Horseshoe FallsNearby Tourist Attraction,  in or near to Llangollen

The distinctively shaped weir, which is 460 feet wide, was designed to create a pool of water that can be diverted, in part, to the Llangollen Canal and it does so via Thomas Telford's purpose made water supply channel.

The canal west of Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and the construction of the weir were authorised by an Act of Parliament obtained in 1804 by the Ellesmere Canal Company.

The canal was a navigable feeder, which supplied water to the Ellesmere Canal beyond Pontcysyllte, and to the Chester Canal, to which it connects quite near to Nantwich.

Thomas Telford was the civil engineer responsible for the design, and the canal and feeder were completed in 1808. Thomas Telford was also the engineer for the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct a littel further East at Trevor
Basin.

The weir was an important factor in the retention of the canal to Llangollen when the owners of the entire Shropshire Union system, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway companies, decided to close much of the
network in 1944.

They retained the line of the former Chester Canal and the Ellesmere Canal from Nantwich to Ellesmere Port, the branch of the Chester Canal to Middlewich and the former Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal main line
from Nantwich to Wolverhampton.

Because Horseshoe Falls was and is a major source of water to that system, the canal from Llangollen to Nantwich, including the great aqueducts at Pontcysyllte and Chirk, was retained purely as a water supply channel.

This action enabled the canal to survive until it was taken over by British Waterways following nationalisation in 1948. Unlike many of the other canals on the network, it did not fall into disrepair because of the
water feed from the falls.

With the steady decline in commercial traffic, British Waterways negotiated with the Mid and South East Cheshire Water Board, and the canal is used to transfer water from the Dee at Llantysilio to Hurleston Reservoir
near Hurleston Junction, to the north west of Nantwich.

An average of almost 15 million imperial gallons per day are channelled from Horseshoe Falls to the Llangollen Canal and towards the SHoprshire Union Canal.

Under British Waterways, the canal had become one of the most popular cruising canals in the country and remains so today.

The final 1.7 miles from Llangollen to the Falls is not navigable by motorised boats, as it is not wide enough for vessels to turn round, but the towpath extends along the bank right up to the Falls.

Since 2009, the weir has been part of a World Heritage Site, which covers 11 miles of the Llangollen Canal from just west of Horseshoe Falls to just beyond Chirk Aqueduct.

The canal was awarded World Heritage status because of the bold civil engineering solutions needed to construct a canal with no locks through such difficult terrain.

Anyone who has taken a boat on the Llangollen canal will know of the strong current, especially through the tunnels and aqueducts. Much more than a regular canal.