An isolated section near Moira Furnace and the National Forest visitor centre was opened between 1999 and 2005, and is the location for an annual trailboat festival.

It then continues to run north through largely rural and remote countryside for another 15 miles (24 km) until reaching its terminus at Snarestone.

Near Sutton Cheney Wharf, it passes the foot of Ambion Hill, the site of the Battle of Bosworth Field.

In the last half of the 18th century there had been an increasing need for transport to exploit the coal reserves at Ashby Wolds and lime from the quarries north of Ashby-de-la-Zouch.

The plans were checked by Jessop, and formed the basis for a bill to authorise a company with powers to raise £150,000 of capital.

[4] The company had been considering the option of building tramways since 1793, and finally asked Newbold to investigate the possible lines for railways which would serve the canal at Ashby Wolds in June 1798.

Even though Outram's experience of his treatment by the canal proprietors must have spoilt his satisfaction on the completion of the lines, they were arguably a major achievement and a model for railways in the future.

By this time, the finances were not in good shape, as failures of the shareholders to honour calls on the shares had resulted in the company borrowing £21,539 to complete the work, and the mines were still not producing coal at a rate which would have made the canal profitable.

Such a system was them implemented on the Ashby, whereby coal travelling the whole length of the canal was subject to a refund or drawback on the tolls.

It was built with double tracks, and used edge rails, similar to modern railways, rather than the L-shaped tram plates of the Willesley system.

The Ashby engineer was asked to prepare a quotation for the conversion of the entire Willesley system to rib rails in 1837, but there is no record as to whether this work was carried out.

The following year, the Midland reused the section of tramway from Ashby to Worthington, Leicestershire,[12] enlarging the Old Parks tunnel, as part of a line that ran through Melbourne to Derby.

2. c. xxxiii) obtained by the British Transport Commission,[13] and the Measham to Snarestone section was closed in 1966, even though coal was regularly loaded there.

A low embankment, still with some stone sleeper blocks crosses a field and a tunnel passes under the drive to Calke Abbey.

[15] In 1992, the engineering consultants W. S. Atkins produced a feasibility study for the restoration of the canal between Snarestone and Moira, which concluded that there were no obstacles which could not be resolved.

However, they failed to reach agreement with one landowner over the purchase of a parcel of land, and because the deadlines were not met, the funding was lost.

[18][19] Since the mining industry in the area has ceased, there have been fewer problems with subsidence, and the current plans are to re-open the canal to the National Forest visitor centre at Moira, about 1 mile (1.6 km) short of its original terminus at Spring Cottage.

The restored stretch is some 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long, and includes a new lock built to overcome the problems caused by mining subsidence.

[20] The Order allows Leicestershire County Council to purchase land and construct 2.5 miles (4 km) of canal from Snarestone to Measham.

[26] Re-construction of the first 100 yards (91 m) of the infilled section began on 26 February 2009, after a grant from the East Midlands Development Agency was secured.

The £0.5 million project involved the provision of a stop lock, a new slipway, an improved winding hole and a wetland nature reserve, running parallel to the canal and connected to it.

As part of the planning gain, UK Coal will alter Gallows Lane to allow the new canal to pass under it, will provide a water storage lake, reducing the cost of the next phase by £1 million, and will provide £1.28 million to fund the reconstruction of the section north of Snarestone.

[30] Work on the extension towards Measham has been undertaken by contractors and volunteers, including members of the Waterway Recovery Group.

[31] In 2013, parts of the restoration were threatened when the plans for the route of High Speed 2 (HS2), a high-speed rail link which would connect London to Birmingham, Manchester and York, were published.

Revised plans, published on 15 November 2016, routed the railway further to the east, crossing the line of the canal on a viaduct.

As a result, the chairman of the Ashby Canal Association, Peter Oakden, expected work on the development to start in the summer of 2017, and was hopeful that the extension of the canal to link up with the Measham Wharf development could be completed by 2021, before any work on the rail link was likely to begin.

[35] In 2020, the process of transferring the Transport and Works Order from Leicestershire County Council to the Ashby Canal Association was almost complete when it was interrupted by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

[39] In 2013, the Canal and River Trust received a grant of nearly £20,000 from Natural England to enable them to tackle invasive species such as mink, terrapins, zander, Japanese knotweed and giant hogweed.