The story of the Birmingham and Fazeley begins in 1770, when the Birmingham Canal Company was seen as having a monopoly. At the time, the coalfields at Walsall did not have canal access, and a public meeting was held at Lichfield on 18 August[2] to discuss an independent link from Walsall to Fradley Junction on the Trent and Mersey Canal, passing through Lichfield. Opposition from local landowners resulted in the plan being shelved, but a further plan was proposed at a meeting held in Warwick in August 1781, for a canal to run from Wednesbury through Fazeley to Atherstone, which was the end of the Coventry Canal at the time. The plans were changed somewhat in October, but shareholders in the Birmingham Canal saw it as a serious threat.[3][4]
Two bills were put before Parliament in 1782, one for the Birmingham and Fazeley,[5] and a rival one from the Birmingham Canal for a branch from Wednesbury to Walsall. Both sides opposed the other's proposal, and both bills were defeated.[6]
An Act for incorporating the Company of Proprietors of a Canal Navigation, authorized by an Act passed in the Eighth Year of the Reign of His present Majesty King George the Third, to be made from Birmingham to Bilstone and Autherley, with the Company of Proprietors of a Canal Navigation, authorized by an Act passed in the Twenty-third Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, to be made from Birmingham to Fazeley; and for consolidating their Shares, and amending the said last-mentioned Act.
The promoters then opened negotiations with other canal companies, to ensure that when the canal was built, it would be part of a larger network. In 1782, they obtained an agreement from the Oxford Canal Company that they would complete the route to the River Thames at Oxford, one from the Coventry Canal that they would extend their canal from Atherstone to Fazeley, and agreed that they would complete the Coventry Canal's route from Fazeley as far as Whittington, as the Coventry Canal company could not finance the whole route. The Trent and Mersey would finish that link by building the remainder of the route to Fradley Junction.[7] A second bill was put before Parliament, and at the same time, the Birmingham Canal presented a scheme for a canal from Riders Green to Broadwaters, near Walsall, with eight branches, and a second canal from Newhall to Fazeley. The Birmingham and Fazeley was authorised by an act of Parliament, the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal Act 1784 (24 Geo. 3. Sess. 2. c. 4).[8] The new company and the Birmingham Canal merged soon afterwards, becoming the awkwardly named Birmingham & Birmingham & Fazeley Canal Company.[9]
John Smeaton was the engineer employed by the Birmingham and Fazeley, but work did not start immediately, as he was also responsible for the Riders Green to Broadwaters line, which was completed first.[10] The project did not go smoothly, as there were disputes between James Bough, the superintendent of the canal company, and Pinkertons, who were the civil engineering contractors employed to carry out the work. The issue concerned the cement that the Pinkertons were using.[11] Work on the Fazeley line began in April 1786,[10] with Bough still acting as superintendent, and the Pinkertons responsible for the construction of the section between Minworth and Fazeley. In late 1786, George Pinkerton found out that the levels, which had been surveyed by Bough, were wrong. Samuel Bull, the engineer for the canal company, investigated and reported that Pinkerton was right. The Pinkertons started to work on the project from January 1787, even though the contracts were not signed until May. Bough made a series of allegations that Pinkertons' workmanship and the materials used were of poor quality.[11]
The company stopped paying Pinkerton in late 1788, as the costs were exceeding the original estimates, and the contract was taken away from them in February 1789. There was then a financial dispute over money which had been paid to Pinkerton as "extras", but which the company then claimed were overpayments. Some £2,750 was at issue, and the case rumbled on for a decade, until a court case in 1801 gave him only £436 of the claim. Unhappy with the outcome, Pinkerton justified his position, but his remarks about John Houghton, the Company Clerk, were deemed to be libellous, for which he was fined and spent some time in prison.[11][12]
Farmer's Bridge locks. Lock No.1
The canal was completed in August 1789.[10] The benefits of the co-operation with the other canal companies were that when all the links were completed in 1790, it immediately generated a great deal of freight traffic. This created problems, as the flights of locks at Aston and Farmer's Bridge became congested, and this became worse when the Warwick Canal built a junction onto the Digbeth Branch. The problem was not solved until 1844, when the Birmingham and Warwick Junction Canal to the south east and the Tame Valley Canal to the north west were opened.[7] The name of the Birmingham & Birmingham & Fazeley Canal Company was changed to Birmingham Canal Navigations in 1794.[13]
The concrete footbridge of 1926 at Salford Junction
In 1926 the construction of Salford Bridge which spans the River Tame and the Tame Valley Canal at the end of Lichfield Road at the foot of Gravelly Hill resulted in the demolition of the cast-iron roving bridge over the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal, and also four cottages belonging to the canal company. The cast-iron bridge was replaced with a new reinforced concrete bridge and new cottages were erected on the other side of the canal.[14]
Tyburn Bridge dating from 1934
The bridge over the canal at the junction of Chester Road and Kingsbury Road (Tyburn Bridge) was replaced in 1934.[15]
In 1935 Birmingham Council gained powers to stop up the arm of the canal on the north east side of Summer Row for the development of a new civic centre and the widening of Great Charles Street.[16]
In 1962 Birmingham Council decided to fill in the arm of the canal which ran in Newtown Row, following the drowning of a boy the previous year.[17]
In 1967 a pipeline was laid under the towpath to link the gasworks at Coleshill with the Washwood Heath Works.[18]
In 2019, the Canal & River Trust announced that repair works had started on two locks at Farmer's Bridge Locks as part of a wider £2.5 million programme of repairs across the West Midlands.[19]
In 2022, work started on the "Scotland Works" site opposite Lock 1 of Farmer's Bridge Locks, a former glassworks that is being redeveloped into residential apartments named Lockside Wharf by Consortia Developments and Joseph Mews Property Group.[20] Lockside Wharf will comprise 61 apartments and is currently under construction.[21]
Route
Geographic map of the canal (zoom in to see detail)
The canal is now regarded as running from the BCN Main Line at Old Turn Junction (near the National Indoor Arena), Birmingham to the Coventry Canal at Fazeley Junction, just outside Tamworth. The length of this stretch is 15 miles (24km), and it includes 38 locks. From Old Turn Junction, 13 locks drop the level of the canal by 81 feet (25m), after which there is a short flat stretch from St Chads Cathedral to Aston Junction. There is a one-mile (1.6km) branch called the Digbeth Branch Canal which runs from the junction to Typhoo Basin and contains 6 locks. A short cut runs from near the end of the branch to the Grand Union Canal at Bordesley Junction.[22]
Below the junction there are another 11 locks, which form the Aston flight. Holborn Hill bridge carries the railway to Aston station over the canal, just before the bottom lock of the flight is reached. At Salford Junction, the Tame Valley Canal runs to the north west, and the Grand Union Canal runs southwards, while the Fazeley heads eastwards. Three more locks continue the descent at Minworth, and the character of the surroundings changes from an urban and industrial landscape to open countryside. There is a short 57-yard (52m)Grade II listed tunnel at Curdworth,[23] after which fields and flooded gravel pits line the canal. At Drayton Bassett, an eccentric Grade II listed footbridge with Gothic-style towers[24] crosses the canal, close to Drayton Manor Theme Park, after which Fazeley is reached, where the canal joins the Coventry Canal.[25]
The 5.5-mile (8.9km) stretch which extends northwards beyond Fazeley Junction to Whittington, near Lichfield, was built by the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal Company, with the remainder of the route to Fradley Junction being built by the Trent and Mersey Canal. Both sections used the route authorised by the Coventry Canal Act 1768 (8 Geo. 3. c. 36), but although the Coventry Canal subsequently bought back the northern section from the Trent and Mersey Canal, the southern section remained in the ownership of the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal. However, it is often regarded as being part of the Coventry Canal, with the Canal and River Trust quoting the length of that canal as being 38 miles (61km) which includes the Birmingham and Fazeley section.[26]
Historically the canal started at Farmer's Bridge Top Lock (the real Farmer's Bridge Junction), where it met the already existing Birmingham Canal Newhall Branch. That branch has now been built over, with only Cambrian Wharf surviving.
The Birmingham and Fazeley Canal forms part of the Warwickshire ring.
Features
At Common lock 10, on the lower lock tail, an inscription can be found in the stonework. It reads: "Pax Missa Per Orbem, Pax Quaeritur Bello", which translates as "Peace Is Sent Throughout The World, Peace Is Sought Through War". The inscription comes from two coins, the first part from the Queen Ann Farthing, and the second part from the Cromwell Broad.[27]
Part of the Farmer's Bridge flight looking towards the BT tower
Underneath Brindley House, part of the BT Tower complex
Farmer's Bridge Lock 9 and extended pound, running through two arches of the Newhall Street bridge in central Birmingham. There is a lock gate on either side of the road.
Skempton, Sir Alec; etal. (2002). A Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland: Vol 1: 1500 to 1830. Thomas Telford. ISBN978-0-7277-2939-2.
Related Research Articles
The Grand Union Canal in England is part of the British canal system. It is the principal navigable waterway between London and the Midlands. Starting in London, one arm runs to Leicester and another ends in Birmingham, with the latter stretching for 137 miles (220 km) with 166 locks from London. The Birmingham line has a number of short branches to places including Slough, Aylesbury, Wendover, and Northampton. The Leicester line has two short arms of its own, to Market Harborough and Welford.
The Trent and Mersey Canal is a 93+1⁄2-mile (150 km) canal in Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire in north-central England. It is a "narrow canal" for the vast majority of its length, but at the extremities to the east of Burton upon Trent and north of Middlewich, it is a wide canal.
The Wyrley and Essington Canal, known locally as "the Curly Wyrley", is a canal in the English Midlands. As built it ran from Wolverhampton to Huddlesford Junction near Lichfield, with a number of branches: some parts are currently derelict. Pending planned restoration to Huddlesford, the navigable mainline now terminates at Ogley Junction near Brownhills. In 2008 it was designated a Local Nature Reserve.
The Coventry Canal is a navigable narrow canal in the Midlands of England.
Birmingham Canal Navigations (BCN) is a network of canals connecting Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and the eastern part of the Black Country. The BCN is connected to the rest of the English canal system at several junctions. It was owned and operated by the Birmingham Canal Navigation Company from 1767 to 1948.
The Lichfield Canal, as it is now known, was historically a part of the Wyrley and Essington Canal, being the section of that canal from Ogley Junction at Brownhills on the northern Birmingham Canal Navigations to Huddlesford Junction, east of Lichfield, on the Coventry Canal, a length of 7 miles (11.3 km). The branch was abandoned in 1955, along with several other branches of the Wyrley and Essington, and much of it was filled in.
Fradley Junction is a canal junction between Fradley and Alrewas near Lichfield, Staffordshire, England and the point at which the Coventry Canal joins the Trent and Mersey Canal. It opened in 1790, and several of the buildings around it, including The Swan public house, are grade II listed structures.
The Warwickshire ring is a connected series of canals forming a circuit around the West Midlands area of England. The ring is formed from the Coventry Canal, the Oxford Canal, the Grand Union Canal, the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal and the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal. It is a popular route with tourists due to its circular route and mixture of urban and rural landscapes.
Fazeley Junction is the name of the canal junction where the authorised Birmingham and Fazeley Canal terminates and meets the Coventry Canal at Fazeley, near Tamworth, Staffordshire, England.
Aston Junction is the name of the canal junction where the Digbeth Branch Canal terminates and meets the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal near to Aston, Birmingham, England.
Bordesley Junction is a canal junction where the Grand Union Canal splits near to Bordesley, Birmingham, England. It opened in 1844, when the Birmingham and Warwick Junction Canal was built as part of a scheme to bypass the congestion at the Farmers Bridge flight of locks.
The BCN Main Line, or Birmingham Canal Navigations Main Line is the evolving route of the Birmingham Canal between Birmingham and Wolverhampton in England.
Rushall Junction is the southern limit of the Rushall Canal where it meets the Tame Valley Canal in the West Midlands, England. It opened in 1847, when the Rushall Canal was built to create connections between the Birmingham Canal Navigations system and the Wyrley and Essington Canal, following the amalgamation of the two companies in 1840.
Tame Valley Junction, also known as Doe Bank Junction, is a canal junction at the western limit of the Tame Valley Canal where it meets the Walsall Canal, south of Walsall, in the West Midlands, England.
Horseley Fields Junction is a canal junction at the western limit of the Wyrley and Essington Canal where it meets the BCN Main Line, at Horseley Fields east of Wolverhampton, in the West Midlands, England.
Huddlesford Junction is a canal junction at the original north-eastern limit of the Wyrley and Essington Canal where it met the Coventry Canal, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, England.
Catshill Junction is a canal junction at the northern limit of the Daw End Branch Canal where it meets the Wyrley and Essington Canal main line, near Brownhills, in West Midlands, England.
Birchills Junction is the canal junction at the northern limit of what is now called the Walsall Canal where it meets the Wyrley and Essington Canal main line, near Walsall, West Midlands, England. It opened in 1798, but lasted for little more than a year, until it was re-opened in 1841 when a connecting link was built to the Birmingham Canal Navigations' southern route to Walsall.
Spon Lane Junction is the original junction of the Wednesbury Canal and the Birmingham Canal, near Oldbury in the West Midlands, England.
Hawkesbury Junction or Sutton Stop is a canal junction in England, at the northern limit of the Oxford Canal where it meets the Coventry Canal, near Hawkesbury Village, Warwickshire, between Bedworth and Coventry. The alternative name, Sutton Stop, arises from the name of a family which provided several lock keepers there in the nineteenth century.
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