Stoke Bardolph put-in (Gedling)

The concrete slipway, timber pontoon and hardstanding moorings here were built for a passenger ferry to Shelford and later kept up by a local sailing club from the 1950s to the 1970s. After the club left, the site fell into disrepair, down to a single mooring ring and only ad hoc repairs from local boaters, until a four-year restoration led by boater Robert Aspey rebuilt the pontoon, cleared overgrowth and dredged the mooring edge, with funding from Severn Trent Water, the Inland Waterways Association and The Boating Association. The IWA then leased the site from the freeholder, Severn Trent Water, in May 2024.

Stoke Bardolph Weir spans this reach of the Trent, fitted with an eel pass built with the Environment Agency, EDF and Uniper so migrating European eels, which travel here from the Sargasso Sea and have declined by up to 90% over the last forty years, can reach feeding grounds upstream. The stretch between Holme Lock and Stoke Lock, on this part of the Trent, is named by Canal & River Trust among the best places on its network to see kingfishers. The reach also receives treated effluent from the adjacent Severn Trent Water works, permitted by the Environment Agency to discharge up to 148,000 cubic metres a day into the Trent.