Known officially as the "Amber Aqueduct", it was actually an earthwork bank surmounted by masonry walls across the valley some thirty feet high in places.

In 1840, George Stephenson engineered the North Midland Railway to intersect the canal at this point on its way from Ambergate to Wingfield and Stretton, towards Clay Cross and Chesterfield.

A Victorian commentator wrote "river, road, railway and canal were thus piled up, four stories high".

The sections were assembled on site and floated to the spot, sunk and embedded during the night without interrupting the traffic on the canal.

In 1860 the railway bridge (not visible in the picture) failed as a goods train passed over it, but there were no casualties.