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The Chesterfield Canal
Society and the canal's restoration from 1976 - 1997
Following a vigourous campaign by the volunteers of the Retford
and Worksop Boat Club in the early 1960's, the future of the 26
miles of canal from West Stockwith to Worksop was assured by its
designation as a cruiseway in the 1968 Transport Act. Since then
British Waterways have maintained and improved the cruiseway to
an increasingly high standard.
Ambitions then were focussed upon the possibility of retrieving
the abandoned 20 miles of canal between Worksop and Chesterfield,
and on 30 September 1976 a packed meeting in Worksop Library witnessed
the foundation of the Chesterfield Canal Society, and the formation
of its first committee. The aims of the society were
'to further the preservation, conservation and restoration of the
Chesterfield Canal, and to stimulate public interest in, and the
fullest appropriate use by the public of, the whole canal and its
environs'.
This aim always guided the Society's work.
1977 provided an early opportunity to publicise the canal and
the Canal Society's work with the bicentenary of the canal's opening
in 1777. A successful rally at Worksop drew large crowds to the
canal, and the Duke of Devonshire unveiled a commemorative stone
at Town Lock Worksop. The bicentenary Rally's purpose was to campaign
for the restoration of the canal from Worksop to the Norwood Tunnel.
The Canal Society had an added bonus of providing the winning float
in the Carnival Parade with a working model of a narrow boat rising
through a lock and entering a tunnel!
There was some optimism that the joint BritishWaterways/Local Authority
Working Party report in 1978 would stimulate improvements on the
six mile section from Worksop to the Norwood Tunnel, which contained
thirty derelict locks and three road blockages. The report made
recommendations that no further works shoud be permitted that would
hinder eventual restoration and that all feasible opportunities
should be taken to remove existing obstructions. It went on to suggest
how greater public use could be made of the canal by making additional
footpaths, nature trails, picnic sites and car parks, and there
were proposals for a filed study centre and canoe base. Nothing
however came of this report, except that no further obstacles to
navigation were added subsequent to its publication, including the
Worksop bypass, which gave generous headroom for future navigation
at its crossing place of the canal.
 Establishing
a public presence on the canal was a priority, and in 1981, with
British Waterway's approval, the Canal Society inaugurated a public
trip boat, the Norwood Packet, on the summit pound at Kiveton Park.
This tradition of providing access to the water for the public through
boat trips has continued to this day, and over the years thousands
of the general public have had their first introduction to the delights
of the inland waterwyas through a journey on one of the Society's
trip boats.
The next year, in an attempt to encourage restoration of the canal
above Worksop, the Society published its 'Route to Rhodesia', a
preliminary study of the feasibility and desirability of restoration
of the Chesterfield Canal from Morse Lock to Rhodesia. This 3/4
mile section contained three derelict locks whose restoration would
enable boats to reach the first road blockage at the hamlet of Rhodesia.
Despite active campaigning with British Waterways and the local
authorities, nothing came of this initiative.
In the early years most interest was focussed on the section between
Worksop and the Norwood Tunnel, but years of frustration during
which British Waterways steadfastly refused to allow volunteers
to work on this section under their jurisdiction in Nottinghamshire
and Rotherham dictated a change of emphasis. On the far side of
the Norwood Tunnel in Derbyshire, the canal had been sold off by
British Waterways to a variety of different owners. These included
many private landowners, although small sections in Killamarsh were
owned by North East Derbyshire District Council and Chesterfield
Borough Council acquired a section near Staveley. More significanlty
however, the four mile section between Chesterfield and Staveley,
after years of negotiations, passed into the hands of Derbyshire
County Council in 1987.
This section, unlike most of the section between Staveley and
the Norwood Tunnel which was derelict at the best and filled in
or built over at the worst, was still in water owing to the statutory
duty of the canal's owners to supply water via the canal to Staveley
Works. The County Council's motive in purchasing it in 1987 was
more connected to preventing the canal interfering with the proposed
Staveley-Brimington bypass than with any motive related to canal
restoration. The bypass proposals intended to block the canal in
five places by repeated crossings of the canal, supported by a Council
decision in 1983 which stated that "the additional costs of restoring
the Chesterfield Canal to a navigable waterway cannot be justified,
and is, therefore, not promoted". The Canal Society's document 'A
Future for the Chesterfield Canal', published in 1985, concurred
with this with its vision of the canal as a truncated series of
linear ponds.
After testing the strength of public feeling, the Society soon
changed track, and began a long campaign to ensure that the bypass,
if built, would accommodate navigation on a restored Chesterfield
Canal. The first Seminar on the Future of the Chesterfield Canal,
organised by the Canal Society in March 1988 at Worksop Town Hall,
provided for the first time an occasion when representatives of
all the local authorities, statutory and non-statutory bodies, voluntary
groups and all concerend with the canal could begin to imagine the
prospect of a restored canal, and see how the various pieces might
fit together. It was a significant date in the history of the Chesterfield
Canal, and over one hundred invited delegates left the seminar at
the end of the day with a new vision of what opportunities a restored
Chesterfield Canal offered.
Massive public support harnessed by the Canal Society to restore
the canal to full navigation resulted in a 14000 signature petition
which was presented to the County Council opposing the blocking
of the canal by the Staveley-Brimington bypass, and gradually official
opinions changed. The County Council allowed the Canal Society to
begin work on the restoration of Tapton Lock in Chesterfield. This
was a carefully chosen project, as the lock is in a clearly visible
position from passing traffic on the busry A61, and was accessible
to the public - a good 'shop window' for local people to see the
enthusiasm of our volunteer workforce, and the transformation of
this lock from dereliction to living heritage. The chamber, a grade
2 listed building was emptied of decades of silt and debris, the
structure repaired and gated, and in the Society's greatest moment
of triumph to date, the lock was formally opened on April 29th 1990.
This achievement was recognised when in 1991 the Chesterfield Canal
Society was the worthy recipient of Derbyshire County Council's
major Greenwatch Award of £1000, together with the Christopher Power
prize from the Inland Waterways Association. This was followed in
1992 by the Society jointly winning the Kenneth Goodwin Award from
the Inland Waterways Association for the restoration achieved.
 The
Society was now established as one of the region's most successful
environmental organisations, and the publicity encouraged both the
general public and the policy makers to think more positively of
the Chesterfield Canal. On May 3rd 1992 the John Varley, a purpose
built passenger trip boat was formally launched at Tapton Lock by
the Mayor of Chesterfield, and the canal around Tapton Lock, now
rescued from dereliction, became the venue for a popular trip boat
which has done much to publicise the Chesterfield Canal. With the
reopening of Hollingwood Lock in 1993, again achieved by the Canal
Society's volunteers, and a second successful Seminar on the Future
of the Chesterfield canal at Worksop, the impetus was irreversible:
Derbyshire County Council that year acknowledged the manifest benefits
to the local community of a fully restored Chesterfield Canal, and
declared that it was likely that the final highway design of the
Staveley-Brimington bypass would not prejudice the future restoration
of the canal to fiull navigational status. The canal was saved.
To the east of the Norwood Tunnel the campaign continued. A massive
National Campaign Rally at Worksop in June 1988, jointly organised
by the Canal Society and the Inland Waterways Association, once
again reminder local residents and councillors of the value of the
resource that was on their doorsteps, and restated the case for
restoration. The Society's first trip boat was replaced by a second
and its base was moved from Kiveton to Clayworth in 1989. Continued
campaigning increased public awareness and encouraged the local
authorities to look favourably on investment in restoration.Heightened
interest resulted in the first meeting in January 1992, of a consortium
of local authorities, British Waterways, the Groundwork Creswell
and the Canal Society, chaired by the North Notts Environmental
Partnership, to progress restoration of the six mile section between
Worksop and the Norwood Tunnel.
Regular meetings, massive commitment and much behind the scenes
negotiating and campaigning over a period of three years resulted
in 1995 of the award of Derelict Land Grants to Nottinghamshire
County Council and Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council for the
complete restoration to the Norwood Tunnel. The works, managed by
British Waterways, were the realisation of much hard work undertaken
by the members of the growing partnership who now shared the Canal
Society's aim of complete restoration. By June 1996, boats were
able to pass from Worksop through a restored Morse Lock. Two years
later, the canal will be opened as far as Shireoaks, where a new
marina is built in the former colliery site. This phase of works
will be completed by the year 2000, when boats will reach the eastern
portal of Norwood Tunnel.
 In
Derbyshire the County Council was successful in its application
for a similar Derelict Land Grant which culminated in the restoration
of the first section of the canal from its junction with the River
Rother in Chesterfield to Tapton Lock, completed in 1994. In the
same year the County Council pulished its Recreational Strategy
for the canal in its ownership, and the four councils to the west
of the tunnel became signatories to the Strategy for the Protection
and Restoration of the Chesterfield Canal.
Succeeding years brought a string of successes for the Canal Society
in Derbyshire. 1995 saw the opening of a completely new Dixon Lock,
designed by the Society to replace the original that was lost in
opencasting, and financed largely by British Coal Opencast. The
same year saw the completion of the engineering study, financed
largely by English Partnerships and undertaken by Sir William Halcrow
and Partners, which identified the cost of restoration between Chesterfield
and the Norwood Tunnel at about £20m. The study also suggested engineering
solutions of the main problem in Derbyshire, the passage of Killamarsh,
where 22 houses had been built on the original line. This year the
Christopher Powell Prize once again was awarded to the canal Society
for its restoration work, and there was final confirmation from
the County Council that the Staveley-Brimington bypass, if built,
would not block the canal. The Society's volunteers achieved the
opening of Bluebank Lock the next year, leaving only detailed work
on Wheeldon Mill Lock to complete before all of Derbyshire's locks
were restored - a magnificent achievement for a totally volunteer
workforce. The contribution of the voolunteers of theWaterway Recovery
Group in assisting on these works must be gratefully acknowledged.
A Phase 2 grant to Derbyshire County Council permitted restoration
of the canal from Tapton Lock in Chesterfield to Staveley and was
completed in 1997, leaving only three road blockages awaiting removal
before through navigation on this four mile section could commence.
Exciting though the achievements of these hectic years have been,
substantial problems still remain to secure the finance for the
restoration of the remaining ten miles of derelict canal in Derbyshire.
While most of the restoration remaining is relatively straightforward
there are significant problems - the collapsed Norwood Tunnel, the
thirteen derelict locks of the Norwood Flight, the need to circumvent
by substantial lock flights the blockages at Killamarsh, the lowered
railway track at Staveley, substantial mining subsidence that has
played havoc with the canal levels in Derbyshire, and negotiations
with the many private owners of this section of canal. These are
the problems that have been addressed by the Partnership Working
Party since 1995, and which it is anticipated will culminate in
a Heritage Lottery bid not only to complete the massive restoration
task through to Chesterfield, but also to finance the imaginative
link, proposed by the Chesterfield Canal Society, to make the River
Rother navigable from Killamarsh to Rotherham. By providing a link
from this new river navigation into the Chesterfield Canal at Killamarsh,
a cruising ring of about 100 miles would be opened up using Yorkshire's
waterway system.
 Any
brief history is necessary selective, but it would be unfair not
to outline the other, perhaps less spectacular but none the less
vital work achieved by the Canal Society during these years. The
Canal Society endorses the Inland Waterways Association's 'Waterways
for All' policy, and has campaigned for the intact 46 mile towing
path of the canal to become the a long-distance path called the
'Cuckoo Way', after the nickname given to the unique horse drawn
boats that plied the canal in commercial carrying days. Additionally,
the Canal Society has been instrumental in publishing and leading
short circular walks using the canal towing path along the whole
length of the canal, and these walks have introduced countless walkers
to the delights of the countryside and the navigation.
As another method of both introducing members of the public to
the canal, creating publicity and fund raising, the Canal Society
has organised over the years a series of Canal Days at sites in
Chesterfield, Hollingwood, Staveley, Killamarsh and Worksop, as
well as running passenger trip boats in Derbyshire, Rotherham and
Bassetlaw. Throughout its history the Society has published a members'
magazine and a series of publications that have grown in sophistication
and appeal in order to present its work and publicise the canal
and the restoration campaign. The sales and exhibition stands have
travelled throughout the region on a similar campaign.
Vitally important too has been the constant campaigning and lobbying
of local politicians and officers that has led to the canal being
included as a valuable asset to be protected in all of the local
plans along the canal corridor.
From a solitary body of enthusiasts in 1976 has grown the determined
partnership of local authorities, statutory and non-statutory bodies
and enthusiasts from the voluntary and private sector who now stand
united in desiring the restoration of the Chesterfield Canal throughout
to full navigational standards. It can now be only a matter of time
until this aim, first set out by the Canal Society in 1976, will
be achieved.
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