Description: This location marks the westernmost extent of the Chesterfield Canal, a little to the south of Tapton Mill Bridge. At this point the Canal merged with the River Rother, which it then utilised for a further half mile in order to reach Chesterfield proper. The photographer is here looking north with the Canal and towpath to the right and the river to the left. After a short distance the latter drops to a lower level via a weir.
The Canal opened in 1777 and connected Chesterfield with the River Trent at West Stockwith via Worksop and Retford, a distance of 46 miles. The section from Chesterfield towards Worksop saw little or no use after the closure of the narrow and lengthy Norwood Tunnel on the Canal's summit level in 1908 (as a result of damage from mining subsidence) but the Chesterfield Canal Trust has plans to reinstate navigation along the Rother from Tapton Mill Bridge to a new basin on the north side of Chesterfield.