An Analysis of the Physical and Economic Factors That Influenced the Building of the Chesterfield Canal and Its Subsequent History

1 An Analysis of the Physical and Economic Factors that Influenced the Building of the Chesterfield Canal and its Subsequent History By John Alan Taylor, BA, Dip Ed Contents List of Illustrations, p2 Preface, p3 Chapter 1 - THE GEOLOGY OF THE CHESTERFIELD CANAL, p11 Chapter 2 - THE LANDFORMS AND DRAINAGE OF THE AREA, p21 Chapter 3 - HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL FACTORS, p25 Chapter 4 - THE CHESTERFIELD CANAL, p29 Conclusion – p44 Appendix 1 - Chesterfield Canal; list of locks and mileages, p46 Appendix 2 - Part of the summit pound on the eastern section of the canal, p47 Appendix 3 - Generalised vertical sections, p48 Acknowledgements, p 52 2 Illustrations A starvationer boat, p3 A cuckoo boat in 1906, p6 Dawn Rose, p6 Figure 1, Course of the canal, p8 First paragraphs of the Act of Parliament authorising the canal, p 8 Figure 2, Section along the Chesterfield Canal, p9 Figure 3, Geological Timescale, Cambrian to present day, p10 Figure 4, Cross-section showing Paleozoic and later rocks at Ingleborough, p12 Figure 5, Relief of the Pennines and the position of the relevant blocks, p14 Figure 6, Rocks of the Pennines and adjacent areas, p15 Figure 7, Cross- section of the Upper and Middle Coal Measures, p17 Figure 8, Anticlines and synclines in the Chesterfield area, p18 Figure 9, Geology along the route of the canal between the Rother Valley and Thorpe Locks, p20 Figure 10, Land forms (principal escarpments) of the area around the route of the canal, p21 Figure 11, The Matlock area, geology and former lead mines, p22 Figure 12, Horizon - Contour Map of the Don Monocline p,23 Figure 13, Geology of the route of the canal through the Worksop area, p24 West Stockwith, p24 Figure 14, Sites of the principal coal mines, p30 Figure 15, The principal waterways and towns before 1794, p32 Figure 16, Waterways in the North Midlands area, p33 Figure 17, Canal, tunnel and feeder reservoirs, p35 Figure 18, Geology of fig. 16 + key, pp35, 36 Figure 19, Chesterfield Canal, Staveley Region (tramways & ancillary canals), p38 Figure 20, The Trade of the Chesterfield Canal, pp39, 40 Figure 21, Profitability of the canal from 1789 onwards, p41 The western and eastern portals of the Norwood tunnel, p 41 Figure 22, The reservoirs that fed the summit pound, p42 Figure 23, The route of the Chesterfield Canal, p43 Shireoaks Colliery Company's Wharf at Dock Road Worksop 1910, p45 3 Preface As a preliminary to the actual study of the analysis of the physical and economic factors that influenced the building of the Chesterfield canal, it will be useful firstly to outline the relevant parts of the biographies of the engineers that built the canal; secondly to examine the type of narrow boats that used it. The most famous and senior of the engineers was James Brindley. He is rightly regarded as the ‘Father of the English Canal system.’ Born in 1716 of a Derbyshire yeoman farmer, he was at a young age apprenticed to become a millwright. He set up business in Leek, Staffordshire and later expanded his work by renting premises in Burslem from the Wedgwood family, with whom he became lifelong friends. Brindley’s first venture into canal building was when the Duke of Bridgewater decided to build a canal from Worsley to Manchester. The Duke owned coal mines at Worsley, north of Manchester. These seams which dipped at 30 degrees were accessed by adits at the base of a flooded disused quarry. The coal was brought out along the flooded adits by small narrow boats nicknamed “starvationers”. A starvationer boat at Worsley Delph The coal was then offloaded on to carts or packhorses at a wharf in the pool at the base of the quarry. Such a primitive means of transport limited the sale of the coal to the immediate area. Immediately to the south was the growing town of Manchester and so the Duke decided to build a canal to that place in order to widen his market. To this end he appointed his land agent and engineer – John Gilbert - to build this enterprise. Such was Brindley’s fame as an engineer that Gilbert consulted him and Brindley became the consulting engineer. Probably the most impressive 4 feature on this canal was the Barton aqueduct, which carried the canal over the river Irwell at an elevation of 39ft (13m).The canal was completed in 1761. So successful was this canal that the Duke of Bridgewater commissioned Brindley to extend the Bridgewater canal from Manchester to Runcorn on the Mersey estuary. This was surveyed by Brindley and commenced in 1762. The third canal which Brindley surveyed and engineered was the Trent and Mersey. This was commissioned by the master potters of the Stoke area led by Josiah Wedgewood. They needed a canal to carry their fragile wares smoothly and so proposed a canal from the Bridgewater canal to Shardlow on the river Trent. Brindley commenced the preliminary survey in 1758, Parliamentary approval was given in 1762 and work started immediately. Brindley had grand plans for a Grand Cross of canals linking the four great rivers of the realm, the Mersey, the Trent the Thames and the Severn. He surveyed several more canals but he did not live to see his scheme completed. He died in 1772 and his vision was completed by later engineers. These early canals designed by Brindley determined the pattern of much of the Midlands network in future years. They were designed to be worked by narrow boats with a length of 70ft and a beam of 7ft. This was probably an extension in length of the mine boats at Worsley. These measurements determined the size and design of the locks, with a single upper gate and double mitre lower gates – some 7ft wide and just over 70ft long- and also the tunnels which were always made for ‘legging’ to be walked through the tunnel by the boaters laying on their backs or sides, while the horses were led over the top. Thus the tunnels were no more than 8ft wide and about 12ft deep. Bearing in mind the lack of means of excavation in the mid 18th century - pick and shovel and occasionally gunpowder – it is not surprising that Brindley’s canals were designed to follow the contours and so maintain a level course even though this meant a very circuitous route. By this means he avoided embankments and kept cuttings and tunnels to a minimum. This is not to say that he did not shirk when it was necessary to build these features. Whenever it was necessary to change levels he would build a lock, and indeed when it was essential to ascend or descend a steep slope, as in the Thorpe flight and even more on the Norwood flight on the Chesterfield canal, he used staircase locks. Indeed the Norwood flight westwards down the Magnesian limestone escarpment used a pioneering flight of (4; 3; 3; 3 locks) to take the canal from the Norwood tunnel almost to the floodplain of the river Rother. Where it was essential to create a summit pound, as on the Chesterfield canal, he had a deep cutting made from the Thorpe locks to the Norwood tunnel. Brindley must be credited with building the first tunnels on the canal system. On his third canal, the Trent and Mersey, he needed to dig three tunnels on the northern end to join the canal to the Bridgewater at Preston Brook, and the longest tunnel on that canal at the southern end – the Harecastle. This latter tunnel, started in 1766, took 11 years to complete and was built at the same time as the Norwood, but the latter took only 5 years to construct. It is clear, then, that Brindley was a master surveyor and builder of the early canals. The second engineer connected with the Chesterfield canal was Hugh Henshall (b.1734 – d.1816). Brindley had married Henshall’s sister Anne in 1765 and Hugh became Brindley’s assistant in surveying the Trent and Mersey canal. He had much experience in surveying, having helped to 5 survey the river Weaver in 1758 and in 1768, with Brindley, surveyed the route of the Staffordshire and Worcester canal. Brindley made him Clerk of Works on the Trent and Mersey. James Brindley died in 1762 and Hugh Henshall became Brindley’s heir, completing the Trent and Mersey, including the three tunnels in May 1777. Here we come to the third, and perhaps the most important engineer in the Chesterfield canal’s construction, John Varley (1740 to 1806). Born at Heanor, Derbyshire, he was trained as a surveyor and surveyed a proposed extension of the Don navigation. Brindley appointed Varley as an assistant surveyor for the Chesterfield canal and together they planned the route of that canal. The Act of Parliament giving permission to build was passed in 1771 and construction began immediately. The following year Brindley died and Varley moved from Clerk of Works to Resident Engineer with Hugh Henshall appointed Chief Engineer in 1774. The Norwood tunnel was started in 1771 under Varley’s supervision, but completed under Henshall’s. It was opened in 1777. The details of its construction are summarised in the pamphlet by Christine Richardson (1). Other projects undertaken by Varley included being the engineer for the Erewash canal and surveys for the Nutbrook canal and the Leicester Line. On a different theme, it is convenient here to describe the narrow boats that plied along the Chesterfield canal and beyond. They were unique in their build, being able to be steered from bow or stern and were equipped with a mast, so they could travel under sail, and sweeps (oars).

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