If It's the Chesterfield Canal, What's It Doing in Clarborough?
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If it’s the Chesterfield Canal, what’s it Worksop also saw the potential of this new doing in Clarborough? water highway and as a result of petitions and the promise of extra cash, as this was to be This material was originally published in built by private funding, not the tax-payer, the Clarborough & Welham Newsletter through promoters of the original route agreed to the Summer 2013 to Spring 2014 issues. change to bring the canal close (250 years ago both communities were much smaller) to both The recent announcement by the Government Worksop and Retford. of the proposed route for the HS2 railway through the East Midlands made me think of The new route raised a complication however, the situation in days gone by. between Retford and the river Trent there runs a ridge of high ground (which we know as Our local canal is The Chesterfield Canal, it Clarborough Hill). To cross this would have flows through the parish from the area of The required dozens of locks to raise the waterway Hop Pole, on the outskirts of Retford via The from Retford then lower it to the level of the Gate Inn and on through Hayton. river Trent. The alternative and less expensive option was to follow the ridge north, the canal The canal was opened to traffic in 1777. As remaining in the valley of the River Idle, originally planned it would have come no where passing through Clarborough en route, as far near Clarborough and Welham but would have as Drakeholes, where by the construction of a gone from Chesterfield via Kiveton Park then tunnel, only 159 yards in length, the canal almost straight to Bawtry. At that time, Bawtry could break through into the Trent’s flood plain was a thriving river port on the River Idle. and then progress, through Misterton to West Chesterfield was a growing town and exported Stockwith. coal, lead and manufactured goods but with only wagons or pack-horses, transport was This was a major success. Not only would the slow, expensive and often, in winter, canal now carry extra traffic; that from and to impossible. both Worksop and Retford; but the canal boats could remain loaded as far as West Stockwith The business-men of Chesterfield had seen the where cargo would be transshipped only once, success of the Bridgewater Canal in Cheshire into the sea-going craft that traded from there. and wanted one of these new-fangled canals to transport their heavy goods. Initially they were Thus all the stone quarried in Anston for the of a mind that Bawtry, their traditional construction of the Palace of Westminster destination should be the terminus of their new passed through Clarborough and Welham on canal and commissioned James Brindley to its way to London! survey a route and prepare an estimate of the construction cost. The river Idle was navigable The Chesterfield Canal was built as a from Bawtry as far as West Stockwith, where commercial adventure by private capital. cargoes of the river boats were transferred Certainly major land-owners bought shares, but onto sea-going sailing ships on the Trent. This so too did local individuals, all driven, of made the choice of Bawtry as the canal’s course, by the desire to make money. Opened terminus perfectly logical. throughout in 1777, it had been planned without proper maps, surveying equipment, However the good citizens of Retford (both computers or mobile 'phones. It had been dug East and West in those days) wanted to BY HAND, there being no mechanised expand their trade too; so, unlike modern equipment, so pick, shovel, and wheel barrow protesters, who refuse to accept new transport were the Navvies tools. Even money, coins and routes “in their back yard” the Retford citizens notes, were in short supply there being no actively campaigned to have the canal routed national banks, so paying wages became a through Retford in anticipation of the additional challenge, and notes of promise were issued to trade that would follow. suppliers who would accept these, trusting that they had some value when handed in to the one branch of the local bank. a lucrative return load for the boats. Each town or village would have entrepreneurs who would Once opened the canal did bring trade to the collect the horse deposits until there was area, farmers were able to harvest crops and sufficient to load a boat (some 20 tonnes) This load canal boats with up to 20 tons at a time. would then be hand-forked into the boat, and at The collieries could now send coal to many the customer's field hand-forked out into hand destinations and people who had been forced carts to be spread on the crops. to search for firewood could now rely on deliveries of fuel. With this in mind remember that in these times, the poorer people may get one Sunday a year Before the coming of the canal, transport was away, and a boat trip (bearing in mind the by pack-horse or horse-drawn cart, but with cargo referred to above) from say the centre of roads being almost as natural, as today's Retford as far as Clarborough, Hayton or country footpaths, they were rock hard in the possibly Drakeholes and back was their annual frost and a quagmire in winter and times of holiday! heavy rain. It was not unusual for horses to sink up to their stomachs in the mire, a mixture Indeed passenger transport developed on of mud and manure! Sometimes depositing the the canal and Packet Boats would run to load or the rider as they fell into this unpleasant Retford market taking eager seller of eggs soup. Thus taking one tonne of wheat grown in or butter to market whence they would Clarborough to Worksop, for example would return with a stock of thread or buttons for require twenty horses, at least two men, and example. over-night accommodation for all, in Worksop, before the return trip with possibly a tonne of The Chesterfield Canal was built as a coal. The new canal allowed one horse and commercial investment by private capital. It one man to do this trip in less time, but with served the investors and the local community twenty tonnes in the boat and, other than frost, well for more than a century, but it could not when the canal would freeze over, no last for ever. In the mid 1800s, the railways hindrance from the weather! came. At first this was good for the canal, as heavy materials were carried by water to the Business on the canal flourished, and local railway construction sites. But trains were traders prospered. Farm produce could reach faster, cheaper and of course "modern". Trade the customer more quickly and in better on the Chesterfield Canal began to fall away. condition. As farms prospered more jobs on Its swan song was certainly the The Palace of the land were created. Where the canal Westminster. This was re-built following a builders had exposed clay, brick-works sprang major fire in 1840-1845 and stone from Anston up, beds of rock were quarried, and coal mines (between Worksop and Sheffield) was selected expanded to satisfy the increasing demand for for the reconstruction. So every time you see a fuel. television "political pundit" with the Houses of Parliament as a back-drop, just remember that Local mills expanded, Worksop still retains a all the stone used in its construction passed, canal-side flour mill, that until the second world from the quarries at Anston, on canal boats, war received foreign wheat, imported via right through the parish of Clarborough and Gainsborough along the canal through Welham on its way to London.. Clarborough and Retford. By 1908 the mile-and-three-quarter long, A return load, most unpopular with the boat Norwood Tunnel, had collapsed through mining crews was of course manure. With human foot subsidence. It was never re-opened. Traffic or the horse as the only forms of transport, the dwindled and just after the second world-war, horse ass and donkey population in urban trade ceased altogether, and the canal areas was vast, and of course “traffic pollution” slumbered slowly into decay. It became a was very visible and odorous. Manure was, ribbon of neglect, just a rural home for, reeds, however, sought after by farmers and provided coots, swallows and in the towns,of course, a home for rubbish! condition for the benefit of us all. The canal would have faded into the landscape But what of the rest of the canal? Was the as it silted up and became overgrown but for a length from Worksop to Chesterfield to be lost small band of enthusiasts who, in 1962, formed for ever? the Retford and Worksop Boat Club. Local people such as Les Baines and George Stokes A year ago, in this Journal, I looked at how of Clarborough and Harry Spencer of Retford attitude of local people to the coming of The (and your author) were some of the small band Chesterfield Canal in 1770; compared to the that set about reversing the pattern of neglect reception given to Government plans for the and decline. proposed HS2 railway in 2012. In subsequent editions we looked at how the canal increased The canal had been Nationalised in 1947 along business in the area and benefited people in with 3,000 miles of the Nation's other Retford, Clarborough and Welham and other waterways and almost the whole railway communities, by dramatically reducing network.