The proprietors built a wide canal, suitable for boats 80 by 14.75 feet (24.38 by 4.50 m), which ran from Chester to Nantwich.

The Bridgewater Trustees approved of the scheme, but the Trent and Mersey would not sanction it until the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal was officially authorised by an Act of Parliament.

The Trent and Mersey built the short Wardle Canal with one lock, to maintain control of the junction, and imposed high tolls for traffic using it, but the work went ahead, and the Middlewich Branch was opened on 1 September 1833, having cost £129,000.

[5] Just ten years later, the two companies amalgamated, and the joint system became the Shropshire Union Canal network in 1846.

In the opposite direction, the canal is level for 5.5 miles (8.9 km) before it reaches the two Hack Green Locks.