The des-res of a canalside cottage
HAVING a desirable residence alongside a Birmingham or Black Country Canal might appear to be a contradiction in terms. The image portrayed by an industrial or urban canal is not the same as one of rural solitude. However, they do have their own individual attraction.
Brenda Ward of the BCNS (Birmingham Canal Navigations Society) has spent the lockdown period researching canal cottages in the Birmingham and Black Country area.
We all laughed when Peter White, the one-time architect of British Waterways, announced that Birmingham had more canals than Venice. There were indeed a lot more.
The BCN alone had 149 miles of canal according to Bradshaw’s Guide to Inland Waterways dating from 1907. Now there are only 107 miles but the houses of those working on the canal can be found. It was
Brenda’s intention to track them down.
All the houses were given a BCN number. Not a street or road number because they were on the canal and nowhere near a street. Brenda obtained a list of the numbers and house locations.
There were 272 listed. Many of the houses were on canals that no longer exist. Others were not recognisable from their canal address.
Brenda is keen on ancestry and armed with the 1891 and 1911 Census has managed to find out the names of families living on the canal in these houses and their occupation.
The houses were built for workers on the canal from lock keepers, toll collectors, men working on the length and dredging gangs as well as tug drivers and management. It was a microcosm of urban industrial life.
The area covered by the canal system was probably as large as greater London yet only having the population of a small village. It was a small community and there were many intermarriages that made for a close, almost family entity.
Slowly, by going through the photographic archive of the canal society, Brenda found images of houses mainly alongside the canal, where they were and could put a number on them.
This was an ideal activity during lockdown and Brenda put what she had found on a Facebook page. This has opened a Pandora’s Box as people remembered their childhood days.
Searching through family photographs they have produced images of where they lived, worked and played.
Many of the houses have long since gone through the redevelopment of Birmingham city centre while others made way for the M6. Some houses are nowhere near a canal as the canal was either closed or moved, as in the case of Black Delph nine locks where there are now only eight and have been for more than 100 years.
Brenda is going through the canals alphabetically and is up to D for Dudley and Delph. The project she has taken on possibly has no end as more and more information comes to light.
The romanticism of canal boats with their roses and castles decoration making their way slowly through the countryside has taken on a new perspective. It is becoming a sociology study of a way of life that has in one sense passed – but is still living with us today.