It opened from Carreghofa to Garthmyl in 1797, but a lack of finance meant that it was not completed to Newtown until 1821, and this final section was built by a third company.

[5] Restoration hopes moved forwards in 1986, when British Waterways submitted a private bill to Parliament, to authorise full reconstruction of the canal, and Montgomeryshire County Council committed £1 million, spread over five years, to fund repairs.

[6] The Bill became an Act of Parliament in late 1987, but not before Frankton Locks, which are situated immediately south of the junction, were reopened on 12 September.

Prince Charles addressed the crowd on that occasion, mentioning that the restoration of the locks had been achieved by volunteers contributing 12,000 man-hours to the project, with a notional value of £200,000.

A little further along the canal, a fifth lock is named after Graham Palmer, the founder of the Waterway Recovery Group,[8] which was heavily involved in the reconstruction work.

The lock has a small fall, and was inserted to compensate for changes in the ground level which had occurred since the canal was closed in 1936.

The Llangollen Canal has, because of this, two separate series of bridge numbering, with one ending and the other beginning at Frankton Junction.