The cut runs from Totterdown Basin at the eastern end of St Phillip's Marsh, near Temple Meads, to the Underfall sluices at Rownham in Hotwells and rejoining the original course of the tidal Avon.

[1] The Bristol Docks Company was formed to construct the Floating Harbour following the passage of an Act of Parliament in 1803, sponsored by the City Corporation and the Merchant Venturers.

However this would have meant that ship owners could have avoided using the new Floating Harbour and the scheme was amended to include a greater area of the river Avon, thus necessitating the longer cut which is in existence today.

[7] On 1 May 1809 the docks project was certified as complete and a celebratory dinner was held on Spike Island for a thousand of the navvies, navigational engineers who had worked on the construction, at which "two oxen, roasted whole, a proportionate weight of potatoes, and six hundredweight of plum pudding" were consumed, along with a gallon of strong beer for each man.

[7] As originally envisaged, the New Cut was navigable as far as the Totterdown basin, where barges could enter the Feeder Canal and proceed up river from Netham lock to Bath, Somerset.

[1] The New Cut is thus still navigable for medium-size craft due to its tidal depth and high (albeit fixed) bridge clearances, but a dead end at Netham Weir,[1] with no surviving businesses using it for water access.