Thomas Dadford, Jr. carried out the survey, and presented a plan to a meeting in December 1789 for a 31-mile (50 km) canal, costing £83,000, with estimated receipts of £4,300 per year.

[4] Work began soon after his appointment, and by October 1794, the section from Woofferton near Tenbury to Marlbrook near Mamble was open for traffic.

[5] The following year saw most of the section from Leominster to Woofferton completed, while beyond Marlbrook the 1,254-yard (1,147 m) Southnet tunnel was finished and work started on an aqueduct over the River Lugg at Kingsland.

On 1 June 1797, a ceremonial cut was made on the banks of the River Severn, where the canal was eventually planned to join it, but only £62,582 had been raised under the terms of the second act of Parliament, and with some £25,000 owing, all work ceased.

Nine years later, they again approached Hodgkinson, and this time he suggested that they should abandon the authorised route to Stourport and extend the canal on a new alignment to the River Severn at Worcester.

[8] In January 1794 the canal opened from Marlbrook to Woofferton and seven boatloads of coal were transported from the Mamble collieries on the first day.

[9] Coal from the Mamble collieries was brought down the hill on tramways to Southnet wharf, where it was loaded onto barges and transported to Leominster.

[10] However the traffic from Mamble Colliery was not sufficient to run the canal at a profit, so the owners were constantly seeking to extend it eastwards to meet the River Severn, although this never materialised.

The centre arch of the latter was destroyed as part of an explosives exercise during the Second World War,[13] but the remains became a Grade II listed structure in 2000.