Two of Derbyshire’s steam beam engines are being opened to the public for the first-time this year.
Middleton Top engine house and Leawood Pump steam beam engine are being opened on the Easter weekend of Sunday 20 April and Monday 21 April.
Middleton Top engine house based on the High Peak Trail is the world’s oldest original working rotative beam engine and will be operating from noon until around 5pm. And the nearby Leawood Pump steam beam engine on the Cromford Canal will also be operating from 12pm until about 5pm.
Admission to Middleton Top engine house is £2.70 and £1.30 for concessions and entry to Leawood Pump House is free.
Visitor centres at High Peak Junction and Middleton Top will also be open seven days a week from Easter until September, where visitors can find out more about heritage and wildlife and what to see and do. Attractions include an audio tour at High Peak Junction workshops visitor centre, bringing the history of Cromford Canal and one of the oldest surviving railway workshops alive. There is a £2.70 charge for the tour (Concessions £1.30). Or why not hire a bike from Middleton Top and follow the path taken by the railway wagons until 1967 down the high peak trail towards Hopton tunnel & beyond?
The centres also provide information, maps, books and light refreshments.
For more information call 08456 058 058 or visit www.derbyshire.gov.uk/countryside (opens in a new window)
PARWICH.ORG 
My great great grandfather was involved in building the high peak railway, unfortunately he was killed in a rock fall in the hopton tunnel, his name was joseph hallows and he left a wife and several children. No compensation back in those bad old days.