Llangollen route 418, offering journeys to Wrexham and to London via Shrewsbury, Telford and Birmingham. The Ellesmere Canal was intended to connect the coal mines and ironworks at Ruabon and Wrexham to the canal network and thence to the sea via the River Mersey and the River Severn. The plans were altered, and instead of connecting Trevor northwards to the sea via the River Dee and southwards to the Severn, the canal ran eastwards to join the national network at Hurleston Junction on the Shropshire Union Canal near Nantwich. A feeder canal, navigable to Llangollen, was constructed from Trevor to tap
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