www.hypnosis-sheffield.com

This is my journey along the canal from West Stockwith to Chesterfield.    

Drakeholes tunnel

Starting at West Stockwith where the canal enters the river Trent there are quite a few nice restaurants.   There is also a canal Marina at this point.   It is quite nice to walk along the River Trent and I have sat beside the river at this point painting the Church on the other side of the river.    

If we move further along the canal we arrive at a lovely stretch of the canal called Drakeholes.      

 There is a lovely pub called the White Swan, where you can have a really nice carvery lunch, then once your meal has settled there is a really nice stretch of the canal to walk down.   I am sure that when I walked down the canal at this point I have stumbled across a quaint village and country house, but I will have to go back and get more details on it.    You can either sit inside the pub or outside admiring the view, or down by the side of the canal, where there is a tunnel entrance.   I first stumbled across this stretch of the canal in the early 1980′s, when a friend took me to see his boat on the canal and this is only the stretch of the canal I can remember actually travelling on the water.  

White Swan

The canal from Worksop to Retford has been open for as long as I can remember.    I have parked outside Retford a number of times and walked down the canal into the Town Centre.    

One day I tried to cycle from my house at Anston to Drakeholes down the canal, but when I arrived in the  middle of Worksop, the canal went from being a gravel track to a grass path, which made it hard work and I only got as far as the Chequers pub at Ranby, where I had a lunchtime meal.    

I know the canal best from Kiveton to Worksop and often cycle down to Worksop from my entry point at South Anston.     

South Anston access point in the summer.

The canal from Kiveton to Worksop has been completed for about the last ten years and is easy to cycle on.  I can usually get from my home at Anston to Worksop in about 3/4′s of an hour on my bike.    

It is quite nice to sit beside the canal at Shireoaks, where you will find a little cafe and village shop.  There is also a station at Shireoaks, with an hourly service from Sheffield or you can come in from the Retford end as well.  A very nice spot to have a picnic.    

If you travel further down the canal you arrive at Turners Wood, which has a boats turning circle and a row of old    

Turner Wood in the winter

fashioned cottages.   Another excellent place to stop and have a picnic and you will find a little cafe where you can purchase drinks and ice creams from Dianne.  There are also a pair of swans at this point.    

There is then a series of locks on the canal as it starts to rise up.   And you find a cottage on your right and side, with a pair of geese.  At some point there is an overflow of the canal, which you have to cross by a foot bridge, but in the summer the canal stops overflowing and it isn’t always necessary to use the bridge.    

On the right hand side of the canal as you are walking along, you will see  a building in the tree.  This was the Harry Croft mine.  I understand it was a faulty seam and only ever used as a ventilation shaft for Shireoaks colliery.    

A bit further along you can access the canal from South Anston.   The canal becomes   

Cafe at Turner Wood

very flat at this point until you get to Kiveton Park, which is another place to access the canal via train.  There is also the Station hotel, where you can have a meal or drink, which has just under gone refurbishment.    

It is about a mile from here to the Norwood Tunnel, where the refurbishment of the canal stops.  The Norwood Tunnel has been bricked up and in future you will have to follow signs for the Cuckoo way, you may need a guide if you haven’t been along this part of the canal before or you may get lost.   Just before you arrive at Norwood Tunnel, you    

Kiveton top up point.

will see a major top up point for the canal, where water cascades down from the river above.    

I understand that part of the Norwood tunnel will be reopened, then a viaduct will be cut through the old pit site.  The existing fishing ponds will be turned into the Marina and moved.   The canal will then drop under the M1 in an existing viaduct.   From the pit site down to the other end of the Norwood tunnel is quite a drop and I think there will be a series of locks to allow this to happen, before the canal drops into Rothervalley Park and picks up the canal again.    

Once you get to the canal at the Norwood Tunnel.   You have to follow a footpath over some land that is quite boggy in 

Kiveton canal festival last year

places and you will find quite a few wild ponies.   Eventually you will arrive at the main road between Harthill and Kiveton, which you will need to cross with care.   Then follow the footpaths across the pit site.   At some stage you turn left and follow footpaths across fields, before you go beneath the M1, eventually you come to a wood.      

 There you will find the other end of the Norwood Tunnel and a number of Lilly ponds, which are now a feature of somebody’s gardens.   There is then a series of locks that need an awful lot of work doing to them, if the canal is to follow this path again.   A number of expensive houses have been built at this point and the path becomes a driveway down to the main road, between Kiveton and Killamarsh.   At this point you will find the Angel pub.    

You can follow the canal again on the other side of the road, but it is very overgrown and nothing more than a dyke with water in it.  Eventually you will come to Killamarsh Greenway.   At Killamarsh houses were built across the old canal route, in the early 1970′s when the waterways sold off this stretch of the canal.   The Greenway is a path come cycle track through the housing estate.    

Trans pennine trail

It is quite easy to follow the canal from this point.  It takes quite a long time before you pick up the canal again.   At some point you will find a number of fishing ponds, that have been created out of the canal.   After this point you see traces of the canal, which is either a dyke in the floor or nothing at all.   From the Killamarsh Greenway you can either follow what is left of the old canal or travel along the Transpennine trail which is much easier.    

Eventually you will arrive at Renishaw, where there is a little work being done to reopen the canal, but then the canal disappears again.   At this point the canal seems to disappear completely and all I seemed to do was walk across fields with footpaths on them.   You wouldn’t have ever believed a canal existed.  Closing the gap has an    

As bad as it gets.

awful lot of work to do.   As I was arriving at Staveley I got a little lost and ended up turning back when I arrived at Masten Moor.    

I understand that when I get to Staveley that there has been some further restoration work done on the canal.  I know very little about the canal from Staveley to Chesterfield, but will add information as I investigate further.  I think I will park my car at Killamarsh and have another go using my mountain bike and see if I can get into Staveley next time.    

To open the remaining part of the canal is going to be quite a challenge.   When the canal was restored between Worksop and Kiveton, there was a dyke with water in that looked like a canal.  From Kiveton to Staveley, there is very little resemblance of a canal at all.    

I will keep adding picture and content to this blog, as I investigate the Chesterfield canal further and the closing the gap work progresses.    

Until next time.    

Best regards    

Tim    

2 Responses to “Chesterfield canal to West Stockwith closing the gap part 1”