The Barnsly Canal
"The Barnsley Canal was approved by Parliament in 1793. The section between Barnsley and the Aire and Calder Navigation near Wakefield opened in 1799, with the section from Barnsley to Barnby Basin opening three years later.
It was a broad canal with 15 locks between the River Calder and the main level at Walton. A further 5 locks took the canal up to Barnby Basin, with water needing to be back-pumped up this flight, as the company was not allowed to take water from the Dearne at Barnby. The main level was supplied from Wintersett and Cold Hiendley Reservoirs.
Half a mile east of Barnsley, the canal crossed the River Dearne on a high five arch aqueduct. On the south side of this aqueduct was the junction with the Dearne and Dove Canal, which opened in 1804 and ran to the River Don Navigation at Swinton.
The colliery at Barnby ran into difficulties fairly soon after the canal opened, but the company built a tramroad from Barnby Basin to Silkstone Colliery, which produced good quality coal, helping the canal to be very successful. Barnby Colliery later re-opened and other collieries close to the canal's route through Barnsley, Monk Bretton and Royston added to the prosperity.
As a result of competition from the new railway companies, the Barnsley Canal was leased and later bought by the Aire and Calder Navigation Company, which improved the waterway and enlarged the locks, with trade picking up again for a number of years. In 1893, the section of canal above Barugh Locks was closed as most of the trade here had been lost to the railways.
Although trade on the rest of the canal continued through to World War II, the canal suffered from constant subsidence problems due to mining, with the banks needing to be built up. Subsidence caused a spectacular breach at the southern end of Barnsley Aqueduct in 1911, which closed the canal for eight months. Another huge breach occurred at Littleworth in 1946 which directly led to the canal's closure in 1953. The company had decided that it would be cheaper to compensate the canal's users than to constantly repair the canal. Barnsley Aqueduct was demolished a year later, as it was showing large cracks and a sag due to mining subsidence."
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large parts of the canal have been drained and some covered over. At this point there is water in the canal, but at a much lower level than needed for boats.
Walton Hall
Walton Hall is a stately home in the county of West Yorkshire, England, near Wakefield. It was built in the Palladian style in 1767 on an island within a 26-acre (11 ha) lake, on the site of a former moated medieval hall. It was the ancestral home of the naturalist and traveller Charles Waterton, who made Walton Hall into the world's first wildfowl and nature reserve. Waterton's son, Edmund, sold the estate.
The Waterton Collection is now in Wakefield Museum.
Walton Hall is now part of the Waterton Park Hotel. In the 1940s and again in the early 1950s and early 1960s the Hall was a maternity home."
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The Bridge
At the time the bridge was built barges on the canal were pulled by horses. This bridge is on a slight bend in the canal and the tow ropes used to catch on the side of the bridge. A metal strip on the side of the bridge protected the stone work and grooves can be seen in the metal worn by the ropes.
Because the canal has a towpath on one side the shape of the arch is elliptical.