After ownership passed to a series of railway companies, the canal was officially abandoned in 1944; many sections have disappeared, though some bridges and other structures can still be found.

There is an active campaign to preserve the remnants of the canal and to restore the Norbury to Shrewsbury line to navigation.

3. c. 113) was obtained in 1793 which authorised the creation of a canal to link the town of Shrewsbury with the east Shropshire canal network serving coal mines and ironworks around Oakengates, Ketley, Donnington Wood and Trench, nowadays part of the new town of Telford.

He was succeeded by Thomas Telford,[7] then just establishing himself as Shropshire's county surveyor and already engaged on the Ellesmere Canal slightly further north.

However, in preparation for the Newport branch of the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal to Wappenshall the section from there to Shrewsbury was surveyed in 1831 and subsequently widened to take standard 7-foot (2.1 m) narrow boats.

This was high, compared to other canals, and the rate was reduced to 1d per ton per mile in 1797, while Reynolds was allowed to ship iron and other commodities toll-free for a time.

This led to some discontent, with the local newspaper complaining that rather than reducing the price of coal, the townspeople were paying two to three shillings more per ton than before the canal had been built.

[17] The first railway to be constructed was the Stafford to Shrewsbury Line, as it could be built quickly, and would be a great asset to the area.

Conditions of the lease, which was not fully completed until 25 March 1857, meant that the Shropshire Union dropped all plans for further railway expansion, but they were given a free hand to run the canals as they saw fit.

[18] However, Robert Skey, the canal manager, when he addressed a meeting in September 1861, noted that the carriage of general merchandise had suffered, as it had gradually transferred to the railways.

[19] In 1870, a plan to reduce the costs of maintaining the Trench incline resulted in the company leasing Lubstree wharf from the third Duke of Sutherland.

A new railway was built from the wharf to the Lilleshall Company works, and a wharfage charge of one halfpenny per ton for coal and other merchandise was agreed.

In order to improve its use, the Shropshire Union agreed rates for carrying 300 to 400 tons of limestone and 100 to 150 tons of iron ore per week, and these measures were successful, as a further railway siding was built when the lease was renewed in 1891, and it was renewed for a further 14 years in 1905.

Traffic on the Humber Arm ended in 1922, when the fifth Duke of Sutherland closed the wharf and the railway line to Lilleshall.

Small volumes of coal were still reaching Longdon in 1939, and just 100 tons per year were recorded on the Newport Branch in 1943.

[25][26] In 2007, the canalside buildings at Wappenshall, including a transshipment warehouse which has been little altered since it ceased to be used in the 1930s, and retains many original features, were put up for sale.

[28] In August 2015, work began on a short section of the canal to the east of Newport, between Forton Aqueduct and Skew Bridge.

[30] The lock was the first in a flight of 17, which lowered the canal down the hillside as it passed through Oulton and to the south of Sutton and Forton.

[31] The River Meese feeds the Aqualate Mere, which is a National Nature Reserve and the largest lake in the West Midlands region, covering 214.4 acres (86.8 ha).

The canal passed under Buttery Bridge, and then over Kinnersley Drive on an aqueduct, before the junction with the Humber Branch, which ran for about 1 mile (1.6 km) to the south, and served the industrial complex of Lilleshall.

At the junction, the warehouses, basin and a section of the canal have been bought by Telford and Wrekin Council, and include a Grade II Listed warehouse which straddled a dock, so that goods could be loaded and unloaded through trapdoors in the floor of the upper storey.

The building of an incline, rather than a flight of locks was dictated by the lack of an adequate water supply at the higher level.

[38] From the northern portal of the tunnel, it passed under the railway and the A5 road again, heading north to Uffington, after which it followed the large horseshoe bend in the River Severn to reach Shrewsbury where it terminated at Castle Foregate Basin adjacent to the Buttermarket building.