Canal Boat — January 2018

62 January 2018 Canal Boat canalboat.co.uk

Great Canal Walk

Festive Foray

They’re not the prettiest, but Birmingham’s towpaths never

lack interest - and you can combine your walk around the city’s

industrial heartlands with a couple of Christmas markets

W

ith a Christmas Floating
Market scheduled for the
central Birmingham
towpaths, and the annual
German Christmas Market set to take
over the nearby streets, where better
than England’s Second City and Canal
Capital to combine a winter walk with
picking up some stocking-fillers?
Our walk begins at Broad Street
Bridge. It stands between Gas Street
Basin, hub of Birmingham’s canals, and
the Brindley Place shopping development
surrounding the canal. The whole area is
within a ten minute walk of New Street

Station and the Metro trams, and you’ll

pass the German Christmas Market

(which runs until Christmas Eve) on your

way from the station. So (perhaps

pausing for a quick Gluhwein or

Bratwurst), head to Broad Street, turn

right, and follow the towpath (either one,

there’s a path on both sides) to Old Turn

Junction.

If you’ve timed your walk for the

weekend of 9-10 December, around the

junction you’ll spot the boats of the

Roving Canal Traders’ Association’s

Christmas Floating Market. So you can

stop and shop around for what RCTA

promises will be “some ‘not on the High

Street’ unique Christmas gifts for

yourself, friends & family”, before taking

a sharp right and heading for Farmer’s

Bridge Locks at the start of the

Birmingham & Fazeley Canal.

This flight of 13 closely-spaced narrow

locks dives steeply through the heart of

the city, walled-in by old and new

buildings on both sides, and with two

locks covered over. One is squeezed

under a tight road bridge; the other is

roofed in by a tall office block. Near the

bottom of the flight, the canal is spanned

by a cavernous arch forming part of the

Autumn sunlight illuminates the towpath bridge at Aston Junction