join the River Trent at Great Wilne further downstream at the junction with the River Derwent, which was also up to that point navigable. As a result, Shardlow quickly developed as an important UK river port, a transhipment point between the broad river barges and ships, and the canal's narrow boats. Shardlow later became the head office site of the Trent and Mersey Canal. The port outline as exists today was formed by 1816, when the 12 canal basins had been excavated. But the warehouses around them were extensively reconstructed as trade developed, so that by 1820 the larger structures with the sunburst windows which exist today, had replaced the earlier buildings. The wharves and associated warehouses each had designated functions, which included: coal; timber; iron; cheese; corn; and salt. Other businesses which developed alongside the port included: boat builders; ropewalks; stables; offices, including the head office site of the Trent and Mersey Canal; plus workers' cottages and owner's houses. Two families particularly made their fortunes: the Soresburys with rapid horse-drawn 'fly boats' on the Trent; and the Suttons with their barges and narrow boats. The importance and vitality of the port resulted in the town becoming referred to as "Rural Rotterdam" and "Little Liverpool", with the population rising from 200 in 1780 to a peak of 1,306 in 1841. 1840s-1950s However, the subsequent arrival of the Midland Railway and associated railway branches to the area in the 1840s signalled the beginning of the end; by 1861 the population had fallen to 945, of whom 136 were in the workhouse. By 1886 the port was virtually abandoned, yet the end only came with the formation of the nationalised British Waterways in 1947, which quickly resulted in the removal of the formal designation of Shardlow as a port. In 1816, a large group of parishes from Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire erected a joint workhouse to the west of Shardlow, which had required the UK Parliament to approve the "Shardlow and Wilne Poor Relief Act". But with an expanding number of poor people to cope with, the Union negotiated from 1834 to expand to 46 parishes encompassing a population of 29,812, ranging in population scale from Hopwell (23) to Castle Donington (3,182). The "Shardlow Poor Law Union" formally came into existence on 30 March 1837, governed by an elected board of 57 guardians. The building was enlarged by Derby-based architect Henry Isaac Stevens