Studies in Local History
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STUDIES IN LOCAL HISTORY NO. 1. THE CHESTERFIELD CANAL , nr. P. Hawkridge. Cliftonl Comprehensive. School. .. .. flr. P. Livsey. Dinnington Comprehensive School. nr. I. G. Hawkridge. Planning Department, Metropolitan JI Borough of Rotherham. CONTENTS Pages 1. A Plan of the Navigation Canal now making from Chesterfield in the County of Derby to the River Trent near Stockwith in the County of Nottingham. Surveyed in 1770. 2 2. The Chesterfield Canal - a background history. 3- 6 3. The Chesterfield Canal - facts, figures and general information. 7- 15 4. Seven documents illustrating the hietory of the Cheeterfield Canal, 1769 - 1845. 16-29 5. The Lime Kilns along the Chesterfield Canal. 30-31 6. A descriptive walk along the Canal from Kiveton Park to Shireoaks, with six illustrations. 32-38 NOTE ON FURTHER RESOURCES The following further resources on the Chesterfield Canal are available. Please contact Mr. Hoptoff, Local Studies Librarian, Worksop Public Library, Memorial Avenue, Worksop (Telephone: Worksop 2408) a. A 16 mm film "The Chesterfield Canal", in colour, running time approximately 30 minutes published by Trident International. The film deals with the course of the Canal from Stockwith to Worksop. b. The minutes of the Chesterfield Canal from 10th April, 1771 tc 10th October, 1779, (i.e. the early years of the canal), together with various newspaper articles on the Canal. These may be used only at the Library. 2. THE CHESTERFIELD CANAL A BACKGROUND HISTORY The development of the Chesterfield Canal would appear to have been promoted partly by the London Lead Company, which wanted a more accessible ehipping place than Bautry for the lead from its smelt mill at Ashover, partly by the Cavendiehes as owners of the furnace and forge at Staveley, and partly by 0th- landowners with potential coal resources. In 1769 James Brindley surveyed a line for the canal and presented plane and estimates to a meeting in Workeop in August of that year. Brindley proposed the development of a narrow canal from Chesterfield to Norwood, where there woulo be a long summit tunnel, and thence past Shireoaks and Worksop to East Retford and the Trent at Stockwith at a cost of E100,OOO. A Canal Act was passed on 28th march, 1771 which authorised "A Company of Proprietors of the Canal Navigation from Chesterfield to the River of Trent", the Company's official title, with power to raise E100,OOO in El00 shares and E50,000 more if necessary. Power was granted to make toll-free roads up to one mile long from the canal. By mid July, 1771, the full capital had been raised and work began on cutting the Norwood Tunnel - 8' 10" wide, 12' high from invert and 2,850 yards long. In late 1774 it was agreed that downstream of Retford the canal would be constructed as a broad waterway - including the short Drakeholes Tunnel which would take craft up to 15' 6" wide. Following Brindleyls death in Autumn, 1772, John Varley became Resident Engineer, although he was replaced by Hugh Henshall, Brindley's brother in law, in late 1773 after certain financial irregularities came to light. By 6th April, 1774, the canal was navigable from Shireoaks to below Worksop; by 3rd August, 1774, to East Retford; and by 22nd February, 1775, to Hayton. The Noruood Tunnel was opened on 9th flay, 1775. At this time it was decided to make a one mile long branch from the canal between Renishaw and Staveley to the turnpike road at Norbriggs; subsequently the Company took a lease on a colliery at Norbriggs with the intention of increasing the tonnage of coal using the canal. By 2nd April, 1776, the canal was open from Stockwith to Killamarsh and by 16th August, to Norbriggs, the whole line being opened on 4th June, 1777, though C. Hadfield, the Canal historian, concludee that it is unlikely that the Trent tidal lock was completed until the Autumn, Uhen completed, the canal extended for 46 miles, From Chesterfield it fell 40' through 5 locks to Staveley and rose by 73' through 14 locks to the Noruood Tunnel. The canal then descended by 144' through 30 locks to Workaop. From Worksop to the Trent, a distance of 24 miles, the canal fell a further 105' through 16 locks, the last 6 including West Stockwith, the river lock, being broad. Reservoirs were built at Pebley, and later at Harthill, Woodall and Killamarsh. The private Lady Lee branch canal near Worksop, 3/4 mile long, ran to a quarry, and another branch at Netherthorpe near Staveley joined the East Inkersall tramroad which ran to pits near the Adelphi Canal. By 1789 E152,400 had been spent on the works. Traffic on the canal was 74,312 tons of which approximately 42,379 tons was coal, 3,862 tons was lead, 1,554 tons was iron, 7,569 tons was stone, and the rest corn, lime, timber and sundries. Plans to extend the line, or connect it with Sheffield, were mooted and dropped and the canal Company continued to trade steadily. By 1805 it had been recognised by John Phillips in his "History of Inland Navigation" to be:- "of inestimable advantage to the neighbouring country, in conveying coals, lead, stone, lime and other heavy articles; which are now carried at one-fifth part of the usual price of land carriage, and with equal expedition. It has always produced to the subscribers a profit exceeding their most sanguine expectations". In 1842 a number of bridges such as Dog Kennel Bridge ho. 31) and Thorpe Bridge @o. 36 were constructed or replaced. The proprietors of the Chesterfield Canal took the principal part in forming a Ranchester and Lincoln Union Railway Company, which in October, 1845 issued a prospectus that included in its objects the partial conversion of the canal to a railway as part of a through line from Liverpool to Great Grimsby. A line was to run from Staveley through Worksop to Gainsborough with a branch to Lincoln and another from Worksop to the Midland Railway at Beighton. These lines were intended as a counterbalance to the Sheffield and Lincolnshire Junction Railway, projected in 1844 to connect Sheffield and Gainsborough. An Act dated 7th August, 1846, authorised a line from the Midland Railway at Staveley to Worksop, the canal and railway amalgamating as the Manchester and Lincoln Union Railway and Chesterfield and Gainsborough Canal. Power was given to amalgamate uith the Sheffield and Lincolnshire Junction Railway. The canal Company was to be dissolved; however the new body was not to dispose of any part of the canal but to keep it in good order, preserve its water supplies, and maintain just tolls. The Company now gave notice to the Sheffield and Lincolnshire Junction Railway (s. & L.J.) to amalgamate, but as it had already been absorbed by the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, the Manchester and Lincoln Union was also amalgamated with that Company on 9th July, 1847. In 1848, the railway Company undertook repairs to the canal and its structures. At about this time the railway Company established a small carrying business along the Chesterfield Canal, which in 1854 carried 7,811 tons out of a total of 118,946 tons; in 1888 the Company carried 62,075 tons. In 1889 an Act was obtained to divert the canal for the Company's own new railway lines between Beighton, Staveley and Chesterfield. At Killamarsh and Renishau a new line along the edge of the Park was substituted for over a mile of curving canal and with two small deviations at Whittington and Chesterfield reduced the length of the canal by half a mile. An extension into a loop, ~thorisedin 1890, accompanied a deviation of the section already authorissd uetween Staveley and Whittington, with another alteration of the canal through the ironworks. The railways concerned were opened between Beighton and Staveley Yorks on 1st December, 1891 and onwards to Chesterfield on 4th June, 1892. Following the Company's takeover by the Great Central Railway in 1892, it gave up carrying on all its canals, and by 1905 the tonnage figures had fallen to 45,177 tons, of which 7,174 were from the Trent, and 11,638 tons to it; the main traffics were coal (15,000 tons) and bricks (11,000 tons). By this time the upper part of the canal had been seriously affected by subsidence. A short length between Staveley and Chesterfield was unnavigable, even after f.21,000 had been spent on the Norwood Tunnel between 1871 and 1905 in rspairing damage and raising the roof. In 1908 a further collapse caused the tunnel to be closed, which virtually ended traffic above it, and below as far down as Worksop. In 1955 when the Stockwith-Walkeringham trade ceased, all commerciai traffic ended. Consequently, in 1960, the Government-appointed Redevelopment Advisory Committee recommended that the section from Chesterfield to Spink Hill Bridge (8 miles) shouid be retained as a water channel, and that the section from Spink Hill Bridge up to, and iricluding the Norwood Tunnel (6 miles), much of which was dry and/or affected by mining subsidence, should be eliminated. With regard to the length of canal east of the Norwood Tunnel, the Redevelopment Committee recommended that the section from the tunnel to Worksop (6 miles) should be retained as a water channel and that the section from Worksop to Stockwith (25$ miles) should be redeveloped as a navigation for pleasure craft. Relief from statutory obligations (to make a commercial profit) was obtained by the British Transport Commission Act, 1962, when a Ministerial assurance was given in the House that the length from Worksop to Stockwith would be maintained in its present condition until a decision had been reached on the Committee's restoration proposals.