The Chesterfield Canal

The first proposal for the Chesterfield canal was made at a meeting in 1759, the prospective sites and routes being previously surveyed by James Brindley and John Varley. Costs were estimated at £98,908 17s. Then at the request of investors John Grundy carried out a second survey which gave the option of a shorter route through Stockwith, Bawtry, Scrrby, Blyth and Carton joining the route proposed earlier at Shire Oaksm which saved 5.5 miles, but missed out Worksop and Retford , so potentially loosing customers.

Agreement was reached on the first option and an Actr of Parliament passed in1771 giving royal assent for the project. Th e name adopted for the company formed being  “The Company of Proprietors of the Canal Navigation from Chesterfield to the River Trent” … which does not exactly roll off the tongue!

Construction started the same year, but sadly Brindley died in 1772 so the project was taken over by John Varley and Hugh Henshall  ( Brindley’s Brother-in –law). Henshall taking over completely after aspersions were cast on John Varley’s  accounting and inclination to employ family and friends over other more skilled or efficient offers.

Originally the canal was built as a narrow cannal but was widened from Retford to Stockwith when some shareholders came up with the backing to do this, though after its completion in 1777 there was no evidence of use by anything other than narrow boats, so the extra expenditure may have been wasted.

The canal now stood at 46 miles in length with 65 locks in t he finishe structure and two tunnels and one of them Norwood tunnel being the longest tunnel in Britain at that time with a length of  2884yrds. Typical of a Brindley  canal it followed the contours of the countryside so as to reduce the cost of structures such as locks and tunnels, though inevitably this would have increased considerably the actual length and cost of digging the basic canal route itself as well as adding to the cost of logistics for users in terms of increasing travelling time. That said, it leaves us today with some very picturesque routes through the English countryside for which many people are grateful.

The canal was in popular use and produced dividends for its investors fairly swiftly though as ever the Railways were not far behind, ever competing for proven routes that had initially been established by the canals. In this case the demise of the canal came with the construction of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, which actually ran parallel to the canal in many places and was completed by 1849.

Commercial trade from Worksop to Chesterfield d  ended in 1908 for the canal with mine subsidence causing the closure of Norwood Tunnel.

1961 proposal for complete abandonment of the canal were met with protest, which represented a turning point from which restoration began. The Chesterfield Canal Society was founded in 1976 at first focusing on the stretch from Norwood Tunnel  to  Worksop.

2002 saw the Chesterfield canal opened to navigation m though still isolated from the rest of the system.

2003 saw the Worksop to Norwood Tunnel section reopened including 30 restored locks one new lock and 3 new bridges.

The campaign to restore the canal to a working state, probably by by-passing the collapsed tunnel in some way continues.