Canal basin with its associated culvert and canal lining at SE3930 0095

Details

This list entry was subject to a Minor Enhancement on 27/10/2020

SE 30 SE
2/115

HOYLAND NETHER
ELSECAR CANAL (east side)
Canal basin with its associated culvert and canal lining at SE3930 0095

II

Canal basin with its associated culvert and canal lining. Built circa 1798 for the Dearne and Dove Canal Company.

MATERIALS: tooled, coursed, squared stone with ashlar dressings and large, round-edged coping stones; some brickwork to the culvert; later iron railings around the basin survive only in part.

DESCRIPTION: the basin is rectangular, but with an arm extending from each corner. At the time of inspection in September 1987 it was empty of water and silted up. The basin lies parallel to the canal on its south-east side, being formerly linked via a narrow channel, spanned by a tow path bridge: the channel was infilled and the bridge removed before 1987, leaving the curved corners of the channel surmounted by monolithic coping stones exposed along with a short stretch of stone lining along the adjacent canal bank. The arms that extend from the north-west and north-east corners of the basin are parallel to the canal, those to the south-west and south-east corners are at right-angles to the canal, these latter being where barges docked for loading. At the ends of the southern two arms are paired overflow channels that are set below the coping, with rectangular sluices set at a lower level (the sluices and winding gear removed at the time of inspection in 1987). These overflow channels and sluices empty into the culverted course of the beck which runs along this side of the basin. The culvert is stone-lined, being segmentally-arched and bottomed. At its south-west end (the entrance) is a small segmental archway below a brick retaining wall, the water being channelled into this by later, stone-coped retaining walls. At the north end of the culvert (the exit) there is a large, skewed, segmental archway with rock-faced voussoirs and spandrels. The stone retaining wall above the parapet is rebuilt.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT: the Elsecar branch of the Dearne and Dove Canal, on which the basin is situated, was the first part of the Dearne and Dove Canal to be opened. It was funded by a loan from the fourth Earl Fitzwilliam (1748-1833) and opened to traffic in December 1798. From the late C18, Elsecar was the industrial village of the Earls Fitzwilliam, whose seat of Wentworth Woodhouse lies nearby. At Elsecar they invested in coal mining and iron working, erecting industrial buildings along with good quality workers’ housing and a range of other urban facilities including a church and school, all within what had been an agricultural landscape. The survival of many of these buildings makes Elsecar an important and significant place, telling the story of three centuries of coal mining, Christian paternalism, and industrial boom and decline. The canal basin was used for the shipment of coal from the adjacent Hemingfield Colliery (a Scheduled Monument) which was opened for the fifth Earl Fitzwilliam (1786-1857) in the 1840s.

Listing NGR: SE 39300 00950

The asset was previously listed twice also under List entry 1151177. This entry was removed from the List on 14 December 2016.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

334025

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Rimmer, J, Went, D, Jessop, L, The Village of Elsecar, South Yorkshire: Historic Area Assessment. Historic England Research Report 06-2019, (2019)

End of official list entry

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