Subsequently, the main use of the Chesterfield end was the supply of water to the iron industry, while commercial carrying continued on the Worksop to West Stockwith section until the late 1950s.

In 1769, a steering group produced a pamphlet extolling the advantages of a proposed canal, which was available to everyone, but was primarily addressed to the Duke of Newcastle, Lord George Augustus Cavendish, and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Derbyshire, Godfrey Bagnall Clarke.

They were incorporated by the name of The Company of Proprietors of the Canal Navigation from Chesterfield to the River Trent, and empowered to raise among themselves the sum of £100,000, in one thousand shares of £100 each, to fund the construction.

Upon his death in September 1772, John Varley moved from Clerk of Works to Resident Engineer with Hugh Henshall, Brindley's brother-in-law, appointed in a consultative capacity.

[11] The canal was opened throughout on 4 June 1777, with the lock into the River Trent at West Stockwith completed in the autumn,[12] but the only record of wide-beamed boats using it at Retford is prior to 1799.

In late 1775, the company had decided to build a branch, which left the canal between Renishaw and Staveley, and ran generally southwards for about 1 mile (1.6 km) to the turnpike road at Norbriggs.

c. ciii) was obtained which allowed them to divert parts of the canal to enable a new railway connecting Chesterfield, Staveley and Beighton to be constructed.

Responsibility for the canal passed to the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) in 1923, who carried out regular maintenance, and repaired and enlarged the lock connecting West Stockwith basin to the River Trent between 1923 and 1925.

Various attempts to reduce the growth of weed, which had first appeared on the canal in 1852, were made, with variable success, and there was a brisk trade in munitions during the Second World War.

Clarke formed the Retford and Worksop (Chesterfield Canal) Boat Club soon afterwards, and it became a limited company in 1966, to cope with the growing membership.

Government policy changed following the publication of a White Paper entitled British Waterways: Recreation and Amenity in September 1967, and the canal was classified as a cruiseway between the Trent and Morse Lock, Worksop under the Transport Act 1968, meaning that it would be maintained to a navigable standard for leisure use.

[36] The complete project cost £19 million, which included an extra £971,000 received from the Heritage Lottery Fund,[37] to allow detailed archaeological investigation of the Thorpe and Turnerwood lock flights to be undertaken.

However, in practice progress had been slow, and attention turned to the section west of Norwood Tunnel, where much more damage had been done to the canal bed, with it being filled in and built over in many places.

[40] The last few miles of the canal, from Chesterfield to Staveley, were in reasonable condition, although the towpath was overgrown and difficult to access, while much of the route was under threat from opencast coal mining and a planned bypass, which had first been proposed in 1927.

Regular work parties began the process of restoration in 1988, organised by the Chesterfield Canal Society, and supplemented by volunteers from the Waterway Recovery Group periodically.

Derbyshire County Council acquired the section of canal between Chesterfield and Staveley and secured derelict land grants to enable dredging and towpath maintenance to take place.

[41] In a separate development, a private owner of a length of the canal near Boiley Farm, Killamarsh, obtained a Derelict Land Grant to enable him to restore around 550 yards (500 m) of the channel in 1992.

[49] The next big advance was the opening of some 660 yards (600 m) of canal beyond Mill Green Bridge, and the construction of a new mooring basin at Staveley, which was completed in early 2012.

A combination of the subsidence, and the use of a deep ballast base to enable tracks to be carried straight over any new bridge has reduced the available headroom by 7 feet 5 inches (2.25 m).

However, once the festival was over, a clay bund had been reinstated above the lock by 16 June, and the pound below it drained, in order to allow work to continue on the weir and spillway which carries excess water back to the River Rother.

Although the track on the mineral line has been removed, its route may be reused to provide access to a maintenance depot, for the High Speed 2 (HS2) railway project.

[55] The basin was completed and was opened in October 2009, although it remains isolated from the River Rother, to which it will be connected by a lock, while a back-pumping facility will supply it with water.

[57] With the canal open from West Stockwith to the eastern portal of Norwood Tunnel, and from Chesterfield to Staveley, there were less than 9 miles (14 km) left to be restored by 2017.

Whereas most of the work so far had involved restoration of the existing channel, this section includes some significant engineering challenges, with completely new construction needed to bypass the housing estate in Killamarsh, built over the original line in the 1970s, and the replacement of Norwood Tunnel with an alternative route.

The engineers Arup considered options for this section in 2007, proposing a route running largely on the surface, and crossing the site of the Kiveton Park Colliery, which closed in 1994.

[65] Planning permission was then granted for the reinstatement from Staveley to Renishaw, including Brindley's Puddle Bank which carries the canal across the valley of the River Doe Lea.

At Renishaw, 0.5 miles (0.8 km) of canal were restored in 2010 but have since become derelict again, due to a failure to reach agreement with the Environment Agency over water supplies.

[68] Delays and escalating costs mean that the Staveley Town Deal award will no longer cover the full restoration of the puddle bank, but on 25 October 2024, a new bridge carrying the Trans Pennine Trail over the route of the canal was installed.

[69] What are often called "traditional" working narrowboats were the product of the main canal system – but the craft that plied the 46 miles between Chesterfield, Retford, and the River Trent were very different.

Investigation revealed that the plug was an original engineering feature of the canal, having been installed to allow sections to be drained for future maintenance purposes.