This
section deals with the canal stretch commencing south of Doncaster Road, passing by Agbrigg and ending at Oakenshaw Lane by the Railway Viaduct in Walton.
At the northern end, towards its union with the River Calder, the canal originally followed the line of Oakenshaw Beck (the same beck also flows through what later became the Walton Colliery Nature Park), but the line of the canal was altered in 1816 and a new lock built at the junction of the canal and the river.
Signs of the canal in the Heath area, where it met the river, are now faint. Stone for the canal was quarried in Heath Common. The canal brought prosperity to the quarry owners, the Seal family, and to local traders along its route. This map of the canal from the River Calder to Oakenshaw Junction is from the Ordnance Survey 1st Edition of1841, with some later revisions to the railways to 1885.
Click on the pictures to enlarge. |