Canal Boat — January 2018

64 January 2018 Canal Boat canalboat.co.uk

Birmingham

EAT AND DRINK

 The Floating Coffee Co, Brindley Place

Birmingham B1 2HL 0121 633 0050

 Prince of Wales, Cambridge Street,

Birmingham B1 2NP 0121 643 9460

 Villa Tavern, Nechells Park Road,

Nechells B7 5PD 0121 326 7466

 The Gosta Green, Holt Street,

Gosta Green B7 4BG 0121 359 0044

Plus plenty more in the city centre

We recommend the Ordnance Survey’s Explorer map 220 Birmingham to accompany this walk.

©Crown copyright 2017 Ordnance Survey. Media 014/17

long journey along the Grand Union

towards London – but our walk instead

turns sharp right onto the GU’s second

northern extremity. Yet more canalside

industrial premises (many finding new

uses today) plus an aqueduct over

Birmingham’s little-known and rather

small river, the Rea, lead to Warwick Bar.

Not as famous as the Worcester Bar

(which divided two canal companies’

waters at Gas Street Basin), this formed

another junction between the GU and the

BCN. The stop lock has been restored.

It’s an odd-looking lock, with four single

gates (two pointing each way, so it could

cope with a change of level in either

direction) but all four are normally left

open.

The canal meets the Digbeth Branch of

the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal just

beyond at a T-junction – perhaps I should

say a ‘tea junction’, because the dead end

arm to the left leads to Typhoo Basin,

where warehouses once stored imported

tea. The through route to the right

passes through a long, dark, curved,

tunnel-like bridge under a railway, to

enter an area that’s seen plenty of

rebuilding in recent years and will see a

lot more when the Birmingham terminus

of the HS2 railway arrives.

The locks begin again (single-gate BCN

locks), as the canal climbs towards the

city centre, with Ashted Tunnel (a

genuine tunnel, not just a wide railway

bridge, and complete with towpath)

leading to the sixth and final lock of the

Ashted flight. From there, it’s just half a

mile to where you rejoin your outward

route at Aston Junction, for the climb

back up Farmers Bridge 13 to Broad

Street. Reward yourself with another

Gluhwein (or Bratwurst) as you return to

the station. CB

Brindley Place and (right) the Saltley Cut