[6] The building of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal began in 1770, but work on the over-budget project was suspended during the American Revolutionary War.

Under the original plan, the canal's route would not have required a tunnel at Foulridge, and instead additional locks would have created a 1-mile-long (1.6 km) summit level, thirty feet (nine metres) higher, with the line passing through a reservoir.

Before work on the canal resumed with Robert Whitworth as engineer, he re-surveyed the route and recommended changes to improve the available water supply.

[1] A local story purports that on 24 September 1912,[11] a cow[a] fell into the canal at Blue Slate Farm, Colne, near the southern portal.

This practice ended at Foulridge in 1886 after the drowning of a legger; a double-ended steam tug was introduced in 1880[12] to haul vessels through and return without winding.