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A
tour of the Ackers Leisure Park should begin on the artificial mound near
the canal/rail crossing. It is reached from Golden Hillock Road, either by
way of Armoury Road, or through the sports ground. The former is flanked by,
on the right, the Spicer Cowan complex and Small Heath Industrial Park built
on the site of the 1915 buildings of the Birmingham Small Arms Company
Works: and on the left by the short groves of terrace houses built by the
firm for key workers at the turn of the century, and some industrial
buildings of like date - one of which still bears the legend "B.S.A. Guns".
Turning left across the site of the original 1863 building, and skirting
Hales Industrial Services, the drive runs parallel to the Oxford Railway of
1852. B.S.A. employees used to have a footway across the rails to the
Waverley Works. The Warwick Canal of 1793 is crossed by a new bridge.
The mound is constructed on a site long used for industrial waste dumping.
Its present dimensions were attained by piling rubble from the Small Heath
clearances and covering it with soil and turf.
From the summit, at about 125m 0.D., there is a splendid view of the
neighbouring districts. The toposcope indicates what features can be seen,
and the previous pages tell more of the geographical and historical story.
Skylines are at varying distances: Moseley and Bordesley Green ridges hide
the districts beyond, but the cooling towers of Hams Hall power station can
be seen 12.5km to the north-east, and the Lickey Hills to the south-west,
14km distant.
Descending from the mound by way of the ski-slope path, we have the National
Motorcycle Circuit and the long sheds of the former rifle-range to our
right. Spark Brook, the ancient manor and shire boundary, is crossed by a
timber bridge. The brook is usually a mere trickle because for most of its
course it is underground, and the rills which used to feed it are dried up
or diverted into drains. Ahead are the post-World War Two factories of Greet
Industrial Estate: they have replaced a number of small well-dispersed sheds
where Wilders' Fireworks used to be made. [Now that a footbridge has been
built across the Cole from Manor Farm recreation ground, the riverside walk
from Solihull Lodge to Sheldon is nearer completion]. The Ackers Park paths
link the Warwick and Coventry Roads.
Turning left, we follow the path to a double weir on the River Cole,
crossing two of the many brooks which used to flow across the flood-meadows.
The weir is a concrete wall which keeps up the river level. An earlier one
ensured that most of the water went down the headrace of Hay Mills: that is
the channel which leads away northward and is the original course of the
Cole. The weir is set in clay, which is easily softened and worn away by
water. To reduce erosion of the foundations by floods pouring down the face,
a triangular basin has been built in front of the Weir to break the fall.
Usually the water level is so low that we can walk across the top of the
weir and follow the river northward. The River Lee (undeserving of its
title) comes in from the opposite bank: it has been diverted round the
railway sidings. At the foot of the railway bank is the barred entrance of a
low tunnel which formerly took water to the millponds. 40m north is the
concrete arch of a silted runnel, made to carry away floodwater: only when
the river is exceptionally high is there a flow down it. The high third
arch, 60m west, is the entrance of the culvert for the Spark, joined by the
Cole overflow. All three tunnels had to be extended in 1906-7, when the
railway embankment was widened to accommodate extra lines going to sidings
and engine sheds below Tyseley Hill.
We must retrace our steps across the weir, unless the Cole is low enough for
fording. Gravel in the bed, which gave its name to the manor of Greet,
provides firm crossing at low water. Where there is only black silt,
crossing even the narrow Spark is difficult.
Skirting the mound, we climb its eastern slope, looking down at the
brook/river arch and observing the barriers erected to stop children falling
from it and trespassing on the railway. At the car park's far end we take a
path beside the canal and under the viaduct. The nearer part of the tunnel
was added in 1907 to the farther one of 1852. Emerging from it, we see that
the steel viaduct is all of the same period, having been rebuilt during the
extensions. Stumps in the canalside concrete are of railings removed in
World War Two, when ferrous metal was needed for munitions. A park path has
been made along this side of the canal, but the towpath, where for thirteen
decades horses plodded along drawing narrow boats, is on the other bank.
Leaving the canal bank and following one of many tracks made by exploring
children, we look down on the north end of the main culvert. Spark/Cole
water turns sharply to flow between the two high banks. Why this diversion
is made is hard to understand: the Spark used to go straight under the
canal, and the old boundary between Bordesley in Warwickshire, wherein we
stand, and Yardley in Worcestershire, still followed that line until Yardley
became part of Birmingham in 1912. There is no trace of the 1790s culvert,
but the water still tries to go directly. It is wearing away the canal bank
on the outside of the bend, and a costly wall must be built to prevent
further erosion.
Back by the canal, we walk along to and cross the brick aqueduct which gives
the Park its name. With care we can descend to the junction of the two
channels. Spark/Cole comes east in the cleft between the embankments, and is
joined by the brick overflow course. This is silted and overgrown: in flood
water backs up above the aqueduct arches and briefly fills it.
Those who enjoy a brambly scramble may climb a mound between the overflow
channel and the headrace. This was created by boat-borne domestic refuse
dumped between the Wars: it brings the level up to that of the railway, and
is a good place for train-spotting. Like the other channels, the headrace
lies deep in a wholly artificial gorge: the eastern side was built up for
extensions of the Rover Car Works between the Wars.
We now have a choice of routes. If the river is low, we can re-cross the
aqueduct, descend beside it and go through the western arch beneath the
canal - but this should not be attempted unless the culvert is completely
dry. The alternative is to re-trace our steps to the car-park, cross the
canal, and descend by the steps to the towpath. On the bridge, see to the
left a roving bridge against the B.S.A. wall. This takes the towpath over
the entrance, now blocked, of a short arm into the Works. There was direct
access by water between the Gun Proof House on the B.C.N. Digbeth Branch and
the B.S.A. However, by the 1880s a proving house had been built in the Spark
meadows, with ranges stretching right across the confluence to targets near
the Railway Museum site.
The towpath leads us under the viaduct and over the entrance arm of a
triangular canal basin. This was cut during World War One for boats bringing
coal and materials to temporary munitions factories which occupied the
meadows between Oldknow Road and the Cole/Spark, and to the Singer Car Works
on the Coventry Road. The basin's shape permitted "windage": the 21˝m narrow
boats could reverse direction in it by skilled use of horse, wind and
towrope. Damaged in World War Two and long dry, the basin has been restored
and the extension bay converted into a dry-dock. The pillbox houses the
pumping engine. Two boats are owned by the Trust and may be hired. It is
intended that the canal shall be used for water sports, and a marina centred
on the basin be developed.
The humped bridge over the entrance arm is floored with ribbed brick to give
horses' hooves purchase in icy conditions. The plateaux beside the towpath
were created by the dumping of clinker from Tyseley Destructor between the
Wars. A light railway carried the material across headrace and river.
Between the two a football pitch was made: this has provided a firm platform
for the new Waste Disposal Unit.
Looking downstream from "the Ackers" itself, we get an excellent view of the
straightened river and its landscaped banks, with the Coventry Expressway
running parallel to it before it turns north- eastward beside the railway en
route for the Middleway below Bordesley Station. 10m farther on, we reach
the former headrace: this used to be the main channel of the River Cole, on
which the first Hay Mill was built 500 years ago. The race, affected but not
blocked by canal and railway, is now overlain by the concrete raft of the
Disposal Unit. Legislation made the Destructor. (built more than fifty years
ago) obsolete, and it has been expensively replaced.
We climb up to, and circuit, the Unit's high wall. At the far end of the
Unit we descend to a pool which is a recently made balancing lake. The
Severn-Trent Water Authority combines amenity with flood-control: this and
much larger lakes downstream store flood water and release it when the river
is low. There are diversion weirs in the stream.
Part of the later Georgian millpool not only survives but has been improved.
It is not visible or accessible from the Ackers Park: permission to view it
must be obtained at the gatehouse of the Disposal Unit in James Road off
Kings Road. Nearby (Redfern Road) is the medieval Hay Hall, a timbered
structure encased in Stuart red brick, diaper-patterned in blue brick, and
with ugly additions by the King family last century. Only a side view is to
be had from the street: the Regency frontage can be seen from within the T.I.
premises, and permission to view should be sought in advance.
The story of the Hay Mills is told in the previous pages of "All around the
Ackers". Sites of the medieval/Stuart mill and its successor downstream are
lost under buildings of Webster and Horsfall's wire works. Walking down
beside the tailrace to the end of the factory wall, we look across to a
small building which was built as a school by James Horsfall for the
children of his workforce in 1863. It closed when Redhill Board School was
opened nearby in 1892. St Cyprian's Church (1873-4) was also Horsfall's
gift, and it was his fancy to build it over the tailrace. Water goes into a
culvert beneath the south wall and emerges under the west wall. A row of
cottages beyond housed mill workers.
The tailrace joins the Cole and we must retrace our steps. From the
aqueduct we can follow the Riverside Walk to Coventry Road. This is an
ancient highway, notorious for its difficulty. By winter's end it would be a
miry swath 200m wide across Bordesley, and on Red Hill in Yardley it was a
deep and narrow holloway. There was a footbridge at the Cole ford by 1675.
The road was described as "ruinous" soon after it was made into a Turnpike
in 1745. Tolls were taken at Small Heath Gate (Green Lane corner), but the
trust had done little to improve it by 1768 when it was "exceedingly bad and
dangerous". Improvements thereafter provided a firm but narrow macadam road
down the middle of the worn strip and a brick wain bridge over the Cole.
Tolls were payable even by pedestrians until the bridge was rebuilt early in
the 20th century. Stage coaches took 14 hours between Birmingham and London.
Horse buses plied along the road, to Coventry from 1837 and to Yardley from
1831. Turnpikes were abolished more than a century ago, and by 1885 Company
steam tramcars were going as far from the town as Victoria Park. There was a
depot at Charles Road. Lines were laid between Hay Mills and the Swan Inn,
Yardley, and by 1907 the two routes had joined at the new bridge.
The long straight
streets of tunnelback houses on the Digby Estate north of the Coventry Road
were built by Charles Hougham between 1890 and 1915. When building resumed
after World War One it was municipal, and Heybarnes Road was cut as part of
a riverside highway. "The Plough & Harrow" was built to cater for the
townees who travelled by tram out to the green Cole valley. Heybarnes and
Little Hey Farms were demolished in the 1920s. The layby on the edge of Hay
Barn recreation ground was made for electric trolley buses, introduced in
1931 and very successful, but replaced by diesel buses two decades later.
The 'rec.' was briefly used as a helicopter landing ground in the 1950s.
Introduction
What can be seen from Ackers Hill
The natural landscape
Watercourses
Early settlement and boundaries
The Manors
The Warwick canal
Railways
Industry
Urbanisation
Parks and open spaces
Churches and schools
The Ackers leisure park
Itinerary
Maps |
