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 Canal the level of the canal by . After another mile (1.6 km), there is a lift bridge just before the entrance to the Whitchurch Arm, which served the town of Whitchurch. Part of it remains open, and is used for moorings. The section from the main line to Sherryman's Bridge was opened on 6 July 1808, and in 1811 a further extension into the town reached Castle Well. The arm remained closed when the canal reopened in the 1950s, but Whitchurch Town Council looked at ways of bringing boats back into the town in the early 1980s and the embryonic