The best family-friendly hikes and walks around Somercotes

A broadleaved secondary woodland that has colonised an area of old colliery spoil heaps between Bullock Lane and Nottingham Lane, Riddings. It has a series of concessionary footpaths and a bridleway through the woodland.

This bridge at the edge of Codnor Park reservoir on the Cromford Canal would once have been over the Pinxton arm of the canal. It was left high and dry after the reservoir flood relief scheme was put in, in the 1980s. The canal opened in 1794.

All Saints Church was built to provide for the spiritual and social needs of the people of Ripley during the Industrial Revolution, and was dedicated in July 1821. At the time it was a ‘Chapel of Ease’ in the parish of Pentrich, with St Matthew’s Pentrich as the main parish church. Some families in Ripley still maintain a connection with St Matthews as their church. Ripley was created a separate parish in 1855, and the tower with clock and 5 bells was built in 1861.

Pretty little brickwork headstock from the Victorian period, with a nice little stoney downhill chute as you ride by

The church was built between 1851 and 1852 to the designs of Henry Isaac Stevens for the Butterley Iron Company. It was consecrated on 16 April 1852, by the Bishop of Lichfield.

Kelly's Directory of 1932 describes St Thomas's Church as erected in 1852, and rebuilt (with the exception of the old chancel) in 1902, and is "an edifice of brick and stone, consisting of chancel and nave". The original building was erected in 1849 as a Wesleyan chapel, but following the division in the Methodist Church, the building was sold to the Riddings Churchwardens for £400, which was raised by donations. A chancel, built of stone, was then added, and a stained east window inserted at the expense of Thomas Haden Oakes esq. J.P. in memory of Mrs Beastall. Further additions were made in 1878, and the whole, as Kelly says, was rebuilt in 1902. [Source: Johnson, Reginald - A History of Alfreton (1868)]

St. Andrew's Church. In 1856 the Revd John Wood gave land for a church to be built in Swanwick. With the aid of a donation of £3,230 from Francis Wright the building was completed in 1859 with a nave of five bays, north and south aisles, north porch and bell turret over the west gable. The pointed arches on both sides of the nave and in the chancel imply that the architect, Benjamin Wilson, had Early English architecture in mind when he designed the building. The Church celebrated its 150th Anniversary on Sunday 26 September 2010. The Bishop of Derby, the Rt Revd Dr. Alastair Redfern, presided at a celebratory service.

The church was built in 1832 - 1833 by Francis Octavius Bedford, for the Oakes family of Riddings House. Many of the locals were dissenters and would not pay the amount of £200 required by the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry for his blessing, so its consecration was delayed until 28 June 1834. The church was restored and enlarged between 1884 and 1885 when the chancel was added. The old pews were taken away and the side galleries taken down. A reredos was given by Mr. R.G. Lomas of Derby. The church was re-opened by the Bishop of Southwell on 8 April 1885.