and Dove Canal from 1 January 1846, they dropped their ideas for the Barnsley Canal. The Barnsley Canal Company then tried to arrange a lease with the Aire and Calder, but negotiations foundered. A series of negotiations took place with the Yorkshire Railway Company, the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway and the Aire and Calder Navigation between 1846 and 1853. It was not until 1854 that the company finally agreed to a lease from the Aire and Calder, by which time traffic was falling rapidly. The takeover was ratified by an Act of Parliament in 1856, although the Barnsley Canal Company was not wound up, as it continued to collect the rent from the lease. By reducing tolls, the Aire and Calder managed to increase traffic from 179,295 tons in 1855 to 291,313 tons in 1863, but traffic gradually reduced after that, as railway links to the coalfields were built. The canal structures were increasingly affected by subsidence from the mining, and an inspection of the aqueduct in 1866 revealed "fissures in the rock and cracks in the arches". In 1870, Barnsley Corporation ordered the canal company to stop extracting water from the River Dearne, as they needed the supply. Faced with a dilemma, the Barnsley and the Aire and Calder companies negotiated, and the result was the Barnsley Canal Transfer Act of 1871, which authorised the takeover of the canal by the Aire and Calder, the replacing of ten of the twelve Walton locks by an inclined plane, and protection of the water supply at Barugh. The locks below Cold Hiendley were lengthened from to between 1879 and 1881, but by this time there was little traffic on the upper section. The final section to Barnby, including the five locks at Barugh were abandoned under the terms of the Aire and Calder Act 1893. Powers to build the inclined plane were renewed in 1889, but no construction took place. Despite railway competition, the canal still carried in excess of 200,000 tons per year between 1885 and 1909. Decline A major breach of the canal occurred on 20 November 1911, when subsidence caused part of the aqueduct and the adjacent embankment to fail. Repairs were not completed until 10 July 1912, when the canal was reopened. The canal had to close for four months at the end of 1922 due to drought conditions. In 1934, the County Council installed an