SHIPLEY COUNTRY PARK
PLAN YOUR VISIT TO SHIPLEY COUNTRY PARK
INFORMATION
Location: Shipley Country Park is on the right off the A608 Derby to Heanor Road as you start to enter Heanor. The park visitor centre is situated at the end of Slack Lane after passing through an industrial estate.
Visit: The Nutbrook Trail, a 10-mile traffic-free path between Long Eaton, Shipley Country Park, and Heanor. The whole of the section of the Nutbrook Trail that passes through the park can be used by walkers, cyclists, and horse riders. Nutbrook Coffee Shop is a small coffee shop in the middle of an area of woodland. It advertises that it is open two days a week, Saturday and Sunday, and Fridays through summer. You can only get there by walking, cycling or horse riding.
Refreshments: Shipley Country Park Visitor Centre, which reopened in March 2025 following a period of closure; Barefeet Lodge Tea Rooms, which opened in the picturesque setting of Derby Lodge in the Shipley Wood area of the park in November 2024; Nutbrook Coffee Shop on the Nutbrook Trail. There is a wide range of food and drink outlets in and around Heanor.
Heanor: Heanor is a small hilltop town that clusters around its attractive parish church of St Lawrence, high above the Erewash Valley. It sits face to face across the valley with Eastwood, the Nottinghamshire town made famous by the writing of D H Lawrence. The marketplace has recently been reconfigured as part of a major regeneration project. In the mid-1900s, almost 45% of the working population of Heanor worked in the collieries and about 15% in the textile trade. However, the rapid decline of coal mining in the latter part of the century and the steady reduction in the textile trade led to the urgent need for diversification to avoid mass long-term unemployment. To achieve this, in 1967, Heanor Gate Industrial Estate was extended and now contains several large, well-established companies and a small business section.
SHIPLEY COUNTRY PARK
Visitors to the area are surprised to find attractive Shipley Country Park sandwiched between Heanor and Ilkeston – even more so when approaching the main entrance through the sprawling Heanor Gate Industrial Estate. Suddenly, the park is entered, industrial noise silenced, and an area of wooded parkland, hills, lakes, trails, and abundant wildlife stretches before you. It covers an area of 700 acres of varied landscape, has 18 miles of footpaths, and lies between the former pit towns of Heanor and Ilkeston. The other main entrance is at Mapperley, off the Ilkeston to West Hallam Road.
The Miller-Mundy family developed Shipley in the 18th century as a country estate and a coal mining area. The deep-mining of the land had the inevitable consequence of spoiling the appearance of the sections of the park where it was undertaken.
In the latter half of the 1900s, the area despoiled by mining activities was restored after over 50 years of neglect. The old railway lines have now been converted into trails, the reservoirs into lakes full of wildlife, and bare patches of land reseeded. Over half a million trees have been planted since Derbyshire County Council opened the area as a country park in 1976.
In recent years, further development has been carried out, including the creation of wetland habitats, the design of a wildlife garden, and the erection of a visitor centre. Following a short period of closure, Shipley Country Park Visitor Centre Café reopened in March 2025 under the control of Derbyshire-based catering business Blueberry, which has modernised the cafe space at the centre. This marks the first in a series of steps to improve facilities in and around the Visitor Centre.
Bird watching is a popular pursuit in the park, and bird hides are provided. Another well-supported pastime is fishing, with the lakes providing a venue for regular angling competitions. A bridleway runs alongside the lakes and nature reserves, surrounded by attractive woodland. One of Derbyshire’s prettiest cricket grounds, Shipley Hall Cricket Club, can be found in the park. The American Adventure Theme Park announced it was closing down in January 2007 and leaving the park, which is now being redeveloped for housing.
