The Uttoxeter Canal was a thirteen-mile extension of the Caldon Canal running from Froghall as far as Uttoxeter in Staffordshire, England. It was promoted by the Trent and Mersey Canal Company and authorised by an Act of Parliament in 1797. This was a political move, designed to prevent a rival scheme for a canal to Uttoxeter. Because the Trent and Mersey Company did not expect the new scheme to be profitable, construction was delayed, but 10 years after the Act was passed, work began under the direction of the canal engineer John Rennie, with the canal opening on 3 September 1811. It is sometimes referred to as a branch of the Caldon Canal. 17 locks were required to drop the level of the canal as it passed down the valley of the River Churnet.
The canal was not a financial success, and the Trent and Mersey Company made plans to close it. However, the Company was taken over by the North Staffordshire Railway, and with the exception of the first lock and the basin at Froghall, which remained in use until about 1930, the canal was closed by the railway company on 15 January 1849. A large part of it was subsequently filled in, and used for the route of the Churnet Valley Railway (which incidentally, although it is now dismantled, had the first automatic, train-operated level-crossing in the UK, at Spath, just outside Uttoxeter.)
A few bridges from the Uttoxeter Canal still exist, with the occasional milepost, and Uttoxeter still has an area called "The Wharf".
The Caldon and Uttoxeter Canals Trust are looking at the feasibility of restoring the canal from Froghall to Uttoxeter. The situation is complicated by the fact that the revived Churnet Valley Railway terminates at Froghall, and they were originally going to reopen the railway to Oakamoor, but they are currently engaged in extending their line at the opposite end towards Leek. If the canal is reopened, the original route is now occupied by a JCB factory at Rocester, and so there is a proposal to construct a new route from Denstone which would follow the River Churnet more closely to a new terminus near the Uttoxeter gravel pits, which are nearly worked out. The first lock and Frogall basin have been restored and were opened in July 2005.
