Although the village of Ambergate is situated where the river Amber joins the Derwent it is infact named after a gate on a turnpike road. Until the early nineteenth century the village was known as Toadmoor and was a tiny collection of cottages for many years until the arrival of transport links and change.
Amber Gate was the name of the tollgate on the Nottingham turnpike, the name was adopted by the North Midland Railway when they built Ambergate station in 1840. The Cromford Canal also passed through Ambergate though these days Ambergate marks where the canal "ends" on the stretch from Cromford before coming back to life again near Langley Mill.
The village grew greatly in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the church of St Anne being built in 1892 for local worshippers who up until then had had to use a variety of different venues for worship, even the pub!
