Caldon Canal

History

The Caldon Canal was built as a branch of the Trent and Mersey Canal to carry limestone from the quarries at Cauldon Low to the Potteries and the industrial Midlands, with a tramway from the quarries to the canal at Froghall. Canal & River Trust says it opened in 1779; the Caldon and Uttoxeter Canals Trust's chronology gives 1778. Acts of 1797 then allowed a branch to Leek, with Rudyard Lake as its reservoir, and an extension to Uttoxeter. The Leek branch opened in 1801. The Uttoxeter branch lasted only until the 1840s, when it was closed and a railway was built in its place; the North Staffordshire Railway took over the canal in 1847.

Freight left the canal for the parallel railway, traffic had virtually ceased by the 1950s, and by the 1960s the canal was almost unnavigable. It was classed as a remainder waterway in 1968, which meant British Waterways did not have to keep it navigable but would not close it. Local councils and the British Waterways Board then agreed to restore it, and it was reopened to navigation on 28 September 1974, at a cost of £100,000. On the Stoke section narrowboats carried pottery between parts of a factory until the 1990s.

The first lock and basin of the Uttoxeter branch at Froghall were restored and reopened in 2005. The Caldon and Uttoxeter Canals Trust, a local group, works to preserve and restore both waterways.