Dudley No Canal
BENEATH the Black Country lies a rich seam of minerals including limestone and of course coal.
Black Country people were once the backbone of the Industrial Revolution – foundry workers, miners, glass turners – and the Black Country was the mule, slave, entrepreneur, brains, brawn and even the making of the Industrial Revolution more than 200 years ago.
The manufacturing industries that made Britain wealthy thrived on the Black Country’s local coal, iron ore and imported labour of workers from England’s impoverished agricultural land.
Main promoter of the Stourbridge and Dudley Canals (Dudley No 1 and Dudley No 2) was Lord Dudley, who had wanted to link his limeworks and his colliery at Tipton to the Birmingham Canal Navigations.
His ambitious plan was to link the Dudley coal mines with Stourbridge’s glass works, heading south to the River Severn and north via the Dudley Tunnel to the Birmingham Canal Navigations. An Act of Parliament was then agreed in 1793 to create an 11-mile canal including the country’s fourth longest tunnel, the Lapal Tunnel, to link with the newly proposed Worcester & Birmingham Canal at Selly Oak. The Dudley No 2 Canal was opened in 1798.
Dudley No 2 Canal sets off from its meeting with Dudley No 1 Canal at Park Head Junction, an attractive scene with locks and Blowers Green Pumphouse beside Blowers Green Lock (built to replace two locks which gave way to subsidence).
The No 1 Canal continues through up the three Park Head Locks towards Dudley Tunnel (3154yd/2888m), while Dudley No 2 heads immediately into lush leafy surrounds as it winds round Netherton Hill and its grazing horses.
At Cattle Bridge, St Andrew’s Church overlooks the canal from the hilltop and is home to a mass grave of cholera victims from the early 1830s. The coal beneath sometimes combusted, so flames and smoke filled the graveyard with locals fearing ‘the fires of hell’.
The cast-iron bridge at Blackbrook Junction marks the end of the shortlived Two Lock Line. Built to connect the two Dudley Canals and bypass Park Head Junction, it closed in 1909 due to subsidence caused by the extensive coal mining in the area. The canal now heads through a short cutting spanned by High Bridge. A sign tells of its former life as Brewin’s Tunnel, built in 1838 but dismantled after only 20 years.
The canal curves past Lodge Farm Reservoir, built to supply the canal with water and now also used for water sports. Just beyond Saltwell’s Bridge, the canal loses its leafy surroundings as buildings encroach and signage tells of the industrial heritage here.
Hingley & Sons, chain and anchor manufacturers, was established in 1838 and once produced 90% of the world’s anchors! The factory was said to be as large as a city and employed thousands of workers to meet demand. Many of Hingley’s chains and anchors were tested at Lloyds Proving House then lifted on to wagons by a huge steam crane, the tracks of which can still be seen on the opposite bank.
From Withymoor Island, end of the short Withymoor Branch, narrowboats are moored along the canalside much of the way to the Bumble Hole Arm which heads west lined with canalside gardens and homes leading to the Bumble Hole Lake and Nature Reserve. The short Boshboil Arm also branches west as the canal reveals the glorious open scene and cast-iron bridges at Windmill End Junction. Although once a hive of activity, this area is now the peaceful home to Bumble Hole and Warrens Hall Local Nature Reserves, and clues to its industrial heritage are everywhere.
Boats laden with sand, coal, limestone, timber, glass, pottery and iron ore used to queue up waiting to go along the Netherton Tunnel Branch northwards towards the Netherton Tunnel (3027yd/2768m), now boaters’ main route through to the Birmingham Canal Navigations as the Dudley Tunnel is too narrow for internal combustion engines.
As 1853 had been a bumper year for the narrow Dudley Tunnel with 41,000 boats going through, a plan was hatched to ease the burden by constructing a new tunnel at Netherton.
The Netherton Tunnel opened in 1858, built with more than 26 million bricks, and wide enough for boats to pass in both directions.
Overlooking the junction, the stunning remains of Cobb’s Engine House only hint to its original purpose. It housed a Newcomen steam engine which pumped water out of the local mines – up to a staggering 400,000 gallons of water a day. It was so vital in preventing flooding that it was said that if the engine ever skipped a beat, a thousand women’s hearts also skipped one! The Engine House, now a Scheduled Ancient Monument, is the earliest surviving example of its type and one of only a handful left in the Black Country.
Heading away from the junction, the remains of a toll island are where boats would have been charged for using this canal. The leafy scenery carries on until rows of houses start to line the opposite bank from Dog Lane Bridge onwards. A small, tollman’s hovel sits at the side of the canal. The tollman would calculate a boat’s cargo using his notched freeboard stick and charge the boat according to its estimated weight.
Garratt’s Lane Bridge, almost a short tunnel, carries the A4100 over the canal, and the leafiness returns. A series of bridges including the railway lead to the short Gosty Hill Tunnel (577yd/528m) where towpath users have to divert along the road and rejoin the canal beyond the tunnel. The tunnel’s ventilation shaft rather unusually occupies much of the front garden belonging to 171 Station Road!
The canal now passes through an industrial estate opposite Coombs Wood before reaching its current end of navigation at Hawne Basin, busy with moored boats. The Lapal Tunnel closed in 1917, leading to the east end of the canal being abandoned in 1938. However, a snippet of the eastern end of the canal remains in Leasowes Park. The Lapal Tunnel Trust continues to campaign and fundraise for the restoration of the canal from Hawne Basin through to Selly Oak on the Worcester & Birmingham Canal.
This canal may have shrunk in size and use since its beginnings, but it packs a punch with the wealth of industrial heritage and tradition that you find along it.
It has become an important wildlife corridor and a beautiful haven of calm for the people who live near it.