The Dearne and Dove Canal ran for almost ten miles through South Yorkshire, England from Swinton to Barnsley through nineteen locks, rising 127 feet (39 m).

[1] The canal was created mainly to carry cargo from the extensive coal mining industry in the area.

A combination of railway competition and subsidence caused by the same mines it served forced the canal into a gradual decline, closing completely in 1961.

The act created the Dearne and Dove Canal Company, consisting of 211 people, and allowed them to raise £60,000 by issuing shares, and a further £30,000 by mortgage if required.

[5] Robert Mylne was named as chief engineer on the project, and appears to have made the initial survey and given evidence to Parliament in support of the bill.

[7] The canal was shut briefly in the summers of 1805 and 1806 due to a shortage of water, but was initially successful and by 1830 it was carrying 181,000 tons of coal a year.

[1] In the early 1820s, several proposals were made to build additional tramroads and reservoirs, but the plans were opposed by the Barnsley Canal and the Aire and Calder.

Plans for an additional reservoir at Wentworth Castle, above the Worsbrough reservoir, were opposed in the House of Lords, unless the company would release its exclusive rights to build tramways from the canal to local collieries, and the bill was withdrawn, rather than agree to a clause which would have broken their monopoly on the coal reserves near to the canal.

A decision was taken instead to raise the level of the Worsbrough reservoir by 4.5 feet (1.4 m), thereby increasing the surface area to 62 acres (25 ha), and this was completed in 1826.

[8] The North Midland Railway, running from Leeds to Derby, opened in 1840 and this represented a major threat to the domination of the coal trade by all the South Yorkshire navigations.

Tolls were reduced by 60 per cent in 1846, with free passage for empty boats from 1847, with the result that much of the coal traffic which had previously used the Barnsley Canal now used the Dearne and Dove.

allowed them to amalgamate with the Don Navigation Company, and hence the Dearne and Dove, once they had raised half of their authorised capital.

While the takeover was beneficial to traffic on parts of the Don Navigation, tonnage carried on the Dearne and Dove fell.

The Dearne and Dove was the least profitable part of the system, with high maintenance costs as a result of subsidence from the coal mining.

The last boat traversed the central section of the main line in 1934, although an abandonment order for the canal was not obtained, as the company expected opposition to such a bill.

Traffic from the Manvers Main colliery ended in 1952,[17] and despite vigorous campaigning for the reinstatement of the canal by the Inland Waterways Association and the Inland Waterways Protection Society in the late 1950s,[18] the canal was finally closed in 1961, under the terms of the British Transport Commission Act 1961 (9 & 10 Eliz.

Since the late 1980s the group has been active in trying to protect the remaining canal bed from obstruction through the local planning process.

In parts of the main line problems of obstruction and poor maintenance means that alternative routes have been suggested.

This is particularly acute in Wath-upon-Dearne, Wombwell and Stairfoot where road improvement and land-reclamation schemes have utilised and obliterated several miles of the former canal bed.

Parts of the towpath form sections of the Trans Pennine Trail, a long-distance footpath that connects Liverpool, Leeds, Hull and Chesterfield.

The canal then passed Wombwell to the north of the town centre, and Aldham before arriving at the eight locks of the Stairfoot flight.

In August 2004, a professional engineering company was commissioned to conduct a feasibility study of restoration options, and presented its findings in November 2006.

Its members include:- Download coordinates as: Media related to Dearne and Dove Canal at Wikimedia Commons