The Aire and Calder Navigation is the canalised section of the Rivers Aire and Calder in West Yorkshire, England. The first improvements to the rivers above Knottingley were completed in 1704 when the Aire was made navigable to Leeds and the Calder to Wakefield, by the construction of 16 locks. Lock sizes were increased several times, as was the depth of water, to enable larger boats to use the system. The Aire below Haddlesey was bypassed by the opening of the Selby Canal in 1778. A canal from Knottingley to the new docks and new town at Goole provided a much shorter route to the River Ouse from 1826. The New Junction Canal was constructed in 1905, to link the system to the River Don Navigation, by then part of the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation.

Steam tugs were introduced in 1831. In the 1860s, compartment boats were introduced, later called Tom Puddings, from which coal was unloaded into ships by large hydraulic hoists. This system enabled the canal to carry at its peak more than 1.5 million tons of coal per year, and was not abandoned until 1986. To handle trains of compartments, many of the locks were lengthened to .

Although much of the upper reaches are now designated as leisure routes, there is still significant commercial traffic on the navigation. 300,000 tons were carried in 2007, although most of the traffic is now petroleum and gravel, rather than the coal which kept the navigation profitable for 150 years.

Route

The Aire and Calder is a canalisation of the River Calder from Wakefield to Castleford, where it joins the branch from Leeds, which follows the River Aire. The Aire continues to flow eastwards to Bank Dole Junction, then continues in a north-easterly direction to Haddlesey, from where it follows a winding course to join the River Ouse at Airmyn. The section below Haddlesey is no longer part of the navigation, as a derelict lock blocks access to the lower river. Instead, the Selby Canal flows northwards from Haddlesey to the Ouse at Selby. Below Dole Bank Junction, the Knottingley and Goole Canal flows eastwards to join the Ouse at Goole. From just before Newbridge, where the modern A614 road crosses the waterway, this branch of the navigation runs parallel to the Dutch River, an artificial channel built in 1635 to alleviate flooding caused by Cornelius Vermuyden's original diversion of the River Don northwards to the River Aire in 1628.

The Aire and Calder still fulfils its original purpose of linking Leeds and Wakefield with York and the Humber (and thence the Trent), although the routes by which this is achieved have changed significantly. More recent canals now also make the Navigation a vital link in the English and Welsh connected inland waterway network. Beyond Leeds, the Leeds and Liverpool Canal carries boats over the Pennines. The Calder and Hebble Navigation, which connects to the Navigation at Wakefield, allows boats to reach the Huddersfield Broad and Narrow Canals, and the Rochdale Canal. The Selby Canal connects to the Ouse, from where boats can travel upstream to reach York, Boroughbridge and Ripon, or downstream to the River Derwent. Beyond Goole are the Humber and hence Hull, Immingham, and the North Sea. The Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation, which can be reached via the New Junction Canal, forms a link with Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield to the south west, and the tidal River Trent at Keadby to the east.

History

In the early 1600s, the River Aire was navigable to Knottingley, and boats carrying up to 30 tons traded on the river, which was tidal up to this point. The traders of Leeds were keen to have a navigable link to the town, to make easier the export of woollen cloth, but bills presented to Parliament in 1621 and 1625 had failed. William Pickering, who was mayor of Leeds, had made further attempts to obtain an act of Parliament for improvements to the river in 1679, again without success. As the 1600s drew to a close, a number of bills were passed for other rivers, and there was general support for river navigations. A bill was drawn up in 1698, with support from wool traders in Leeds and general merchants in Wakefield. John Hadley surveyed the Aire, and Samuel Shelton surveyed the Calder. Although the bill had a lot of support, it was opposed by the City of York, who feared that the River Ouse would be damaged by the scheme.

The parliamentary bill was hotly contested, and the House of Lords asked Trinity House to produce a report on the three rivers. This favoured the scheme, and in May 1699 the (10 Will. 3. c. 25) was granted. It named 18 undertakers, nine from the Corporation of Leeds, and nine "gentlemen of Wakefield", who would oversee the improvements to the River Aire (from the River Ouse at Airmyn via Castleford to Leeds) and the River Calder (from Castleford to Wakefield). The act gave them powers which included the creation of weirs bypassed by short "cuts" equipped with locks, the creation of a towpath, and the right to buy and demolish mills and weirs. John Hadley was engaged as the engineer immediately, and by 1704 the original work was completed, including 12 locks on the Aire between Haddesley and Leeds and 4 on the Calder. The locks were long by wide with depths over the sills.

Capital to fund the scheme had been raised separately by the Wakefield and Leeds committees. A complicated restructuring of the finances in 1721 fixed the nominal capital at £26,700. Regular dividends at 7 per cent were paid to the shareholders from 1718, and the navigation was leased to various groups, who would be responsible for collection of tolls and repairs. The lease rose from £800 in 1704 to £2,600 in 1729, when receipts from each of the previous five years had averaged £6,016. The early trade consisted mainly of woollen goods from Leeds, Wakefield, Halifax and Bradford, with wool and corn from Lincolnshire and East Anglia travelling in the opposite direction. By the 1720s there were also significant quantities of coal.

Development Some development of the navigation occurred. In 1744, the undertakers bought some land at Airmyn, and developed warehousing and wharfage there, as a more convenient point than Rawcliffe, where the water was shallower. In the 1760s, £13,000 was spent on improvements and maintenance, with several weirs being rebuilt to improve the depth of water. There was a long-running dispute with Arthur Ingram, who owned Knottingley mill, which started in 1731, and was not finally resolved until 1776, when the company bought both of Ingram's mills. Despite this, the general profitability of the navigation led the undertakers to be complacent about its development. They asked John Smeaton to suggest improvements in 1771, but the subsequent attempt to authorise such improvements was disputed in Parliament on the basis that the present navigation was totally inadequate. The recently finished Calder and Hebble Navigation proposed to build a canal from Wakefield to the Dutch River, which would bypass the Calder completely, and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal supported a Leeds to Selby canal, which would bypass the Aire. During 1772, they asked Smeaton to survey a route to avoid the lower Aire, but his assistant, William Jessop actually carried out the work. He proposed a canal from Haddlesey lock to the Ouse at Newland. With Parliament not reaching a decision, they reworked their plan, which was now for a canal from Haddlesey to Selby, with a new cut from Ferrybridge to Beal, and improvements above Castleford. In 1774 the Leeds to Selby bill was rejected by Parliament, but the Aire and Calder bill was passed as the Aire and Calder Navigation Act 1774 (14 Geo. 3. c. 96) with a few amendments.

Construction of the Selby Canal began in 1775, and it was opened on 29 April 1778. The new cut at Castleford opened in spring 1775, while those at Knostrop and Hunslet were finished in 1779. Methley cut was completed, but Woodlesford was not, as the company bought the mill there instead. All locks were replaced, and the total cost was over £60,000, of which around £20,000 was for the Selby Canal. The navigation remained profitable, paying £9,000 in dividends in 1775, which had risen to £32,000 by 1791. Most traffic now used the Selby route, and the transhipment facilities at Airmyn were closed in 1779.

Selby was the upper limit for seagoing ships at the time, and became a major transhipment port for the smaller boats using the canal. Canal boats were limited to about 60 tons, whereas ships of up to 200 tons could reach Selby. By 1800, it was handling some 369,780 tons of goods, and the support industries of ropemaking, sailmaking and shipbuilding were expanding.

Knottingley to Goole In 1817, there was a proposal for an Aire and Don Canal, to connect Knottingley to the Dutch River at Newbridge, with a branch to Doncaster, and another for a Went and Wakefield Canal, to connect Cold Hiendley on the Barnsley Canal to Newbridge on the Don. With revenue from tolls reaching £82,092 in 1818, which enabled a dividend of £54,000 to be paid, the company was in a healthy state, and proposed their own route from Haddlesey to the Dutch River. The destination was then changed to Goole, and John Rennie was asked to survey the route. Those opposing the scheme were placated by a clause which ensured the Aire to Airmyn and the Selby Canal would be maintained. In July 1821, Rennie proposed the construction of docks at Goole, rather than a lock into the river, and the company proposed that of water should be available. Rennie died in late 1821, and George Leather took over as engineer. Construction at Goole started on 28 September 1822, and the company eventually built much of the new town as well as the docks.

The canal and docks opened on 20 July 1826. A barge lock, and a ship lock, , capable of taking vessels up to 400 tons, connected the extensive docks to the Ouse. The new section was long, with locks at Ferrybridge, Whitley, Pollington and Goole. The connection to the Aire and the Selby canal was maintained by the lock at Bank Dole. Goole became an official port in 1827, when it gained its own Customs facilities. The scheme had cost £361,484, of which £221,350 had been borrowed, while the rest came from company resources.

Faced with yet another outside scheme which would bypass the navigation from Wakefield to Ferrybridge, the company looked at improvements which would give of water all the way to both Leeds and Wakefield. Thomas Telford surveyed both routes, and it became the basis for an act of Parliament, the (9 Geo. 4. c. xcviii), which was passed in June 1828. It included a clause to ensure that the Selby Canal was maintained with a depth of water of , and made provision for extensions to Goole docks. Work started on a new cut at Castleford and on the line to Leeds, but legal action over the Selby Canal meant that it had to be made deeper and wider in 1832 and 1833. The Leeds line was completed in April 1835, somewhat later than anticipated, as the banks were made more substantial, to cope with steam tugs, which would be introduced in due course. The seven locks above Castelford were all wide. Improvements to the Calder to Wakefield took longer, as there were problems with floods filling the workings, difficulty with constructing foundations for an aqueduct which would carry the navigation over the River Calder at Stanley Ferry, and then in transporting the castings for the aqueduct to the site. The cost of the improvements ran to around £510,000.

Modernisation