Walking On The Chesterfield Canal Whilst the Chesterfield Canal is a boater’s paradise the most numerous users are walkers. Here Rod Auton tells us about the upcoming Walking Festival.
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hen the Chesterfield Canal was constructed in the 1770s, it was used solely for carrying goods. Businessmen in Chesterfield and North East Derbyshire wanted an easier way to move their produce to markets beyond the immediate area. At that time, the simplest way to carry heavy goods was on the water, which meant on rivers. The nearest river port to Chesterfield was Bawtry on the River Idle. This entailed a long and very difficult journey on roads which were a sea of mud for many months of the year. The goods were carried by packhorses. Given that many of the loads would be bulky and heavy – especially coal and lead – a very large number of animals would be needed. In contrast, a canal boat could carry over twenty tons and could be towed by a single horse. As the canal began to establish itself, a wider variety of goods was carried. Besides the aforementioned coal and lead, a contemporary list of charges includes: Bags of Hops, Bales of Hemp, Deals of Timber, Hoggsheads of Rotten Stone, Bundles of Deer Skins and Barrels of Gunpowder. Cannonballs made in Chesterfield were in great demand during the Napoleonic Wars; they are still occasionally found when the canal is being dredged. For a very long time, the carriage of people never seems to have happened, at least not in an organised fashion. It was much later that packet boats started running, for example taking women from Clayworth to Retford market and back. We have some wonderful photos of Sunday School outings from the early 1900s with the Cuckoo boats absolutely packed with children wearing their Sunday Best. Originally, the towpath was a no-go area. There were fines for people trespassing because the Canal Company wanted to keep it clear for the towing horses. There were fines for leaving gates onto the towpath open. We have a copy of an agreement drawn up in 1896 between the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway Company (the owners of the canal at that time) and the Derbyshire Chemical Company Limited. It gave permission for their workers to use a gateway onto the towing path in Killamarsh. This stipulated that a fee of one shilling was to be paid each year on 25th December!
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Forest Bottom Lock by Stuart Parker.
As time passed, the towpath came to be used a means of getting from one place to another, but not for recreation. It is only in the last
