Derby Canal

The Derby Canal ran from the Trent and Mersey Canal at Swarkestone to Derby and Little Eaton, and to the Erewash Canal at Sandiacre, in Derbyshire, England. The canal was authorised by an act of Parliament, the Derby Canal Act 1793 (33 Geo. 3. c. 102) and was fully completed in 1796. It featured a level crossing of the River Derwent in the centre of Derby. An early tramroad, known as the Little Eaton Gangway, linked Little Eaton to coal mines at Denby. The canal's main cargo was coal, and it was relatively successful until the arrival of the railways in 1840. It gradually declined, with the gangway closing in 1908 and the Little Eaton Branch in 1935. Early attempts at restoration were thwarted by the closure of the whole canal in 1964. Since 1994, there has been an active campaign for restoration spearheaded by the Derby and Sandiacre Canal Trust and Society. Loss of the Derwent crossing due to development has resulted in an innovative engineering solution called the Derby Arm being proposed, as a way of transferring boats across the river.

Origin

Although the River Derwent had been used for transport from the Trent since ancient times, it was winding and shallow in many places, silting frequently. The right to use it for navigation was conferred upon the citizens of Derby by King John in 1204. The engineer George Sorocold was involved with plans for improvements, although it is uncertain whether he was involved in the actual work. Plans had been first proposed in 1664, and bills had been presented to Parliament in 1696 and 1698. In 1703, Sorocold attended Parliament to give evidence for a scheme which involved four new cuts, with weirs and locks, on a stretch of the river. The bill failed, but the map for a similar scheme presented in 1717 was said to be drawn by Sorocold. This became the Derwent Navigation Act 1719 (6 Geo. 1. c. 27), and the work enabled boats to reach Derby in January 1721, but it was still difficult to navigate in periods of flood or dry weather. Indeed the Trent itself was little better.

The Sandiacre line followed the course of the old Nottingham Road with two locks near Borrowash, then level through Draycott and Breaston, and descending through two locks to Sandiacre Junction with the Erewash Canal, a distance of . The Little Eaton line branched northwards at the boundary of the racecourse, passing to the east of Chester Green, parallel to and east of the present day railway. The canal from Derby to Little Eaton was opened on 11 May 1795, the first load of coal from Denby being distributed to the poor of Derby. The Sandiacre line was opened on 30 May 1795.

Work then began on the crossing of the Derwent, followed by the line out to Swarkestone. From the small weir mentioned above a canal led through what is now Darwin Place to the Derwent Basin above the weir in the river which still exists behind the Council House, downstream of the Exeter Bridge. A timber causeway was built on trestles for use as the towpath. The weir also contained a culvert which transferred water between two branches, for a distance of about .

From the basin the canal fell into a lock before crossing the mill race (which still runs beside Bass's Recreation Ground) by way of the cast-iron aqueduct arriving at Gandy's Wharf roughly where the Cockpit island is now.

It followed the line of the mill race before passing behind what became the Locomotive Works (now Pride Park), before turning sharply southwards towards Chellaston descending through Shelton and Fullen's locks. It joined the Trent and Mersey Canal at Swarkestone Junction, a distance of from Derby. A short extension led on to the River Trent just upstream from Swarkestone Bridge. The route from Derby to Swarkestone was opened on 30 June 1796. Further extensions were made in the 1820s, by which time there were around of tramroad.

The Holmes Aqueduct proved to be extremely troublesome. Aqueducts up to that time had been made of stone, but several short arches would have been necessary, causing obstruction to the flow of the stream. The single-span cast iron structure that Outram devised, and completed in 1796, was the first of its kind, as it was completed a few weeks earlier than Longdon-on-Tern Aqueduct, the structure by Thomas Telford at Longdon-on-Tern on the Shrewsbury Canal.

thumb|left|A painting of Derby from Nottingham Road by [[Henry Lark Pratt shows the Derby Canal in the foreground.]]

In 1802 there was a partial failure, probably due to the sides bowing and transferring too much weight to the base where they joined to the deck. After remedial work it failed again in 1812 and was reinforced with timber baulks. Although plans were prepared for replacement in stone, it survived until 1930, when the bottom plates were replaced by a wooden base, which was sealed by puddling.

In 1817 the link between the River Trent and the Trent and Mersey Canal was closed because of its lack of financial success. Maintenance charges had exceeded revenue since 1812, as it was little used because the Trent and Mersey canal charged compensation tolls at extortionate rates for boats using the link. Twenty years later it was dry. to allow construction of the Midland Counties Railway line between Derby and Long Eaton. This diversion included building a new Borrowash Top Lock. Regular dividends were paid to shareholders from 1811, although some had been paid in previous years. Initially, they were close to the 5 per cent promised by the original Derby Canal Act 1793, but reached 12 per cent in 1839. Although this exceeded the amount specified by the act, it was justified as covering years where the 5 per cent had not been made. Traffic figures for February and March 1839 indicate that the Little Eaton line carried 13,332 tons, the Sandiacre line carried 15,725 tons, and 9,773 tons were carried on the Swarkestone line. This would suggest that the total for the year was around 200,000 tons.

Decline

In 1830 the company considered building a locomotive line from Derby to Smithy Houses, and two years later looked at the possibility of a locomotive line from Derby to Little Eaton. The first was surveyed by an engineer called Stephenson, presumed to be George Stephenson, but no further action was taken. Toll reductions were made from 1834, in an attempt to stay competitive, but by 1840 there were three main line railways in Derby.

Receipts fell from £8,180 to £2,556 between 1838 and 1868, and dividends for the same period fell from 10.5 per cent to 4 per cent. An attempt was made in 1872 to sell the whole canal to the Midland Railway for £90,000, without success, and a similar offer to the London and North Western Railway also failed. Traffic suffered further decline when Butterley Tunnel on the neighbouring Cromford Canal had to be closed. The Little Eaton gangway was closed in 1908, ten years after the action was first considered, and the Little Eaton branch followed on 4 July 1935, when the company obtained a warrant for its closure. Attempts to close the Sandiacre line in 1937 were thwarted by objections from Imperial Chemical Industries. Commercial traffic on the remainder of the canal ceased in 1945. In 1964 the canal company gained permission to close the rest of the canal. Grants from the Derbyshire City Partnership received from 2008 enabled the Trust Development Group to begin the process of applying for outline planning permission for reinstatement. The route of the canal passes through three local council regions, and so separate applications had to be made to Derby City Council, Erewash Borough Council and South Derbyshire District Council. All three applications had been approved by 24 August 2011, paving the way for actual reinstatement to begin, subject to the necessary funding being available. The restoration plans do not include reinstatement of a level crossing of the River Derwent. The site of the original crossing has been lost to development, and there would be issues with water supply and flood risk associated with a crossing on the level. An innovative solution has been suggested in the form of the Derby Arm, which would transport a caisson containing water and a boat in a semi-circular arc from one side of the river to the other. Its design is similar to a medieval trebuchet.

Plans for the restoration were threatened in 2013 when the route of High Speed 2, a high-speed rail link from London to Birmingham, Manchester and York, were published. This envisaged an East Midlands Hub station at Toton, which would have destroyed part of the canal route, but revised plans were published on 15 November 2016, with the station moved to avoid the canal. The chairman of the Derby and Sandiacre Canal Trust, Chris Madge, was still concerned that a tramway to link the station to Derby would impinge upon the canal, but was hopeful that the canal in this area could be reopened before tramway construction began, and that the plans for the tramway would therefore have to accommodate the canal.

The canal today

thumb|right|The former canal at [[Shelton Lock, now a footpath]]

From Swarkestone the line of the canal can be followed into Derby as far as Wilmorton although the only recognisable canal features are the chambers of Fullen's and Shelton Locks and the bridges under Chellaston Road (pictured) and London Road. Route 6 of the National Cycle Network (NCN 6) follows this part of the canal.

Although traces of the canal through Derby city centre remained until well into the twentieth century (the ice factory on what was the Cockpit island drew its water from the canal), it has all been covered by development, mainly the inner ring road and Pride Parkway. New building at Pride Park has obliterated all traces of the canal in that area.

The weir built across the river to form the Derwent Basin still exists behind the Council House, downstream of the Exeter Bridge, and the timber causeway on trestles, which was used as the towpath, remained until 1959.

The A52 Brian Clough Way was built upon the canal between the Pentagon and Spondon. From Spondon the line can be traced to Sandiacre. NCN 6 uses the canal route between Borrowash and Breaston. One of the few original bridges is situated between the A6005 Derby Road and the railway at Borrowash. It is constructed of red brick with stone dressings, and is grade II listed. The lock-keepers cottage at Sandiacre Lock also dates from around the time of the opening of the canal, and although it has additional windows added in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most of it is original.

Points of interest

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

The Derby and Sandiacre Canal Society website
The Derby Canal Route map This map shows the entire original route of the Derby Canal using Satellite mapping with markers along the way indicating points of interest such as bridges and locks. Each marker has links to old and new photographs, Google Streetviews, 360-degree VR photography.
images & map of mile markers seen along the Derby & Sandiacre canal