Llangollen Canal has 19 stone arches, each with a 45-foot (14 metre) span. Another aqueduct carries the canal over the River Ceiriog at Chirk, and there are tunnels nearby at Whitehouses, Chirk, and Ellesmere. The canal also forms the boundary on two sides of the Fenn's, Whixall and Bettisfield Mosses National Nature Reserve. In 2009 an eleven-mile section of the canal from Gledrid Bridge near Rhoswiel through to the Horseshoe Falls, which includes Chirk Aqueduct and Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO. The canal at Hurleston Junction rises from the Shropshire Union Canal main line, through four adjacent
Llangollen Canal to Llangollen thrived until the end of the First World War, after which it saw very little traffic. Navigation was formally abandoned under the terms of an Act of Abandonment obtained by the owners, the London Midland and Scottish Railway, in 1944, but the channel was retained as it still supplied water to the main line of the Shropshire Union, and subsequently to the Mid & South East Cheshire Water Board. This arrangement was due to end in 1954, but as there was no alternative supply of water, the powers were extended. Early pioneering cruises of the waterway were made