Route
From Ellesmere Port on the River Mersey, the SU crosses the Wirral peninsula to Chester. This stretch was built in 1805, as the Wirral Line of the Ellesmere Canal. It connected Chester (and the River Dee) to the River Mersey at Ellesmere Port. The Ellesmere Canal was to have continued west and south to Wrexham, and Trevor and then on to the River Severn at Shrewsbury. The line from Chester to Trevor was never built, and the section beyond Trevor was not completed in its planned form. However, some stretches of the Ellesmere were built: these now form the modern Llangollen Canal and Montgomery Canal both of which are (or were until very recently) considered branches of the Shropshire Union Canal.

Wirral Line
In Chester, from the top of the arm leading down to the Dee, the SU follows the old Chester Canal built in 1772 to connect Chester and Nantwich. The canal passes alongside the city walls of Chester in a deep, vertical red sandstone cutting. After Chester, there are only a few locks as the canal crosses the nearly flat Chester Plain, passes Beeston Castle, and the junctions at Barbridge and Hurleston and arrives at Nantwich basin, the original terminus of the Chester Canal).
The two junctions on this stretch are very important links in the English/Welsh connected network.

At Barbridge, the Middlewich Branch of the SU goes NE to Middlewich on the tiny Wardle Canal. This was the original planned main line of the Chester Canal, but was in fact built much later than the Nantwich stretch.
At Hurleston, the old Ellesmere canal from Llangollen and Montgomery made a connection from Frankton Junction eastwards to the old Chester Canal after it was realised that the planned main line from Trevor to Chester along the Dee was never going to be built. This canal eventually merged with the Chester Canal and became the Llangollen Branch of the Shropshire Union. These waters are now known as the Llangollen Canal and (south from Frankton Junction, and still being restored) the Montgomery Canal. Chester Canal
The odd angle between Nantwich basin and the next stretch of the SU shows that the journey southwards is on a newer (and narrow) canal originally constructed as the narrow Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal to connect Nantwich, at the end of the Chester Canal, to the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal at Autherley Junction, near Wolverhampton. An important lost link can be seen at Norbury Junction, where a branch (1841) ran south-west through Newport to connect with the Shrewsbury Canal at Wappenshall Junction.
After Nantwich basin, a long sweeping embankment incorporating an aqueduct carries the canal across the main A534 Nantwich-Chester road. The canal then has to climb out of the Cheshire Plain by means of a dozen locks at Audlem. The canal passes near Market Drayton. Further south there are substantial lengths of embankment through the Staffordshire village of Knighton. There is an aqueduct south of Norbury Junction and deep cuttings at Loynton near Woodseaves, and Grub Street, south of High Offley. There is a 690 yard (631 m) tunnel near Gnosall. Near Brewood the canal is fed from Belvide Reservoir, and passes by aqueduct over the A5 road. The SU terminates at Autherley junction on the Staffs and Worcester Canal, after a stop lock built to prevent the loss of water where the new rival connected to the pre-existing Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal.

Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal
The link with the Staffs and Worcester provides a choice of onward journeys

Northwards, the S&W meets the Trent and Mersey at Great Haywood junction - allowing journeys east to the Leicester Branch of the Grand Union Canal (or the Trent) or north to the Potteries, Manchester, and the Pennines.
Southwards, Aldersley Junction is only a mile away, connecting to the BCN Main Line of the Birmingham Canal Navigations (the maze of canals between Wolverhampton and Birmingham) and onwards to the Grand Union Canal main line and London.
Beyond Aldersley, the S&W is a very popular holiday route down to the River Severn at Stourport. Onward Links
The Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company was formed in 1846. The Ellesmere and Chester canals had amalgamated in 1813, and the absorbtion of the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal by the Ellesmere and Chester Company was authorised by an Act of Parliament passed in 1845. A further Act, passed in 1846, changed the name of the company to the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company and authorised the acquisition of the Shrewsbury Canal and other canals in the east Shropshire network (linking modern-day Telford with the River Severn to the south at Coalport). Then (in 1847), the latter was taken over by the London and North Western Railway Company, which allowed the Shrewsbury Canal and the branch from Norbury Junction to decline.

Formation of the "Shropshire Union" company
In order to promote the interest in, use of, and restoration of parts of the Shropshire Union Canal, the Shropshire Union Canal Society was formed.
The canal in Chester is promoted by Chester Canal Heritage Trust.

See also

Gordon Emery - The Old Chester Canal (2005) ISBN 1-872265-88-X