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Two hundred years ago the whole of Bordesley manor and most of Yardley were
enclosed in small hedged crofts, largely used for pasturing stock and market
gardens, which supplied meat on the hoof, hides, vegetables, fruit and dairy
produce for the growing town of Birmingham. The many ponds, created when
clay was dug out for brickmaking and for spreading over the less fertile
surface drift, were used both for stock watering and for fish crops. Poor
roads and a lack of navigable rivers made the transporting of materials and
fuel to, and manufactures from, the town very expensive, so the wealthy
citizens were eager to pay for artificial waterways - canals. Birmingham was
linked by water to coal-fields and ports by 1790, but the way to London was
indirect and long. Warwick's townspeople wanted cheaper coal and a better
route to the capital, and they formed the Birmingham and Warwick Canal
Company. Work began in 1793 from a junction with the Digbeth Branch of the
Birmingham Canal Navigation: the canal crossed the Rea on an aqueduct, and
climbed out of its valley by way of six narrow locks. From Camp Hill it was
able to maintain its summit level (117m) all the way to Knowle. Water to
fill it came from streams en route, including a long feeder from the Spark
Brook, the Rushey and Westley Brooks, and Olton Reservoir, built by French
prisoners of war.
Crossing the Spark and the Cole has always presented problems. Provision for
free flow of great volumes of flood-water had to be made if the embankment
of clay, sand and gravel was not to be damaged. Bank breaks were the
constant fear of canal engineers. The Warwick Canal runs parallel to the
Spark Brook along its valley side before bending to cross the multiple
watercourses about the confluence by the shortest route, bending again to
skirt Hay Hall, then cutting and tunnelling through Stockfield ridge. By
1799 it had been extended beyond the Avon to join the Oxford Canal at Napton:
other canals from there provided a direct way to London from 1820. The
system was prosperous for some decades, despite railway competition from the
1840s, carrying Black Country coal and Yardley red tiles and bricks
southward. Flyboats for travellers, drawn by horse teams, plied smoothly and
swiftly along the summit level. Short arms were cut - at Camp Hill top lock
- on the feeders, later to the B.S.A., and at Kings Road a turning pool was
made. To public works yards at Montgomery Street and Kings Road came road
metal, setts and paving stones, and from them refuse went to be dumped at
the Borough Boundary, and night-soil to be sold to farmers. The roving
bridge on the canal west of the railway viaduct crosses the (blocked) tunnel
entrance to the B.S.A. arm. During World War One, a basin was dug east of
the viaduct for use by boats serving factories thereabout.
In 1929, five independent canals including the Warwick joined with others to
form the Grand Union Canal Co. During the 1930s, the cuts were dredged and
piled with steel or concrete to take motor boats and their towed 'butties'.
Improvements stopped at Camp Hill, where terminal warehouses and facilities
were provided. Stockfield tunnel was rebuilt. After wartime revival,
commercial traffic dwindled to nothing. Pleasure cruising was tried from
Stockfield after the War, and during the Yardley Festival of 1972: nowadays
only private vessels disturb the canal's solitude.
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 |
