New flood gate at St Helena’s

17th March 2017

Monday morning at St Helena’s in Chesterfield, which is where the canal (right) starts. It is fed by the River Rother (left). If you look to the extreme right, you can see a white van.

The van was by the floodgate, which is just in front of Tapton Mill Bridge – the first bridge on the canal. Derbyshire County Council were having this gate replaced by Hargreaves.
This means that DCC has had every single gate replaced on their section of the canal since 2005, this is 16 gates, plus the new ones at Staveley Town Lock. 15 of these gates have been fitted in the last six years.

The stop planks were made watertight and already the paddle gear was being dismantled.

In this view, you can see the Crooked Spire, which demonstrates just how close to the centre of Chesterfiled the canal comes.

In order to fit the new floodgate, the pound had to be drained, revealing the inevitable shopping trolley.

This is Marmalade Wharf where John Varley is usually moored.

This was the same view at our Festival last May.

The quoin – the curved stone into which the gate fits – needed repair, so a new piece was affixed to the top.

By Wednesday the new gate had been fitted.

This shows where it fits into the new quoin, held by the new anchor straps.

This is the new paddle, which is used to regulate the flow of water into the canal.

This is the paddle seen from the other side of the gate.

This chain is used to stop unauthorised people opening the gate.

Another view from under Tapton Mill Bridge. This is one of the few remaining orginal (1776) bridges and is a listed structure. It is also one of the few turnover bridges on the canal. This means that the towpath changes sides.