In 1860, damage caused by repeated frost heave after water leaked through the puddling of the trough had to be urgently repaired by Charles Sacré, chief engineer of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, which then owned the canal.

A hundred years later, a similar problem was ignored by British Waterways (BW) and on the night of 9 January 1962 the outer face of the north-east arch collapsed.

BW, supported by the Ministry of Transport, thought that it would be "a complete waste of money" to do anything other than demolish the aqueduct and formally close the lower Peak Forest and Ashton Canals.

However, it was saved by the intervention of Geoffrey Rippon, the Minister of Public Buildings and Works, who facilitated an agreement whereby a sympathetic Cheshire County Council funded the extra cost of full restoration, over and above what it would have cost BW to demolish it, under the terms of the Local Authorities (Historic Buildings) Act 1962, which Rippon himself had steered through Parliament.

The main contractor for the restoration was Harry Fairclough Ltd of Warrington, with Rendel, Palmer & Tritton as the consulting engineers.