Canal basin with its associated culvert and canal lining at SE3930 0095

Canal basin with its associated culvert and canal lining, built circa 1798 for the Dearne and Dove Canal Company.

The basin is rectangular with an arm extending from each corner. The basin lies parallel to the canal on its south-east side. It was formerly linked to the canal via a narrow channel spanned by a tow path bridge; this channel was infilled and the bridge removed before 1987, leaving the curved corners of the channel surmounted by monolithic coping stones exposed along with a short stretch of stone lining along the adjacent canal bank. The arms extending from the north-west and north-east corners of the basin are parallel to the canal, while those from the south-west and south-east corners are at right-angles to the canal, serving as docking points for barges during loading. At the ends of the southern two arms are paired overflow channels set below the coping, with rectangular sluices at a lower level; these overflow channels and sluices empty into the culverted course of the beck running along this side of the basin.

The materials are tooled, coursed, squared stone with ashlar dressings and large, round-edged coping stones; some brickwork is present in the culvert, and later iron railings around the basin survive only in part.

The culvert is stone-lined with a segmental arch and bottom. At its south-west end (the entrance) is a small segmental archway below a brick retaining wall, with water channelled in by later, stone-coped retaining walls. At the north end (the exit) is a large, skewed, segmental archway with rock-faced voussoirs and spandrels. The stone retaining wall above the parapet is rebuilt.

The Elsecar branch of the Dearne and Dove Canal, on which the basin is situated, was the first part of the canal to be opened. It was funded by a loan from the fourth Earl Fitzwilliam and opened to traffic in December 1798. From the late 18th century, Elsecar became the industrial village of the Earls Fitzwilliam, whose seat at Wentworth Woodhouse lies nearby. The Earls invested in coal mining and iron working, erecting industrial buildings alongside quality workers' housing and urban facilities including a church and school within what had been agricultural landscape. The canal basin was used for shipment of coal from the adjacent Hemingfield Colliery, a Scheduled Monument, which was opened for the fifth Earl Fitzwilliam in the 1840s.