The Stainforth and Keadby Canal is a navigable canal in South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, England. It connects the River Don Navigation at Bramwith to the River Trent at Keadby, by way of Stainforth, Thorne and Ealand, near Crowle. Describing incorporation of the Stainforth and Keadby Canal It opened in 1802, passed into the control of the River Don Navigation in 1849, and within a year was controlled by the first of several railway companies. It became part of the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation, an attempt to remove several canals from railway control, in 1895. There were plans to upgrade it to take larger barges and to improve the port facilities at Keadby, but the completion of the New Junction Canal in 1905 made this unnecessary, as Goole could easily be reached and was already a thriving port.
The canal was a centre for boatbuilding between 1858, when Richard Dunston moved his yard to Thorne from Torksey, and 1984 when the yard closed. Dunston's company were pioneers in the use of welded construction and innovative tug propulsion systems. The operation was always restricted by the size of Keadby Lock, although vessels longer than the lock could pass through when the river was level with the canal and both sets of gates could be opened. The largest ship to be built required Dunston's to build a dam across the canal, as the canal company feared that it might get stuck in the lock, resulting in flooding and draining of the canal.
The canal passes through a region which is largely rural, much of which is drained artificially. For most of its length, it is flanked by the North Soak Drain and the South Soak Drain, because it disrupted the established drainage scheme. Thorne Moors lie to the north and Hatfield Chase lies to the south. Until its demise in 1966, the canal was crossed by the Axholme Joint Railway at Ealand. The swing bridge was retained for several years after closure, so that stators from the nearby Keadby Power Station could be taken away for repairs, as there were no road bridges which could support the weight.
History The River Don, which flows through Sheffield and Doncaster, had originally split into two channels below Stainforth, one of which emptied into the River Trent near Adlingfleet, close to its junction with the River Ouse, while the other headed north to join the River Aire near Rawcliffe. Following the work of the Dutch drainage engineer Cornelius Vermuyden to drain Hatfield Chase, the Adlingfleet outlet was closed off, and the channel to the River Aire, passing through Newbridge, was improved to take all of the flow. The scheme was not entirely successful, and after severe flooding near Sykehouse, Fishlake and Snaith, accompanied by riots, a new channel was cut between Newbridge and the River Ouse near what became Goole. The old course of the Don gradually silted up. Navigation on the Don was improved by the construction of cuts and locks, with the lowest lock situated at Stainforth. From there to the Ouse, boats used the Dutch River, Vermuyden's artificial drain, which was hazardous due to its fast flows, its tides and its shallowness at times.
The idea of reconnecting the Don to the Trent was first raised in 1763, when James Brindley assisted the manager of the River Don Navigation to survey a route for a canal to do this. In 1772 a second survey was made, this time by John Thompson, the Don Navigation's engineer, for a canal from Stainforth to Althorpe, some above Keadby on the River Trent. An agreement to build the canal, which would have had three locks and cost £14,614, was reached, but no further action occurred. The plan was revived in 1792, by which time the cost had risen to £24,200, and an act of Parliament to authorise the work, the (33 Geo. 3. c. 117), was obtained. This allowed the Stainforth and Keadby Canal Navigation Company to raise £24,200 by issuing shares, and a further £12,000 if necessary. Work began at the Keadby end in late 1793. A second act of Parliament, the (38 Geo. 3. c. xlvii), allowed the company to raise an additional £20,000 from shareholders, instead of the original £12,000, and to raise £10,000 by mortgage. The canal opened without ceremony in early 1802.
The canal had a lock at Thorne and another where it joined the River Trent at Keadby. This lock had four sets of gates, so that it could be used whether the level of the river was higher or lower than that of the canal. It could take keels up to , which could carry up to 200 tons.
Development
In 1828, there was a proposal to build a canal from West Stockwith on the River Trent to the River Don at Doncaster, which would have bypassed the Stainforth and Keadby. There was also a plan for a lower Don bypass, to connect direct to the Goole Canal, avoiding the difficult Dutch River. Neither scheme progressed any further, but the Keadby end of the canal was improved, and a new deep water jetty was constructed on the Trent in 1833. Traffic improved, with boats using the canal as an easier way to reach the Don than the Dutch River. The Don Navigation Company then proposed a new canal from Stainforth to the River Ouse at Swinefleet in 1836. They needed to buy of the Stainforth and Keadby from the Don towards Stainforth, and started to negotiate, while applying for an act of Parliament. The Stainforth and Keadby opposed the bill, and an agreement was reached in May 1836 that the Don would buy the whole canal for £48,000. A bill to authorise the sale was opposed by some of the Stainforth and Keadby shareholders and was rejected by the House of Lords. After several more abortive plans at amalgamation, where the Stainforth and Keadby pulled out at the last minute, agreement was finally reached, and the Don Navigation took control of the canal on 1 January 1849. A year later, under the (12 & 13 Vict. c. xxix), it became part of the South Yorkshire Railway and River Dun Company, after the Don Navigation and the Doncaster and Goole Railway companies merged.
Under the terms of the South Yorkshire Railway and River Dun Company's Vesting Act 1874 (37 & 38 Vict. c.cxxxi), the South Yorkshire company was absorbed into the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway. Despite the railway competition, traffic levels remained healthy, with the waterways carrying a total of 982,000 tons in 1878, but there was a growing dissatisfaction with the situation, particularly the high tolls compared to the railways, and the refusal to allow steam haulage, which had been in use on the neighbouring Aire and Calder Navigation for over 50 years. In an attempt to improve the situation, the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Canal Company Ltd was formed in 1888, with the intention of buying back the canals from the railway company, and upgrading them to offer effective competition to the railways. As a result of their efforts, the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation Company was created by an act of Parliament, the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation Act 1889 (52 & 53 Vict. c. cxc), dated 26 August 1889, with powers to raise £1.5 million to purchase and improve four canals. These were the Sheffield Canal, the River Don Navigation, the Dearne and Dove Canal and the Stainforth and Keadby Canal. The intention was to upgrade the Don and the Stainforth and Keadby to take 300 or 400 ton barges, to investigate the use of compartment boats, and to build a new port facility at Keadby, where coal could be trans-shipped to seagoing vessels. Negotiations with the railway company were long and bitter, and the Navigation company only managed to raise £625,000 of the £1.14 million purchase price, with the result that although ownership of the waterways was transferred to them, the railway company still nominated five of the ten directors, and thus retained significant control.
During the protracted negotiations, the company had also been talking to the Aire and Calder about compartment boats, which resulted in a proposal to jointly fund and build a canal from Bramwith to the Aire and Calder. The New Junction Canal was authorised in 1891, and finally opened in 1905. This removed the need to build a new port at Keadby, and the planned upgrade to take larger vessels was also shelved, because the company were unable to raise significant working capital. Despite the lack of investment and the difficulties of the First World War, the waterways were still quite busy, with traffic recovering from 381,727 tons in 1926, the year of the general strike, to over 800,000 tons in 1937. Bramwith lock, the first on the Stainforth and Keadby, was lengthened in 1932, and a new colliery layby was constructed to enable compartment boats to reach Hatfield Main Colliery. Stainforth lock, which connected the canal to the River Don, was closed in 1939. The winter of 1947 was particularly severe, and the Stainforth and Keadby was closed for a period due to ice. After the Second World War, the canals of the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation were nationalised on 1 January 1948, together with most other operational canals in Britain.
They were initially managed by the British Transport Commission, but control passed to British Waterways with the passing of the Transport Act 1962, which also disbanded the Transport Commission. The Transport Act 1968 and Transport Act 1983 divided British canals into Commercial waterways, which were still carrying commercial traffic, cruising waterways, which had potential for leisure use, and remainder waterways, for which no economic use could be seen at the time. The Stainforth and Keadby was designated as a commercial waterway, and traffic was restricted to working boats carrying freight. With the steady demise of freight traffic, British Waterways encouraged the use of the canals for leisure cruising, walking and fishing, and later recognised their environmental value. Following the cessation of coal carrying from Hatfield Main colliery, and the closure of Dunston's boatyard at Thorne, all use of the canal is now by leisure boaters. A further change of ownership took place in 2012 with the creation of the Canal & River Trust, which took over all of the assets of British Waterways.
Boatbuilding Large numbers of boats were built beside the Stainforth and Keadby Canal. Richard Dunston set up a boatyard at Thorne, on the north bank just below the lock, in 1858, after selling his previous boatyard at Torksey. He initially constructed clinker-built sailing barges, capable of carrying up to 80 tons. The boatyard was fairly self-contained, using timber which was grown locally and was sawn by hand at the yard. It included a ropewalk, which made ropes for many industries in the locality, as well as for rigging of the boats, and supplied sails, masts and chandlery to much of the Humber region. Gradually, carvel-built barges with their smoother hulls replaced clinker-built ones, and boat sizes became more standard, with Sheffield-sized keels and larger sloops. Shortly after Richard's grandson took over the yard in 1910, it was remodelled to build iron and steel ships, and only one wooden boat was built subsequently.