Qualla: Llangollen Canal

Llangollen Canal: Introduction

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lesbardd, CC BY-SA 4.0. It was supposed to connect the Mersey to the Severn through the coal and iron districts of north-east Wales. It does no such thing. Instead, the Llangollen Canal climbs into the Welsh hills, crosses the River Dee 38 metres in the air on a cast-iron aqueduct that should not work but does, and ends at a weir at Horseshoe Falls where it draws drinking water for Crewe. The whole thing is an accident of altered plans and engineering ambition - and the part that survived is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with over 30,000 narrowboats a year drifting across the world's most famous aqueduct.

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Image: Lesbardd | CC BY-SA 4.0

Llangollen Canal: The Plan That Got Away

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit I Stockdale, Public domain. In 1791 a group of industrialists from Ruabon and Brymbo proposed a grand scheme: an Ellesmere Canal linking the Mersey at Netherpool (now Ellesmere Port) to the River Severn at Shrewsbury, with branches reaching the ironworks, coal mines and lime quarries of the borderlands. Wil...

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Image: I Stockdale | Public domain

Llangollen Canal: An Aqueduct in Iron

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Grahamec, CC BY-SA 3.0. To reach Trevor from Frankton, the canal had to cross two valleys. At Chirk it crossed the Afon Ceiriog on a 600-foot, ten-arch aqueduct opened in 1801, with a cast-iron base and masonry sides. At Pontcysyllte it had to cross the Dee itself. The committee initially planned masonr...

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Image: Grahamec | CC BY-SA 3.0

Llangollen Canal: Saved by the Water Supply

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Espresso Addict, CC BY-SA 2.0. Commercial traffic on the canal collapsed after the First World War. By 1937 traffic to Llangollen had ceased; by 1939, the eastern section to Hurleston was no longer used. The London Midland and Scottish Railway, which had inherited the system, secured a 1944 Act of Parliament t...

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Image: Espresso Addict | CC BY-SA 2.0

Llangollen Canal: World Heritage on a Narrowboat

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Photo taken by Alan Ford 2006-06-07., Public domain. The route runs forty-six miles, from Hurleston Junction in south Cheshire to the Horseshoe Falls weir at Llantysilio, passing through Ellesmere, Whixall Moss, Chirk and Pontcysyllte. In 2009 UNESCO declared the eleven-mile section from Gledrid Bridge to Horseshoe Falls a World He...

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Image: Photo taken by Alan Ford 2006-06-07. | Public domain

Llangollen Canal: What It Is Now

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Haynes, CC BY-SA 2.0. Today the canal is one of the most-cruised in Britain. Holidaymakers wait their turn at the Pontcysyllte crossing, video cameras out, gliding through air at the speed of a walking pace. The Chirk Aqueduct sits in the Ceiriog valley with a railway viaduct running parallel above it...

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Image: John Haynes | CC BY-SA 2.0