The National Waterways Museum (NWM) is in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, England, at the northern end of the Shropshire Union Canal where it meets the Manchester Ship Canal (). The museum's collections and archives focus on the Britain's navigable inland waterways, including its rivers and canals, and include canal boats, traditional clothing, painted canal decorative ware and tools. It is one of several museums and attractions operated by the Canal & River Trust, the successor to The Waterways Trust. History Industrial age The museum site occupies the former Netherpool port that was designed by Thomas Telford, under the direction of William Jessop, for the ill-fated Ellesmere Canal. The proposed waterway in England and Wales was planned to carry commercial traffic between the rivers Mersey and Severn. The museum's historic buildings are all that remain of the inland port that transferred goods and cargo from narrowboats onto rivercraft that would then sail to the docks at Liverpool. The northern section of the Ellesmere Canal, which was built as a contour canal, connected Netherpool port to Chester Canal in 1797. When it opened, its revenue was expected to help fund the rest of the Ellesmere Canal project. However by 1805 work had stalled because of rising costs and the failure to generate the expected income from commercial boat traffic. The plans to build the remaining southern section to the Shrewsbury Canal and the connection between Pontcysyllte and Chester were abandoned. For the next forty years the port served boats using the Chester Canal until it was taken over by the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company in 1845. It amalgamated the former stretches of Ellesmere Canal, along with Eastern and Western branches of the Montgomery Canal, the Shrewsbury Canal and the Shropshire Canal into the Shropshire Union Canal. The port at Netherpool remained in operation until it was finally closed in the 1950s. Waterways museum A museum, which was called the North West Museum of Inland Navigation, was founded at the disused port in the 1970s. It was later renamed The Boat Museum and then, until 2012, the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port. In the 1990s The Waterways Trust took on the management of the National Waterways Museum. Funding from Heritage Lottery Fund helped create new displays and improve visitor facilities. In 2012, the Waterways Trust was incorporated to the Canal & River Trust. The name National Waterways Museum was formerly used