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 line (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 visible, including two which have been relocated to the bowling green in Denstone village. Very little can be seen of the canal in Uttoxeter, but there is still evidence it existed, as there is an area called "The Wharf". Restoration The Caldon Canal Society was formed in 1961, and worked to reopen the Caldon Canal to Froghall. This was achieved in 1974, and Froghall Wharf remained the terminus for some 25 years. However, they started to think about restoring the first lock on the Uttoxeter Canal, and the basin below it, in 2000. This became known as "Restoration Froghall" in early 2003, and included plans for better facilities at the terminus. The scheme was costed at £800,000, and received a grant from the North-East Staffordshire Rural Regeneration Funds. At the end of the year, a formal partnership between British Waterways and the newly-renamed Caldon and Uttoxeter Canals Trust was announced, with the stated intention of completing the project by early 2005. It took a little longer than intended, but the lock and basin were formally reopened in July 2005. The Caldon and Uttoxeter Canals Trust then turned their attention to the feasibility of restoring the canal from Froghall to Uttoxeter. The situation was complicated by the fact that the revived Churnet Valley Railway terminated at Froghall, and they were originally going to reopen the railway to Oakamoor, but since 2018 they have been engaged in extending their line at the opposite end towards Leek. There were also threats at the southern end, when plans for a bypass which would be built along the line of the canal from Denstone to Alton Towers were announced. The scheme would have cost £12 million, and be largely funded by the theme park. The trust campaigned against it, using the provisions of PPG13, a government guideline that states that new road schemes