Canals where built throughout the Country during the late 18th Century, two of which pass through the City, the Trent and Mersey and the Caldon Canals.

The Trent and Mersey Canal is one of the major arteries of England’s canal network and links the canals of the North West and West Midlands. In total, it runs for a length of about 150km. Locally it runs north – south through the western half of the City for 13.5km.

James Brindley’s proposal for the Grand Trunk Canal, later renamed the Trent and Mersey, was authorised in 1766. Local industrialists such as Josiah Wedgwood, Earl Gower and John Sneyd where amongst the company proprietors and Wedgwood cut the first sod in 1766. The canal took eleven years to build and work on the construction of the Harecastle Tunnel took place for the whole of that time.

The Tunnel cut through Harecastle Hill for 2633m in length, the most impressive engineering innovation of the canal.

The Trent and Mersey Canal was so successful that the Harecastle Tunnel soon became a bottleneck and the new tunnel, designed by Thomas Telford was constructed between 1824 and 1827. Longer than the Brindley Tunnel at 2708m, it was also wider and allowed for the construction of a towpath. Subsidence caused the closure of the Brindley tunnel and only the Telford tunnel now remains open.

Clay, pottery, lime, flint, iron, coal, timber, limestone and food where transported along the canal. Commercial useage of the Trent and Mersey declined during the 19th and 20th centuries and then ceased altogether by the late 1960’s.

The Caldon Canal runs from its confluence with the Trent and Mersey Canal at Etruria to the edge of the Peak district and was completed in 1778. The Leek branch of the Canal, a reservoir at Rudyard and a further extension of the Caldon Canal from Froghall to Uttoxeter were authorised in 1797. The latter being closed by the 1840’s for the Churnet Valley railway.

In addition to the transport of limestone and coal, the canal attracted other commercial uses from the Flint Mills at Cheddleton and Consall Forge, Pottery factories, Paper Mills, foundries and limekilns. A type of iron ore discovered at Froghall, known as ‘Froghall Haematite’ also added to the traffic on the canal.

By the 1950’s, commercial usage of the Caldon Canal had declined, and by 1961 the Canal was closed and fell into disrepair and decay. However, in 1968 Johnson Brothers Pottery reintroduced commercial traffic between Hanley and Milton.

In 1963 the Caldon Canal Society was formed by a group of enthusiasts, working to reverse this decline. In 1970, an agreement was made by Staffordshire County Council (now City of Stoke on Trent Council) and British Waterways to restore the Caldon Canal. It was officially reopened in 1974.