The practice was to set up a line of pegs or stakes about 50 yards (46 m) apart so that their tops would indicate the intended water level.

Outram had built it of stone and, due to its low height, it had needed to be constructed in four short spans.

The narrow openings had impeded the unprecedented overflow and Outram replaced it with a single span cast iron structure, similar to the Holmes Aqueduct on the Derby Canal.

Despite multiple problems, the building of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal showed that the technique of quantity surveying had advanced greatly.

Thomas Telford's report during the construction of the Standedge Tunnel covered every expenditure to the last bucket; it was followed to the letter and the canal finally opened in 1811.

Although it was moderately successful for a while, its width (limited to boats less than 7 ft (2.1 m) wide), the large number of locks and the long Standedge Tunnel made it much less profitable than its main rival the Rochdale Canal which had a similar number of locks but was twice as wide with no long tunnel.

Over the course of the restoration project, the vast majority of the obliterated line became available to be opened out again and the canal remains on a substantially identical alignment with some minor alterations.

Two factories, Bates and Sellers Engineering, had been built immediately upstream of locks 2E and 3E respectively on the line of the canal and blocking it.

The remodelling of the canal can be clearly seen between the former site of Lock 2E and Queen Street South Bridge where a framework of girders sits above the channel to ensure that the deep piling remains secure.

The stretch of canal previously in a tunnel under the factory was brought back to the surface and become a feature of the Huddersfield Waterfront development.

[2] The section of canal through Slaithwaite town centre, between locks 21E and 23E, had been culverted and a car park covered part of the route.

This takes in Huddersfield, Golcar, Slaithwaite, Marsden, Saddleworth, Diggle, Uppermill, Greenfield, Mossley, Stalybridge, Ashton-under-Lyne, Manchester at its central Cheshire Ring (New Islington) and Etihad stadium (Bradford/Eastlands) districts, Failsworth, Rochdale, Littleborough, Todmorden, Hebden Bridge, Sowerby Bridge, Elland and Brighouse.

The Lock Gates Sundial is a large piece of public art alongside the canal in Armentieres Square in Stalybridge.

The north facing balance beam forms the gnomon of the sundial, and heel stones mark the time.

[4] It was cited as being a good example of a flowing eutrophic water system with several nationally rare plants, fourteen species of mollusc and the fresh-water sponge Spongilla lacustris.