Still, the owning company needed to raise more money to upgrade the River Don Navigation beyond, and the Long Sandall lock prevented the working of such boats through to Doncaster until it was rebuilt in 1959.

A committee was appointed, which met on 20 August and decided that a new independent canal was needed to connect Sheffield, Rotherham, and Doncaster to the sea to maintain the profitability of the local coalfields.

Believing that such locks could be built without disrupting traffic, the estimated costs of the works were £1 million, in addition to which the existing waterways would need to be acquired.

The Sheffield and South Yorkshire Canal Company Ltd was registered on 15 November 1888 to obtain an act of Parliament to authorise this work.

[2] By this stage, the plan was to enlarge the waterways to enable 300 or 400-ton barges to navigate and make the locks suitable for compartment boat trains, as used on the Aire and Calder.

The Aire and Calder, meanwhile, had not started to build the New Junction Canal, but they had extended the time allowed to purchase land for its construction through another Act of Parliament.

[4] The new company struggled to raise the finance for the New Junction construction and for the River Don Navigation improvements to allow larger boats to use it.

The canal was completed on 2 January 1905, at a total cost of £300,000, shared between the Sheffield and South Yorkshire and the Aire and Calder companies.

Traffic to Hatfield Main colliery was improved between 1930 and 1932 when Bramwith lock, the first on the Stainforth and Keady Canal, was lengthened to allow compartment boats from the New Junction to reach it.

Long Sandall lock was lengthened and widened to 215 by 22 feet (65.5 by 6.7 m) in 1959, enabling compartment boats to work through to Doncaster and Hexthorpe without having to be split for the first time.

Both ends of the aqueduct are protected by large guillotine gates,[10] which are there to prevent the river overflowing the canal when it is in spate, and flooding the surrounding countryside.