Chesterfield Canal

Restoration feature

As we once again use the reduction in WRG work to take a wider look at projects,

Restoration Feature: Chesterfield Canal The restoration back-story: “Starting

at the beginning” is a subject that’s come up regularly in these article: it would be really nice if groups launching a new canal restoration scheme could actually begin work where the derelict canal branches leaves the navigable network, and work their way along it opening up sections as they go. But sometimes it doesn’t work out that way: they have to settle for working wherever they can in the early days, in the hope that as the project progresses they can gradually start to link up the restored lengths in a more logical way.

When the Chesterfield Canal Society (now the Chesterfield Canal Trust) was launched in 1976 with the aim of restoring

the derelict 20 miles west of Worksop (the 26 miles from there to the Trent having already been rescued from falling into an

unnavigable state by the activities of the Retford & Worksop Boat Club in the 1960s) it must have seemed like this was an ideal case

for “starting at the beginning”. The first derelict lock, Morse Lock just west of Worksop town centre, could be restored,

followed by a couple more locks to get to the first restoration ‘destination’, the village of Rhodesia, before continuing with the increasingly steep climb to the next village,

Tim Lewis

London WRG carrying out chamber clearance at Wheeldon Mill Lock 2 in 1991 and (below) the restored lock recently

Martin Ludgate Shireoaks, and on up towards Norwood Tunnel. Sure, the 2893yard tunnel itself would be likely to be a sticking point for some time, given its more-or-less complete destruction by coal mining and associated subsidence, but for the first six miles to that point it looked very much like a “start at the beginning” restoration. The Trust talked to the canal’s then owners the former British Waterways (since transformed into the Canal & River Trust), published a document called The Route to Rhodesia, set up a trip-boat on an isolated length of the summit level as a fund-raiser and source of publicity, secured an agreement that no developments on the route (such as the new Worksop bypass road) would be allowed to be put any more obstructions in the way of future restoration of this length, and looked forward to starting by reopening Morse Lock.

But as so often is the case in the not-terribly-logical seeming world of canal restoration planning, the Chesterfield turned out to be yet another where rather than start from the connection to the navigable network, it made

Chesterfield Canal

we feature a restoration that’s down to its last eight miles - but they’re tricky ones

more sense to begin with an isolated length which wasn’t going to be connected up for many years. Only in this case (unlike, for example, the Grantham or Cromford canals) it wasn’t technical problems dealing with major obstructions of the route that made it difficult to simply start at the beginning; it was down to the impossibility of getting any kind of agreement from British Waterways to allow volunteers to work on restoring Morse Lock. And with no sources of funding available to get it done professionally, BW’s flat refusal meant no work happened here for the first 20 years of the Trust’s existence.

But on the far side of the Norwood Tunnel in Derbyshire, it was a different matter. Never mind that the canal there was in much worse condition, a length in Killamarsh had recently been filled in and used to build an estate of 17 new houses, the route had been sold off to various owners, mining subsidence had damaged some lengths, road bridges had been replaced by flat crossings, and it was threatened by the Staveley /

Chesterfield Canal

Length: 46 miles (12 miles restored, 8 miles left to restore)

Locks: originally 65 (2 added, more needed) Date closed: between 1907 (end of through traffic, Norwood Tunnel collapsed) and 1961 (officially abandoned)

The Chesterfield Canal, opened in 1777, ran for 46 miles and 65 locks from the River Trent at West Stockwith via Retford and Worksop to Chesterfield. The first six locks were 14ft wide allowing Trent barges to reach Retford; the remainder, including the steep climb to Norwood Tunnel, descent to Killamarsh and final climb to Chesterfield were all built for 7ft-beam narrow boats. The canal was successful, carrying coal, stone and metals from the mines and quarries near its western River Trentlengths. The arrival of the railways provided competition for the canal (and led to to the Humberit being diverted in places to accommodate the new lines) but it continued in use

until a collapse caused by mining subsidence closed Norwood Tunnel in 1907. W Stockwith

Some trade remained on the eastern lengths until the 1950s, while the remainder fell derelict. In the 1960s it was threatened with closure but the Stockwith to Worksop length was saved thanks to a campaign by Retford and Worksop Boat Club

Staveley to Chesterfield restored: 6 miles 6 locks Worksop to Kiveton restored and reopened in 2002: 6 miles 31 locks (inlcuding 1 extra added)

(including 1 extra added)

Sawmills narrows work site Norwood Tunnel Kiveton Morse

Killamarsh Lock Drakeholes Tunnel River Trent to Nottingham

Hollingwood Lock

Renishaw

Tapton Lock West Stockwith

Staveley

Staveley

Town Basin and Lock Worksop

Kiveton to Staveley to Worksop

unnavigable ‘missing link’ including current restora- in 1960s: 26 miles 16 locks Chesterfield

tion sites: 8 miles 14 locks (orginally), diversions needed at Killamarsh and Retford

saved from closure Norwood Tunnel

Brimington bypass plans which would block it in five places. Crucially, having been sold off it was no longer within British Waterways’ remit - so they couldn’t stop the Trust from working on it.

The final five mile length from Staveley to Chesterfield was still used to supply water to industry, and had therefore survived in rather better condition and in 1987 it was acquired by Derbyshire Council. This wasn’t with any idea of restoring it - it was more to do with stopping it getting in the way of the bypass plans. Indeed, even the Canal Trust didn’t initially

Darren Piotrowicz

The new Staveley Town Lock: one of numerous concrete pours (above) during construction and (below) in use at a boat festival

see reopening of this length as a possibility, but it fairly soon changed its views and began supporting the restoration of this length - initially by campaigning (a petition raised 14,000 signatures) to get the bypass plans changed, then by beginning practical restoration work at Tapton Lock, the very last one at the Chesterfield End (so much for “starting at the beginning”!)

Completion of the lock in 1990 was followed by the remaining four locks on

Darren Piotrowicz this section - with WRG support, CCT’s volunteers restored Wheeldon Mill, Bluebank and Hollingwood locks, while a new Dixon Lock was built by a combination of contractors and volunteers as the old lock needed to be demolished for opencast coalmining. Three bridges were rebuilt, and this length reopened in 2002.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering what happened with the Staveley / Brimington bypass plans... well, 33 years after Derbyshire bought the canal to ease the passage of the new road (and something like 90 years since it was first proposed in the 1930s), it still hasn’t been built (apart from a short section around Staveley which crosses the canal on a new bridge). But if it ever is, it will make full provision for the canal where it crosses.

But meanwhile things were moving at last on the British Waterways length east of Norwood Tunnel as a result of successful bids for external funding. Thanks to support from sources including Derelict Land Grants from the UK governemnt and the EU RECHAR fund ( for support to ex-mining areas), Morse Lock was at last restored in 1996, followed by the remaining 29 locks (plus a new one added to combat subsidence) and six miles of channel - and the canal reopened through to Norwood Tunnel’s eastern portal at Kiveton Park in 2002.

Since then the volunteers have continued eastwards from Hollingwood Lock to the

newly built Staveley Town Basin, and on from there via the new Staveley Town Lock added to lower the canal to get it under a moribund (but in theory not abandoned) railway line - to the point where only about eight miles of the canal remain to be restored. And those last eight miles have already seen some attention - not only in terms of restoration working to chip away at that missing link (as you’ll see below) but also in dealing with the unexpected and unwelcome arrival of the HS2 railway plans, which we’ve covered in a separate panel.

Where are we at now? As already

described, what was a 26 mile navigable length from the Trent to Worksop has now grown to become a 32 mile length from the Trent to Kiveton; and at the other end of the canal there are around six miles continously navigable from Staveley to Chesterfield, where some excavation has been carried out on a new terminus basin on an ex-industrial site which will be the centrepiece for an urban regeneration scheme. In between are the eight most difficult miles to restore...

The eastern 450 metres of Norwood Tunnel is in decent condition, but the rest is well and truly trashed. But a start has already been made on a diversionary route which will climb out of the tunnel through new locks and run over the top of the hill. Some lengths of dry channel have been dug, plus some basins excavated which will one day be a marina but for now are used as fishing lakes. At the other end of the tunnel the Norwood lock flight (a spectacularly steep descent via one staircase of four locks and three of three locks each) is largely intact and restorable (albeit the set of four locks is in poor condition), as is the length below them. But then comes the missing section where the houses in Killamarsh are built on the line: possible bypass routes have been identified, but will involve dropping down something like 60ft to Nethermoor Lake and then climbing back up again to rejoin the original route on the other side of Killamarsh. The fallback approach to this would be two new flights of maybe eight

Chesterfield Canal and HS2

As originally announced around 2012, the north eastern branch of the HS2 railway would have followed the Rother Valley from near Staveley to Killamarsh, obliterating the canal, undoing a lot of good work by restorers and making reopening much harder. However following a re-think of plans for serving Sheffield (plus lots of objections from canal supporters) the route was diverted further east, greatly reducing its impact on the canal restoration. Unfortunately by this point it had already blighted the canal for long enough to lose what had looked like a good chance of a successful bid for major Lottery funding. (continued right) But the canal isn’t entirely free of HS2 blight. Firstly the new railway will still need to cross the canal once, near the west end of Norwood Tunnel. Here, as explained overleaf, the Trust already needs to divert the canal; the railway adds another unwelcome dimension to the problem. Secondly, there still needs to be access to an HS2 maintenance depot being built at Staveley. HS2 Ltd have failed to give the canal restorers plans for the access line (making it difficult to plan the restoration), and their latest masterstroke is to put in a formal objection to CCT’s planning application to restore the rest of the canal in Chesterfield borough. However this seems like a final bit of haggling - and meanwhile there are now suggestions that the north east arm of HS2 might be shelved indefinitely.

locks each; but alternatives are under consideration [see panel opposite]. Two houses would need to be demolished for the diversion, but the Canal Trust already owns them and rents them out in the meantime for a useful income.

From the other side of Killamarsh, the canal is basically still in existence and with no major obstructions for most of the way to Staveley - and a fair amount of work has already been done on this length including partial reinstatement of a length of channel at Renishaw. Some bridges still exist, several will need to be reinstated (including three road crossings), a length of channel towards the Staveley end of his section has disappeared where it runs across farm fields, and the major embankment (known as the Puddlebank) over the Doe Lee Stream will need some serious earthworks to bring it back to full height - plus a new aqueduct over the stream. In addition, where the restored canal currently ends, having dropped down the new Staveley Town Lock and passed through the remains of the original railway bridge, a second new lock will need to be built to bring the canal back up to original level. So what next? The CCT volunteer team is currently just finishing off work on Staveley Town Lock, the new pound below it and the railway crossing, before moving to start work on the next focus of volunteer attention which will be the Renishaw length.

This is part of the section being supported by an IWA Waterways in Progress grant (see article, page 7) to re-line and complete this part-rebuilt length of canal, and the volunteers will be carrying out some of the work. In addition a new footbridge (Miner’s Crossing) is to be built and the channel extended as far as the Chesterfield Borough Council boundary.

Meanwhile a mile or so south of there, the Puddlebank section is likely to see attention from professional contractors - subject to a planning application recently submitted, and to the canal being included in the Town Investment Plan for Staveley (a bid to the Government Towns Fund which will hopefully come up with a chunk of the £11m or so needed for the Puddlebank and associated structures). If all goes well, construction could start in 2021.

And in Chesterfield it’s hoped that increasing developmenat around the new terminus will provide the incentive for some progress on the basin itself, from being basically a hole in the ground to something more like a canal basin.

And then what? As

you might expect from the above, the emphasis for the following couple of years is likely to be largely on filling in the remaining gap between the Renishaw

length and Staveley, to complete a two and a half mile extension of the restored Proposed

Chesterfield-Staveley Rother Link

section, and bring the

Killamarsh and Norwood plans

remaining ‘missing Planned diversion via Nethermoor Lake and new locks (and lift?) Kiveton Waters Navigable to the Trent

link’ down to under six miles.

But there’s also some hope of progress in the not too distant future on the Kiveton to Killamarsh section. It would be good to extend the navigable length, initially by reopening the restorable first 450m of Norwood Tunnel and building the new locks needed to raise the canal to ground level at Kiveton Waters (the marina / fishing lakes) - but unfortunately it’s a rather more expensive project than the National Lottery Heritage Fund (seen as a potential source of funding) would be able to support, so it’s probably going to be a few years before it can happen. But in the meantime the Canal Trust hopes to have discussions with Highways England about getting under the M1 motorway supply costs.

which crosses over the top of the old tunnel - a farm underpass has been identified as one possible way of getting the dion this page], and to discuss other possible heritage projects between there and Killamarsh with NHLF once it reopens the currently closed Lottery funding application process.

Get the canal to Killamarsh, and that brings it down to the final three miles left to restore from there to Renishaw. OK, so it Eastern 450m of tunnel to be restored

Norwood Locks to be Remainder of

To Staveley and

Chesterfield 17 houses built on canal in Killamarsh

restored tunnel to be

The two most serious obstructions to reopening the canal are Norwood Tunnel and the houses built on the line in Killamarsh - and CCT has been looking at options for getting around them. The tunnel has been largely destroyed by mining over all but its easternmost length; the idea is to restore this section then emerge into a cutting and climb through three new locks to ground level. (Much of the tunnel wasn’t very deep underground; partly it seems to have been built to placate the local landowner rather than out of engineering necessity.) In fact the canal’s reservoirs are at a suitable height that they could supply this higher summit level. But then further sets of new locks would be needed to climb over the higher part of the hill above the west end of the tunnel - and that would mean backpumping water supplies. So the Trust is looking at whether a short new tunnel instead of the extra locks (albeit far more expensive in capital costs) might pay for itself over (say) the next 100 years by avoiding water pumping costs, maintenance (and regular gate replacement) on the new locks, and HS2 and M1 crossing issues. Meanwhile at Killamarsh the plan for many years has been to build a diversion which would descend via a flight of between six and eight locks to enter Nethermoor Lake, then another similar flight to climb back out of the lake to rejoin the original line on the far side of the houses which obstruct the route. But recently the possibility of a boat lift replacing the flight of locks on the eastern (Norwood) side has been considered: not only is there the usual ‘Falkirk Wheel’ argument that a landmark structure and attraction might be easier to fund (and bring in tourist income once open); there is the added benefit that it might reduce water Both of these issues are very much still up for discussion. verted canal through [but see also the panel

bypassed includes a diversion with two new flights of locks [or one and a boat lift - see panel above], but surely full reopening of the entire Chesterfield Canal can’t be too far away.

And then, CCT can start work on the Rother Link: a proposed new navigation based on the River Rother running down the Rother Valley from Nethermoor Lake to the Sheffield & South Yorkshire Navigation near Rotherham. But that’s another story... Martin Ludgate page 15