Canal, church and Cossall Giants
Cossall
A hilltop Nottinghamshire village above the Erewash Valley, where a disused canal nature reserve meets church craft, Waterloo stories and D.H. Lawrence connections.
- Best for
- Canal walks and local history
- Give it
- A half day between church, memorial and canal
- Don't miss
- The Waterloo memorial to three Cossall men
The Fox verdict
A small village with unusually vivid stories
Come for the Nottingham Canal nature reserve and stay for the churchyard's account of Cossall's Waterloo soldiers.
St Catherine's combines a 13th-century core, a 15th-century font and an oak reredos carved by village workers. Below the hilltop village, the disused Nottingham Canal has become a linear nature reserve, while the churchyard memorial records the Cossall Giants and Thomas Wheatley, who returned from Waterloo to work at the forge.
Where to go
Places in Cossall
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesSt Catherine's Church
A Grade II* church with a 13th-century core, a 15th-century font, two bells in an old wooden frame and an oak reredos carved by village workers.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- at the highest point of the village
Cossall Canal Walk
A walk beside the disused Nottingham Canal, now a nature reserve, on a towpath described as suitable for family walks, buggies and wheelchairs or mobility scooters along the canal section.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- along the valley below the village
- Access
- The canal towpath is compacted stone and mostly level, with one steeper section to the north; stiles and steps restrict access into the village.
Erewash Museum
A local history museum in a restored Victorian building, with gardens and a seasonal programme including themed days, arts workshops and stargazing.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- Ilkeston
Walks & outdoors
1 placeNottingham Canal Nature Reserve
A linear nature reserve on the disused Nottingham Canal, with habitat for wildflowers, butterflies, dragonflies, damselflies and birdlife.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- along the valley below the village
History & heritage
2 placesCossall Waterloo Memorial
The Grade II memorial honours John Shaw, Richard Waplington and Thomas Wheatley, three Cossall men who fought at Waterloo.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 25 minutes
- Locality
- in St Catherine's churchyard
Wollaton Hall & Deer Park
An Elizabethan mansion housing Nottingham's Natural History Museum, set in a historic deer park.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- Nottingham
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Three ways to explore Cossall
Signature outings
Meet the Cossall Giants
Trace the names of John Shaw and Richard Waplington, remembered as the Cossall Giants, alongside Waterloo survivor Thomas Wheatley.
Look for wetland life
Look for butterflies, dragonflies, damselflies and birdlife around the disused canal nature reserve.
Add an Elizabethan finale
Continue to Wollaton Hall, where an Elizabethan mansion housing Nottingham's Natural History Museum stands in a historic deer park.
The village story
Cossall Village Guide
From Cossall's surviving pub and canal to church craft, Waterloo memory and nearby museum stops.
The village's last pub
The Gardeners Inn on Awsworth Lane is the only pub left in Cossall, a family-run free house with a skittles team good enough to field sides in two divisions of the Border Skittles League. There's a pool table, live music some nights, and three changing guest ales including regular visits from Blue Monkey Brewery. Nottingham CAMRA registered it an Asset of Community Value in 2016, which is a formal way of saying the village would miss it.
Food runs Thursday to Saturday, noon to eight, with fish, pies, roast beef, steaks and salads, a "2 meals for £10" offer, and a Sunday Carvery from midday to four. Reviews are mixed on service, but one visitor came away pleasantly surprised by the size of the plates. A second pub once stood further along the same lane; it closed some years ago and has sat empty since. There are no shops in Cossall itself — it's a village, not a high street.
Canal wildlife and church craft
What it has instead is the canal. The Nottingham Canal runs along the valley below, dug in 1796 to carry coal out of the Erewash Valley on a level contour rather than through locks, disused as a waterway now and a nature reserve since 1977, home to dragonflies, damselflies and wildflowers along a towpath that's mostly flat compacted stone and buggy-friendly. The Erewash Valley Trail continues south with floodplain grassland good for water voles, and a circular walk links Strelley, Cossall and Trowell over 7.4 miles.
St Catherine's Church sits at the highest point of the village, its 13th-century core largely reworked in 1842. Inside is a 15th-century font, two bells in an old wooden frame — one inscribed 1733 — and an oak reredos carved by villagers rather than bought in. The east windows commemorate the Burrows family, whose daughter Louie was engaged to D.H. Lawrence; he used Cossall as the model for "Cossethay" in The Rainbow, and Church Cottage, where she lived, still carries a plaque. Her father carved woodwork inside the church too.
Waterloo stories and almshouses
In the churchyard stands a Waterloo memorial, unveiled in 1877 on the battle's sixty-second anniversary, honouring three Cossall men who served together: Richard Waplington, a former colliery worker who died in the battle; Thomas Wheatley, who survived and went back to the forge at Babbington Colliery; and Corporal John Shaw of the 2nd Life Guards, a prizefighter the Nottingham Date Book of 1815 called "a tremendous pugilist... never beaten." At Waterloo he is said to have cut down as many as nine French cuirassiers before being shot from his horse and crawling to a farmhouse to die. Shaw and Waplington are still remembered locally as the Cossall Giants.
Behind the church, the Willoughby Almshouses have stood since 1685: eight dwellings and a taller former chapel, built on the site of the old Cossall Wood Hall, whose moat traces are all that remain of it. The original endowment paid each resident ten pounds a year, a new grey cloth gown every two years and five shillings of coal.
Nearby links and Wheatley's return
Ilkeston is a mile and a half away, with its own station on the Robin Hood Line, the Erewash Museum and the Scala Cinema. Wollaton Hall and its deer park are twenty minutes by car, and Cossall Road has four bus routes for anyone who'd rather not drive.
Thomas Wheatley came home from Waterloo and spent the rest of his working life at the forge, the church now listing his name alongside the other two.
Stay around Nottinghamshire
Make a longer stay of it
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A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- St Catherine's Church — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Cossall Waterloo Memorial — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Cossall Canal Walk — nottinghamshire.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Nottingham Canal Nature Reserve — broxtowe.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Erewash Museum — erewash.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Wollaton Hall & Deer Park — wollatonhall.org.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation