Heritage Open Day-Middleton Top Engine House

About

See the world’s oldest beam engine of its type in action. Discover how it got wagons up and down steep hills on one of the world’s first long-distance railways.

Middleton Top is the last surviving complete winding engine house built by the Cromford & High Peak Railway Co and still contains its original pair of beam engines, built by the Butterley Company in 1829, together with its boilers and imposing chimney.

The Cromford & High Peak Railway Co was created by the Act of Parliament on 2nd May 1825 for the purpose of linking the Cromford Canal with the Peak Forest Canal at Whaley Bridge. This connection was intended to provide a through route from the north and east midlands to Manchester and the south Lancashire region avoiding the long Trent and Mersey Canal journey. The proposed line had been surveyed in 1824 by Josias Jessop and when it opened, in two stages, in 1830 and 1831, was 335/8 miles in length; slightly longer than the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. The one major hurdle that the engineer had to overcome was Derbyshire's bleak High Peak region which rises one thousand feet between the two canals. No locomotives then or now could climb steeply inclined rails and Jessop's answer to the problem was to use a series of powered inclined planes linking long, nearly level sections of line suitable for either locomotives or horses; in fact, the railway's gradient profile was similar to a canal.