Volunteers who rebuilt a ruined canal cottage have welcomed 50,000 visitors

A lock-keeper's cottage that stood empty for decades is open again because volunteers would not leave it as a ruin. The BBC reported on October 29, 2026, that more than 50,000 people have visited Aqueduct Cottage, near Cromford, since it reopened in March 2023.

Peter Nightingale, an uncle of Florence Nightingale, had the one-room cottage built in 1802 on the Cromford Canal. It later grew into a small worker's house. A family of eight lived there in the late 1800s without mains water, drawing what they drank from springs. Around 1970 the council called the building unfit and the last tenant was rehoused. Trees grew through the walls.

Derbyshire Wildlife Trust owns the Grade II listed cottage, inside the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site. Volunteer project manager Ron Common said about 50 tonnes of debris came out by wheelbarrow, roughly 2,500 trips over 12 weeks, because no road reaches the door. More than 60 volunteers have given over 10,000 hours. Local businesses gave materials worth £25,000, and the whole repair cost about £90,000, raised through crowdfunding, the Pilgrim Trust, and Derbyshire Environmental Trust. Roofs, stone floors, walls, gardens, paths, and a lock gate are back in place. Jane Berry, who used to run past the ruin, told the BBC she had not expected to be able to do the work. The cottage is open Tuesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. when volunteers can be there, and the outbuildings are still unfinished.