Midland Railway Clowne Branch
The Clowne Branch was a Midland Railway line in north-eastern Derbyshire. It ran from Creswell to Staveley and, in the past, extended to Chesterfield. Today it’s a greenway for walkers, cyclists and horse riders.
The line was authorised in 1865 and covered about 5.75 miles (9.25 km). It ran from Seymour Junction on the Doe Lea Valley line to Creswell Junction, near Elmton and Creswell on the Nottingham to Worksop line (the route now known as the Robin Hood Line). It was completed in 1872 and opened for freight on 1 June 1875, with coal from Barlborough being the first traffic.
The branch served three collieries—Oxcroft, Barlborough and Southgate—and had one station, initially called Clown. It was later renamed Clowne (and then Clowne and Barlborough in 1951). The line’s main purpose was to bring coal and iron traffic from the east to the booming Staveley area. The route had steep gradients, no tunnels, but required several cuttings and a 70-foot embankment. In the late 1960s the M1 motorway crossed the line.
Between 1896 and 1900 the Beighton Branch of the LD&ECR crossed and connected with the Clowne Branch near Clowne; this freight-only connection closed in 1937.
Passenger trains began on 1 November 1888. Initially, three trains a day ran between Mansfield and Chesterfield, stopping at all stations along the line. The journey took about an hour. In 1922 there were up to five trains a day, but by 1952 this had fallen to one train each way, Monday to Friday. The passenger service was withdrawn on 5 July 1954. Clowne’s goods facilities closed in July 1960, and the last passenger excursion ran in August 1962. The final steam train to use the line was a special on 16 October 1965.
Freight always remained the line’s main use. Barlborough Colliery closed in 1921, Southgate in 1929, and Oxcroft at Stanfree stayed open until 27 February 1976. The Oxcroft site later became a disposal point for opencast coal and was used to receive coal by rail as late as 2006. A notable moment came in 1992 when a Class 58 locomotive was named “Oxcroft Opencast.”
From the 1990s, through traffic declined, and an underground fire plus expensive track work led to closures of certain points. By 2013, the track between Oxcroft and Creswell had been lifted.
In 2016 Derbyshire County Council bought the former line to develop a greenway. Planning permission followed in 2017 to complete the project, connecting the eastern end near Creswell and linking the western end to the Markham Employment Growth Zone and Poolsbrook country park. Open to walkers and cyclists, the greenway reached as far as the former Clowne–Doe Lea junction by 2018. The western section toward Staveley and Bolsover remains closed, and HS2 interests may affect the route further west; planners hope to provide an alternative if needed. Volunteers maintain the path, clearing overgrowth and litter.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 22:12 (CET).