Greasbrough Canal - Operation and Demise

Operation and Demise

Traffic figures for 1834 included 10,452 tons of coal, which originated from Earl Fitzwilliam's colliery at Park Gate, and passed on to the Sheffield Canal. A system of containers was used, where coal was loaded into them in the colliery, and they were then loaded into boats, which could hold around 30 tons. A horse was used to work a train of three such boats. The demise of the canal was rapid, as the Sheffield and Rotherham Railway obtained an act of Parliament in 1836 which allowed them to build a branch to the canal. The branch was completed and opened on 7 August 1839, linking the Sheffield and Rotherham main line at Holmes to the tramways serving the canal. This made it possible to transport Earl Fitzwilliam's coal to Sheffield without the use of the canal system, thus breaking the near monopoly of the Duke of Norfolk in the supply of coal to Sheffield. The tramroads feeding the upper canal were disused by 1840, and much of the main line of the canal was built over to form what is known as the Coach Road soon afterwards. The Newbiggin Colliery branch closed in the late nineteenth century, whilst the lower portion, which still exists, was not used by commercial traffic after the end of the First World War. The last boat to use it is thought to be a barge owned by Waddington's, which used the dry dock at Park Gate in 1928.

The entry to the canal, after the construction of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway line from Mexborough to Rotherham in the 1860s, was controlled initially by a flagman and later by a small almost square hipped roof signal box, named Parkgate, which was itself replaced in the first decade of the 20th century by a new box a short distance further west named Rotherham Road.