At present, only 8 miles (13 km) from Frankton Junction to Crickheath Bridge is navigable and connected to the rest of the national Canal & River Trust network.

Whereas other canals could generate sufficient revenue from cargo carrying to be financially viable, the Montgomeryshire was planned to serve a more rural area which would not offer such opportunities.

As a result, the promoters of the canal included local landowners who hoped to achieve a return on their investment through greater crop yields rather than relying upon share dividends.

The management committee were unhappy with this and the engineer William Jessop was called in to advise but he explained that such issues were merely teething problems and allayed their fears.

Grain prices rose from 1800 onwards and there was a large demand for lime as a fertiliser so that the Welsh hill-lands could be enclosed and developed for agriculture.

Once the Chirk and Pontcysyllte aqueducts were opened on the Ellesmere branch to Llangollen, there was an easy route for the transport of coal used in the lime kilns to produce fertiliser.

The company agreed to put a Bill before Parliament to obtain the necessary powers but factions developed within the shareholders with some fearing that they might lose their investment if the canal were completed.

By June 1835, the Western Branch declared that receipts were sufficient to pay the interest on all mortgages but there is no evidence that any dividends were ever paid on the shares.

[14] Major structural repairs to the Vyrnwy aqueduct had been required in 1823 when all of the arches were strengthened by iron bands under the supervision of Buck.

Part of the deal was that the Shropshire Union would drop its aspirations to build railways but in return, would have a free hand to run the canals which they did vigorously.

The idea of closing the whole of the former Montgomery Canal was considered in 1887 but study of the figures revealed that it was still making a small profit of £432 per year and so it was reprieved.

[24] The Shropshire Union Canal Society had already begun campaigning for the restoration of the canal and in the run-up to the event, members attended council meetings, mounted displays in the town and organised a visit to Market Drayton for Welshpool Town Council, to see another section of the Shropshire Union where progress was being made.

Key players included Graham Palmer, the organiser of the London and Home Counties Working Party Group of the Inland Waterways Association.

They published a journal called Navvies Notebook which co-ordinated volunteer activity on the canals across Britain and within a year had become the Waterway Recovery Group.

[25] Welshpool Borough Council refused the use of their tip for material removed from the canal but a local farmer called W Davies offered the use of his land.

Despite warnings by British Waterways not to touch it, the Lledan Brook flood paddle was opened to assist in the drainage of the canal and over 200 people set to work using hand tools and borrowed equipment including a mobile crane, ten dumper trucks, four 7-ton tipper trucks, three JCB diggers and a Hy-Mac long arm excavator.

The scheme was also backed by the Variety Club of Great Britain who wanted to use the restored canal as a recreational base for the benefit of handicapped children.

[30] The next threat to restoration occurred in 1979 when following the collapse of James Callaghan's Labour government and the election of Margaret Thatcher, economic conditions were tight.

[32] Soon afterwards, the Secretary of State suggested that a note should be added to the Shropshire County structure plan indicating that the line of the canal should be protected[33] but the lowering of the bridge went ahead.

[35] By 1985, the environmental lobby was growing and in order to avert a situation where boaters and environmentalists clashed, the Manpower Services Commission funded a scheme to document the flora and fauna of the unrestored canal.

[37] Frankton Locks were reopened on 12 September 1987 by the Prince of Wales when he announced that volunteers had worked for 12,000 man-hours on the project and that the value of this contribution was £200,000.

[38] The British Waterways Act 1987 became law on 17 December 1987,[39] and authorised the restoration of the canal from Newtown Pumping Station to Frankton Junction, including the Guilsfield and Weston arms.

[48] The section onwards to Queen's Head, a hamlet on the A5 trunk road, followed on 21 September 1996[47] extending the length of navigable canal connected to the national network to 4 miles (6 km).

[49] The 2.5 miles (4 km) section from Maesbury to Redwith benefitted from European Regional Development funding awarded in 2000[50] but there were fears that restoration might be hampered by the designation of large lengths of the canal in Powys as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) by the Countryside Council for Wales.

[53] The restoration was completed six months ahead of schedule in 2006 and the lock was opened officially on 25 June 2006 by Lembit Opik MP in conjunction with the Annual Montgomery Dinghy Dawdle.

Rare flora and fauna were accommodated by the construction of an off-line nature reserve on land leased by British Waterways for 50 years.

The refurbished channel was opened on 19 July 2014 by Owen Paterson, the MP for North Shropshire, but because there is no winding hole at the end of it, the limit of navigation remained at Gronwen Wharf for most boats.

[58][59] In 2007, restoration of Crickheath Basin was started by the Shropshire Union Canal Society though in 2008, work was postponed due to land ownership issues.

The Cambrian Railways Trust has restored a short section of the line between Llynclys and Pant and has built a halt at Penygarreg Lane near to the canal.

Wern Aqueduct was built after the canal was originally opened to allow a newly constructed branch of the Shropshire and Montgomeryshire Railway to pass below.