Hilton Gravel Pits

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The Gravel Pits are a site of special scientific interest near to the Hilton industrial estate, near Derby.

I caught the train out to Derby, then the Villager 1 bus to Hilton. From there I just had to follow Derby road until it intersected with the A50. On the other side of the A50 I went onto a small road called Willow Pit Lane.

I took the first left off of Willow Pit Lane. It was then I took a wrong turn, going right and soon came to a sign saying there was no public access to that area. It turned out I needed to go left in order to reach the entrance to the pits.

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The pits contains a number of lakes and ponds of varying size surrounded by woodland. Most of the paths are a mixture of dirt and stone that were very muddy. Some parts are covered with wood planks, particularly near the lakes.

There are a couple of hides overlooking the lakes for taking pictures.

While I was walking along one of the paths a hare ran across it. Unfortunately it disappeared before I could think about getting a picture.

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There was supposed to be woodpeckers round at this time of year. A couple of times I thought I could hear them but couldn’t see anything. There were small brightly coloured birds flying round. Which were, unfortunately, too small and fast to get any really good pictures of them.

That is until I came to a bird feeder where I got these pictures.

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Including one of birds taking off.

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It was quite a large area with lots of paths winding through it. It took a couple of hours to explore the whole thing.

More pictures can be found here.

The Avenue

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The Avenue is a former coking and chemical plant that is being converted into a nature reserve. It has won a number of awards and is supposed to be home to a lot of wildlife. There is a lot of information on the work being done to reclaim the site at the website.

It is located in Wingerworth, which is about a mile to the south of chesterfield. The entrance is via Mill Lane, which is off of Derby Road (The A61). The site straddles the River Rother. Also the train lines, expect to see a lot of trains while visiting. Here are the Google map and satelite views of the area.

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This is the second time that I’ve visited the Avenue. The first time I wasn’t very impressed by what was on offer, since it all seemed to be fenced off. It turns out that I had gone the wrong way. There is a public footpath leading off of Derby road which I had taken to be the entrance, when this actually runs along the northern edge of the reserve. The lesson being to always do some research before setting out somewhere.

Something else I learned from my visit is, the lens you don’t take with you will be the one lens you really need. In order to reduce the weight I took with me, I decided not to take my 70-300mm lens. So of course as I was walking round the reserve I saw a number of birds and horses that were just too far away for my 18-70mm lens.

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There is a visitor’s centre as you arrive at the site, but this is only open by prior arrangement. Which was a pity since I had been hoping to increase my collection of fridge magnets. The work on reclaiming the reserve is still in progress, so it’s possible that once it’s finished the visitor’s centre will be open full time.

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The site is made up of five lakes surrounded by scrubland. There are stone pathways which run round the lakes. Actual access to the lakes is prohibited due to them being a conservation area. However it is possible to get a good view of the lakes from the paths.

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There are shelters all round the reserve which can be used to view the lakes and as hides for taking pictures. There are signs at the shelters detailing what sorts of birds you should be able to see from them.

The train line runs down the middle of the reserve. The only way between the two halves being via an underpass. There are talks going on to open up a bridge over the tracks but no indication of how long that’ll take due to health and safety concerns.

It was a cloudy day, which made for some dramatic skylines.

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I would like to visit the reserve again. I think it’d look quite different in the spring. Also, hopefully, there’d be more wildlife around then. Since the work is still going on on reclaiming the site there may be more that’s accessible. Of course next time I visit I’ll remember to take a longer lens.

More pictures from my visit can be viewed here.