Shropshire canal stretch could be filled with water in a year

But now, with the help of a group of eager volunteers, it could be filled with water within a year.

Workers from National Waterways Recovery Group have been helping to clear Meretown Lock on the Shrewsbury to Newport Canal.

Their work coincides with the Shrewsbury and Newport Canal Group, which cares for Meretown Lock, being presented with a cheque from the Inland Waterways Association for £450 to help with the restoration work.

The volunteers have been staying at Burton Borough School this week, while using their expertise to help prepare the canal to be brought back into use.

Bernie Jones, from the Shrewsbury and Newport Canal Group, said: "We're so grateful that the WRG has come to help out.

"They are a superb bunch of people and we can't thank them enough.

"I also can't thank Newport Town Council enough for the help that they have given the project, without them we couldn't have got this project off the ground."

In January, work was carried out to dig out a metre-deep trench at Meretown Lock in Newport.

Pipes have also been laid which will bring water from the Strine Brook into the 110-metre stretch, which was filled in when the canal was abandoned in 1944.

The section, which is owned by Newport Town Council, will link together with the stretch of Newport Canal in the town centre which has already been filled with water and will go in the opposite direction up to the A41.

The new water pipes will eventually connect to a pump which is currently keeping the canal between Meretown Lock and Newport town centre topped up.

The project is part of the trust's long-term aims to bring the Shrewsbury and Newport canals back into use.

It is hoped that the canal from Newport will continue under the A41 towards Stafford, linking back up with another stretch of old towpath.

Earlier this year, the trust revealed it had received £72,000 of lottery funding to restore an old warehouse beside the canal at Wappenshall Wharf near Apley, Telford, with a further £909,900 to come.

Earlier this year, narrowboats returned to a short stretch of canal on the Shropshire/Welsh border for the first time in nearly 80 years.

Volunteers have spent six years restoring a 450m stretch of the Montgomery Canal and were given the special reward of being able to cruise up the re-watered stretch between Redwith Bridge and Pryces Bridge near Llynclys before it opened to the public.

More than £44,000 has been spent on the project, with these being the first journeys on the canal since 1935.

A new group has also been launched to improve the Llangollen Canal towpath near Oswestry.

The aim of the new initiative is to provide a high standard of towpath along the stretch of the canal between St Martins and Gledrid to make it more accessible and user-friendly.

The use of the Llangollen Canal has increased considerably in recent years, particularly after a section of it was awarded World Heritage Site status, giving it the same status as other global landmarks such as the Taj Mahal and the Great Barrier Reef.

Famous visitors along the canal have included Hollywood actor Harrison Ford. The Indiana Jones star and his actress wife Calista Flockhart hired a canal boat to cruise the waterway in 2004. It is hoped that the improvements to the tow path will capitalise on the increasing popularity of boating holidays in the county.

The Shrewsbury and Newport Canal was authorised in 1793.

The main line from Trench to Shrewsbury was fully open by 1797, but it remained isolated from the rest of the canal network until 1835, when the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal built the Newport Branch from Norbury Junction to a new junction with the Shrewsbury Canal at Wappenshall. After ownership passed to a series of railway firms, the canal was officially abandoned in 1944.