Having conducted the survey and steered the bill through Parliament, Telford does not appear to have been involved in the construction of the canal. Tenders received for the work varied wildly in price, and he chose those that he thought best, as well as contributing £1000, but after that, the civil engineering was managed by William Crosley, a job which he carried out to a high standard. He had previously been working on the northern end of the Lancaster Canal, but resigned from that post to work on the Macclesfield Canal. Construction of the canal began at Bollington on 4 December 1826, with a ceremonial cutting of the first sod. The northern section from Bosley Locks to Marple was awarded as five separate contracts, and work progressed steadily. The Trent and Mersey Canal had managed to get a clause inserted into the enabling Act that required them to build the final mile (1.6 km) of the canal where it joined theirs, and to charge tolls to those using it. By the time the committee met in 1828, much of the northern end of the canal was nearing completion, and contracts for the three sections from Bosley to the Trent and Mersey had been awarded. No work had started on the locks, as the contractor was busy opening a quarry on the nearby hill called Bosley Cloud, and building a railway to carry the quarried stone to the lock sites.