Tramway'. It would have originally connected the ironworks with the Cromford Canal. (1) The Cromford Canal , built in 1789-93, passed just over a mile to the north of Morley Park furnace; however, the Hurts, who had constructed the furnace in circa 1780, chose not to use powers available under the Cromford Canal Act to build a tramroad from Morley Park to the canal at Hartshay. Even by the 1830s, when the first edition of the one-inch Ordnance Survey map was published, Morley Park still lacked a tramroad connection to the Cromford Canal, although one was built shortly afterwards. This may have been constructed in the later 1830s by the then lessees, the Molds, with a line running virtually due north from the furnaces to a wharf at Hartshay. (2) Baxter describes a route from Belper to Morley Park Ironworks as follows; 'From town of Belper north to Morley Park Ironworks. Opened 1790. Traffic, ironstone and iron products. Closed, 1874.' Note that these may not be the same railways. (3)