Ellesmere Canal from Hurleston to Llangollen was retained as a water feeder for the Shropshire Union Canal main line and for drinking water. In 1955 an agreement with the Mid & South East Cheshire Water Board secured the canal's future. Despite the formal closure, increasing popularity of the canal with pleasure boats led to its acceptance as an important amenity, and the rebranding as the Llangollen Canal. As the canal was never intended to go to Llangollen, this renaming is an ironic twist symbolic of the canal's convoluted development. The Ellesmere Canal south of Frankton Junction (the Llanymynech Branch) nowadays forms part
Llangollen 1201, under the patronage of Madog ap Gruffydd Maelor of Castell Dinas Brân. The bridge at Llangollen was built across the Dee in the 16th century to replace a previous bridge built in about 1345 by John Trevor, of Trevor Hall (later Bishop of St Asaph), which replaced an even earlier bridge built in the reign of King Henry I. In the 1860s the present bridge was extended by adding an extra arch (to cross the new railway) and a two-storey stone tower with a castellated parapet. This became a café before being demolished in the 1930s to improve traffic