It runs 3.9 miles (6.3 km) from Tinsley, where it leaves the River Don, to the Sheffield Canal Basin (now Victoria Quays) in the city centre, passing through 11 locks.

In medieval times, the goods from Sheffield had to be transported overland to the nearest inland port – Bawtry on the River Idle.

Proposals to link Sheffield to the navigable Don at Tinsley (and so to the Rivers Ouse and Trent, and to the Humber and the North Sea) were made as early as 1697, but these came to nothing.

The first moves to make a navigable connection to the city took place on 4 July 1792, when a public meeting was held at the Cutlers Hall.

Meanwhile, the Dearne and Dove Canal project was underway, and doubts were expressed about the needs to serve a mining area once that came online.

A public meeting held on 15 January 1793 adopted the idea, including a separate subscription for the Eckington Branch, and the engineer Benjamin Outram was asked to produce a report.

[3] Outram proposed a 12.75-mile (20.52 km) canal build on one level from the Eckington to Beighton Road to near the hospital in Sheffield, passing through Attercliffe on its route.

While they considered this, and the need for back pumping because of the lack of a water supply, the Cutlers Company asked William Dunn to survey a line from Sheffield to Tinsley, which he did in early 1802.

The Don Navigation were surprised by this action, and decided to oppose it, on the grounds that they would suffer loss as a result of it, but the Cutlers Company thought they would gain from it, and refused to make an offer.

[5] The Cutlers Company took the initiative again in 1813, when they asked William Chapman to survey lines between Sheffield and Rotherham, both to the north and to the south of the Don.

Chapman preferred the northern route, and the Cutlers asked the Don Navigation if they wanted to build this canal, but the shareholders declined.

[6] They told the Cutlers that if they built their canal, the Don Navigation would want compensation, and to be released from their obligation to maintain the road from Tinsley into Sheffield.

The alternative route was on the south side of the Don Valley, to terminate at a basin on the site of the former orchards of Sheffield Castle.

[9] The foundation stone of the canal basin was laid by Hugh Parker of Woodthorpe Hall on 16 June 1816 and all was ready for opening less than three years later.

When it opened on 22 February 1819[8] a general holiday was called and crowds of spectators, reportedly 60,000, gathered to watch the first boats, a flotilla of 10 arrive from Tinsley.

Only five years on and the first major change came about when William Cobby offered water transport from London to Hull and Selby with onward forwarding to Sheffield by rail.

After the war, in October 1918, the city council and local business met and decided to press the government to nationalise the canals and pay the costs of repairs.

The city council was unwilling to go ahead with these works without government backing which was not forthcoming, however in 1925 a new grain silo was erected alongside the canal by, and for the use of Samuel Smith (Sheffield) Limited, based on Carlisle Street.