Editing Chester (section)

===Canals===
[[File:Chester - Bridge of Sighs.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Canal cutting by Chester city walls]]
The [[Chester Canal]] was constructed with locks leading down to the River Dee. Canal boats could enter the river at high tide to load goods directly onto seagoing vessels. The port facilities at Crane Wharf, by Chester racecourse, made an important contribution to the commercial development of the North West region. {{Citation needed|date=October 2008}}

[[File:Camlas ellesmere.png|thumb|upright|Map showing the proposed extensions of the Ellesmere Canal to Chester and Shrewsbury]]
The original Chester Canal was constructed to run from the River Dee near [[Sealand, Flintshire|Sealand Road]] to [[Nantwich]] in south Cheshire and opened in 1774. In 1805, the Wirral section of the [[Ellesmere Canal]] was opened, which ran from Netherpool (now known as [[Ellesmere Port]]) to meet the Chester Canal at Chester canal basin. Later, those two canal branches became part of the Shropshire Union Canal network. This canal, which runs beneath the northern section of the city walls of Chester, is navigable and remains in use today.

From about 1794 to the late 1950s, when the canal-side flour mills were closed, [[narrowboat]]s carried cargo such as coal, slate, gypsum or lead ore as well as finished lead (for roofing, water pipes and sewerage) from the leadworks in Egerton Street (Newtown). The grain from Cheshire was stored in granaries on the banks of the canal at Newtown and Boughton, and salt for preserving food arrived from [[Northwich]].

====Proposed canal====
The original plan to complete the Ellesmere Canal was to connect Chester directly to the Wrexham coalfields by building a [[Barge|broad-gauge waterway]] with a branch to the River Dee at [[Holt, Wales|Holt]]. If the waterway had been built, canal traffic would have crossed the [[Pontcysyllte Aqueduct]] heading north to Chester and the River Dee.

As the route was never completed, the short length of the canal north of [[Trevor Basin|Trevor]], near [[Wrexham]], was infilled. The [[Llangollen Canal]], although designed to be primarily a water source from the River Dee, became a cruising waterway despite its inherent narrow nature.

However, although Wrexham itself was bypassed, the plan to join the rivers [[River Severn|Severn]], Mersey, and Dee was completed, first by cutting the Wirral Arm from Chester to Ellesmere Port (Whitby wharf) and then by extending the Llangollen Arm via [[Ellesmere, Shropshire|Ellesmere]], [[Whitchurch, Shropshire|Whitchurch]] and Bettisfield Moss through to the [[Chester Canal]] at Hurleston. The network became the [[Shropshire Union Canal]].