Grassmoor Country Park (Grassmoor Lagoons)

Image: © Alan Walker Taken: 21 Feb 2018

  This north-westerly facing photograph was taken inside an area of land referred to as the Grassmoor Lagoons. It was taken when a group from the 'Friends of Grassmoor Country Park' were invited to examine the remediation work carried out thus far. I was fortunate enough to be invited along by a member of the group. The photograph is of an area of the Grassmoor Lagoons that is being developed as marsh land. Immediately beyond the fence and running across the photograph is a public footpath connecting Mansfield Road in Corbriggs with the B6038 in Grassmoor. Beyond that is part of the Grassmoor Golf Centre. Water from the marsh is allowed to drain via culverts and open water courses into Calow Brook. This area is part of land that was once occupied by the Grassmoor Colliery. When the colliery closed part of the site was used by the Avenue Coking Plant to dump large quantities of toxic coal tar sludge into lagoons on this site. One of these lagoons was some 140m south of this viewpoint. When the coking plant closed in 1993 Derbyshire County Council inherited the site and in 2010 work began to clear the contaminated land http://www.grassmoorlagoons.info/index.html . Although at the time of writing (March 2018) the landscaping has been completed it is anticipated that the area will not be available for public use until some time between 2019 and 2022 because of continuing problems relating to the contamination. These include contaminated surface areas and issues that are producing contaminated water. For another photograph of the developing marsh, click here:- Image For a photograph showing the gulley that feeds water into the marsh, click here:- Image For a photograph taken near the main entrance to the Grassmoor Lagoons site and looking toward this viewpoint, click here:- Image - - - Note that although the remediation work to remove the lagoons was completed in 2015 the OS map still showed them in situ in March 2018.

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