Goods were transhipped at Aspley Basin, and although shorter narrowboats were built, its success as a trans-Pennine route was overshadowed by the Rochdale Canal which had wide locks throughout and joined the Calder and Hebble Navigation at Sowerby Bridge.

Railway ownership ceased in 1945, when it was bought by the Calder and Hebble Navigation, at which point the narrow canal across the Pennines was abandoned.

2. c. 72), for its canal in 1758, which included a clause to prevent interference with any future navigation "from the Mouth of the River Coln to the town of Huddersfield".

A second survey was carried out in 1773 by Luke Holt and Joseph Atkinson for the Ramsden family, who owned the whole of Huddersfield at the time and keen to develop the canal.

[1] Atkinson presented evidence for the bill to the parliamentary committee, being somewhat less than truthful when he stated that Huddersfield was 'the only market for narrow woolen cloths' in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

3. c. 13), obtained on 9 March 1774, which enabled "Sir John Ramsden, Baronet, to make and maintain a navigable Canal from the River Calder, between a Bridge called Cooper's Bridge, and the Mouth of the River Colne to the King's Mill, near the town of Huddersfleld, in the West Riding of the county of York".

[3] Although a connection to the River Colne at Huddersfield was authorised by the act, the upper terminus was a basin at Apsley, where Ramsden built wharves and warehouses.

[2] From the basin it descended 57.3 feet (17.5 m) over a distance of 3.75 miles (6 km), to its junction with the Calder and Hebble Navigation at Cooper Bridge.

[2] During the 1790s, goods were carried over the Pennines by road, with one service, operated by Richard Milnes, connecting Manchester to Huddersfield.

Just a year later, he operated one or more boats a day between the upper terminus of the Calder and Hebble at Sowerby Bridge and Hull, while the service from Huddersfield to Wakefield reverted to three times a week.

[6] The Huddersfield Narrow Canal provided a heavily-locked western connection to the wool-weaving towns of the upper Colne valley, (Golcar, Linthwaite, Slaithwaite, and Marsden) and across the Pennines to Saddleworth, Stalybridge and Manchester via Standedge Tunnel.

[10] The company was incorporated in 1845 and had already the Huddersfield Narrow Canal primarily to aid in the construction of a cross-Pennine rail link at Standedge.

An attempted revival of trade to Manchester in 1856, spearheaded by the Aire and Calder Navigation after a railway company took over the Rochdale Canal, foundered when the LNWR created obstacles to using Standedge Tunnel.

The Aire and Calder negotiated the expansion of Huddersfield Wharf in 1872, and leased the original and extended wharves in 1873, installing hydraulic hoists two years later.

At around this time, the LNWR began selling canal water, reportedly 200,000 imperial gallons (0.91 Ml) per day according to the Huddersfield Chronicle.

Following strengthening work to Wakefield Road, which included the construction of a reinforced concrete tunnel under the original bridge, this short section is no longer navigable to vessels wider than 7 feet (2.1 m).

Although British Waterways has not officially redesignated it, the Wakefield Road tunnel now effectively forms the end of the Huddersfield Broad Canal.

[29] Close to the North Eastern Gas Board offices, which are located in a three-storey mid-19th century listed building,[30] the canal makes a dog-leg turn under Leeds Road.

On the west bank is an octagonal chimney, standing over 100 feet (30 m) tall, which was built in 1872 and formed part of a cotton spinning mill.