Two more plans were considered, and the third included extra reservoirs which would supply the summit level of the existing main line.

At a similar time, an independent company was planning a link to Leek, but the Trent & Mersey managed to block this.

The tramway was 3.1 miles (5.0 km) long, and was funded out of revenue, as the act did not authorise the raising of additional capital.

It would also have included a reservoir at Rudyard, but the plan was short-lived, as the Trent and Mersey succeeded in getting their bill passed when they submitted it to Parliament for a second time in 1797, when the Caldon Canal Act 1797 (37 Geo.

To ensure that the water from Rudyard could be used to supply the main line, the Leek branch had to join the top level of the Caldon branch, and so the original route with the three Park Lane locks was closed and a new route built, with a three-lock staircase between the junction and the old line of the canal.

This was altered again in 1841 to the present arrangement, where the canal to Froghall passes under an aqueduct on the Leek branch, and three separate locks at Hollinhurst raise the old line up to the summit level.

The experiment was a success: transport by water reduced costs by 50 per cent and diminished the number of breakages of wares.

[12] It was built to carry limestone from Caldon Low Quarries which was transported to Froghall wharf via three inclined tramways.

Other important traffic for the canal was coal from the Cheadle Coalfield and ironstone from the several iron ore mines in the Churnet valley and Kingsley area.

Stanley reservoir holds 22 million cubic feet (670 Megalitres (Ml)), and joins the canal just below Endon basin, while Knypersley holds 41 million cubic feet (1,200 Ml) and joins the canal above Engine Lock.

The final section of its feeder was originally the Norton Green branch, a private canal built at the same time as the main line, to service a colliery.

[6] Since the Caldon joins the summit level of the Trent and Mersey system, it is still a valuable supply for that canal too.

A survey of it was carried out in 1960 by the Inland Waterway Protection Society, which had been formed in 1958 in response to the Bowes Committee report, which listed many canals which it thought should no longer be maintained.

[13] With further threats of closure in 1961, the Stoke-on-Trent boat club organised a public meeting in Hanley and a cruise along the canal to Froghall in September.

Agreement was reached on how to finance restoration of the Leek branch in mid-1977, and volunteer work parties began the task of clearing the route so that it could be dredged.

A height profile gauge is located at the exit of Flintmill Lock 17 to indicate whether a boat has sufficient clearance to pass through the tunnel.

[25] The low height restriction would similarly affect proposals to reopen stretches of the Uttoxeter Canal to boating.

The original length of the canal, extending to a basin on the south side of Leek Railway Station, was filled in during the late 1950s/early 1960s to allow for the building of the Barnfields Road Industrial Estate.

(When it appeared that Harecastle tunnel, on the Trent and Mersey Canal, might have to close permanently because of mining subsidence, a bypassing connection between the Leek Branch and the Macclesfield Canal at Bosley was mooted; fortunately Harecastle tunnel remains open to navigation.

The canal was never a commercial success and in 1849 much of it was filled in by the North Staffordshire Railway Company and converted into the NSR Churnet Valley line from Leekbrook to Uttoxeter (which itself was finally closed for goods traffic in 1988).