Ellesmere, Shropshire 1790

It was widely believed that by present day officials in Ellesmere Port that the Royal Oak had long disappeared from the narrow streets of the famous Mere town, which is about 36 miles, away by road.

People were shocked to find that the Royal Oak was still standing but the village had not changed much at all

Before the Ellesmere canal was built the town of Ellesmere was what we call landlocked, this means that Ellesmere was not very accessible and this also meant that Ellesmere could not get goods out to other places and also they could not get other goods form other towns like, they could not get salt from places like Middlewich and Nantwich this meant that other town were growing because of trade but because Ellesmere was landlocked it was not growing at all.

Finally the general public of Ellesmere decided that all the towns around them were growing due to trade by canal and they were not. They thought that they must extent a canal that ran through or near Ellesmere first they had to plan it so the people of the town called a meeting at the Royal Oak. The most important people of the attended such as the major, vicars and of course there had to be canal builders and canal designers they were William Jessop and Thomas Telford.

During this meeting they discussed where the canal would link to Ellesmere and it was a canal that passed through Chester and it ended at the mouth of the Mersey. But of course it was not so easy they needed lots of money to create this canal.

Its purpose was to transport goods into Ellesmere and also out of Ellesmere this would result in an increase in the size of the town and a port near the Mersey.

So when Ellesmere got an act of parliament to make this canal the public had to organise a second meeting again held at the Royal Oak, on September 10th, 1792 but this time they had raised the money ready for the canal to be build they had raised 1million pounds for the canal in just one day.

The capital scheme required only £400,000. William Jessop was appointed as engineer. Thomas Telford, who then began work on the development of the canal and the port. On April 30th, 1793 the promoters of the canal won the consent of parliament to construct and maintain a canal that ran from the river Severn at Shrewsbury in the county of Salop to the river Mersey at or near Netherpool in the county of Chester.

By Adam Barker (9YK)