Financially this was a disaster, as the extension was funded by a mortgage, and the arrival of the railways soon afterwards started the demise of the canal.

Despite commercial traffic ceasing in 1907, the infrastructure was maintained in good order, and the canal was used for the transport of potable water from 1962.

c. 70) in 1707; which had allowed them to straighten and dredge the river and parts of the Parrett, and to build locks and half-locks to manage the water levels.

The company had powers to raise £420,000 in shares and an additional £150,000 if required,[4] but economic concerns meant that the project did not start immediately.

Powers for the Bristol to Bridgwater section lapsed in 1815, but work finally commenced in 1822, to be halted by an injunction because the authorised route was not being followed.

4. c. cxx) of 17 June 1824, authorised the revised route, and changed the name of the project to the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal Company.

James Green proposed a tub-boat canal in 1822, capable of handling 5-long-ton (5.1 t) boats, which would have used inclines instead of locks, and would have cost £120,000.

[3] Construction of the canal began in 1822, with James Hollinsworth as the engineer and John Easton as the senior surveyor.

It included a 700-yard (640 m) embankment at Lyng, which was 40 feet (12 m) high, two short cuttings, eleven brick-built bridges to carry roads over the canal, and more than twelve timber swing bridges, built to provide accommodation crossings for farms which had been divided by the line of the canal.

The lock at Firepool (Taunton) had a set of reverse-facing gates, to prevent the canal draining if the level of the River Tone dropped.

[5] By mid-1826, the canal company had insufficient funds to complete the work, and a special meeting authorised the taking out of a mortgage to cover the £15,000 deficit.

[7] The connection to the Tone at Taunton had been made forcibly, by the canal company breaching the bank of the river.

In August 1827 they announced that they were taking over the Tone, and evicted William Goodland, the river superintendent, from his cottage.

[8] The conservators promptly built a dam, to prevent boats reaching the river and water entering the canal, which they removed after further legal action and an order of the Chancery Court.

[9] Reconciliation finally came in late 1831, when the two parties proposed a new act of Parliament to authorise the sale of the Tone Navigation to the canal company.

obtained that year,[14] which included a requirement that there should always be "a good and sufficient water communication between the towns of Taunton and Bridgwater".

The main source of water was the River Tone, although this was not fed into the canal at Firepool, in order to ensure that the mills on the upper section could function.

[16] The opening by the Great Western Railway of the Severn Tunnel in 1886 brought further decline, for the imports of coal and slate from South Wales to Bridgwater Dock and the canal could now be moved more directly.

[18] After the First World War the canal remained in a state of limbo – with minimal maintenance by the railway company – and was the haunt of fishermen and walkers.

The Conservators continued their annual inspections, and the infrastructure remained in remarkably good order, compared to many other closed canals.

[20] Hamp Bridge was prepared for demolition with four small charge chambers under the east side of the arch containing a total of 30 lb (14 kg) of the explosive, ammonal.

[18] Although the physical structure of the canal was not damaged by enemy action, all of the Company records and traffic receipts, together with those of the Bristol and Exeter Railway, were destroyed during a bombing raid.

Despite concerted efforts, the Conservators could not make any progress with the removal of the fixed low-level bridges, which prevented maintenance from being carried out.

The Inland Waterways Association started to take an active interest in the restoration of the canal from 1952, but this was resisted by the British Transport Commission, who padlocked the lock gates to prevent them being used.

By 1974, Higher and Lower Maunsel locks,[26] which are listed buildings,[27] had been refurbished by the British Waterways Board, with funding from the County Council.

The swing bridges at Crossways, Boat and Anchor, and Fordgate were rebuilt, and by 1987, 4.5 miles (7.2 km) of canal were available for navigation.

The only commercially active industry located at the docks was Bowering's Animal Feed Mill, until its closure in 2020.

The towpath forms part of Sustrans' National Cycle Network route NCR-3[33] connecting Bath and Cornwall, and attracts numerous travellers.

The Taunton-Bridgwater canal is also home to an installation termed the 'Somerset Space Walk', a scale model (530 million:1) of the Solar System centred around the 'Sun' at Maunsel lock with the planets located along the towpath in both directions.

The Space Walk was designed by local man, Pip Youngman, in order to demonstrate the scale of the Solar System in an interactive way.