The Worcester Bar on a canal in Birmingham

Here is the story behind a strange feature to be found on the canal system in the heart of Birmingham, West Midlands.

The Worcester Bar

This sounds like a strange name for a short, narrow stretch of canal in the middle of Birmingham – it is not in Worcester and it is not a bar. The only barrier it presents these days is in not permitting two boats to pass each other but, being short, the delay is not going to be long.

However, this was the scene of a fierce commercial battle between two canal companies in the early 19^th century, resulting in a situation that seems absurd to us today, and a compromise that was merely inconvenient and whose legacy is the feature that we see today.

Worcester and Birmingham versus the Birmingham Canal Company

During the heyday of the canal system, which was a relatively short period between the mid-18^th century and the rise of the railways from the 1840s onwards, canal companies sought to outdo each other in providing routes for the transport of goods from the industrial heartland of England to the ports.

In 1791, the Worcester and Birmingham Canal Company was given Parliamentary approval to build a canal from Birmingham to the River Severn at Worcester, from where barges would proceed to the port of Bristol.

However, this canal would provide a better route than that already provided by the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, which linked with the Birmingham Canal to provide a route from Birmingham and Wolverhampton to the Stour and then the Severn. The advantage of the new route would be that it would avoid a stretch of the Severn that contained difficult shallows that were always a problem when the river level was low.

The Birmingham Canal’s Revenge

Clearly, if goods could be taken from the factories of the Black Country and Birmingham straight down to the Severn at Worcester, this would hit the revenues of the Birmingham Canal Company very hard. The latter therefore made sure that the Act of Parliament that set up the Worcester and Birmingham Canal contained a clause stipulating that the new canal could not come closer than seven feet to the water of the Birmingham Canal. It would therefore be impossible for boats to proceed from one canal to the other.

The Creation of the Worcester Bar

The Worcester Bar was therefore a solid wall between the two canals. Boatmen could get to within seven feet of the other canal but no further. Goods that were destined for delivery at places beyond the Bar therefore had to be unloaded from one barge, taken manually round the Bar and reloaded on to another barge on the other side. As they passed through, the goods could also be assessed for payments of fees.

Clearly this led to much delay, confusion and expense as hundreds of barrowloads of bulk goods were wheeled through the Bar every day, merely for the lack of seven feet of water. Needless to say, the merchants whose goods were subject to this restriction were not best pleased.

The Stop Lock Compromise

The situation was resolved in 1815, when the Birmingham Canal Company was eventually persuaded to allow a stop lock to be built in place of the Bar.

A stop lock is a lock that comprises two lock gates but without any mechanism for changing water levels. The idea is simply that a boat has to stop within the lock before permission is granted to proceed by the opening of the second gate.

With the stop lock in place, cargoes could still be examined and fees levied by the canal companies, but the cargoes could stay on board. This was clearly the commonsense option.

  

The Worcester Bar Today

What you can see today is the old stop lock but without the gates. You can see where the gates used to be, and you can also see the buildings alongside the Bar that used to house the lock keepers and the company officials who examined the cargoes and levied the fees.

This part of Birmingham was once a grimy, smoky and unpleasant place where men endured hard, physical labour hauling cargoes about. Today you will find canalside pubs and restaurants and sometimes, such as when these photos were taken on a Sunday morning, an oasis of calm.

The Worcester Bar is a fascinating reminder of Birmingham’s industrial heritage.

© John Welford

Canal boating in the UK

The canals of the UK were built for one purpose only, namely to provide a means of transporting bulk cargoes from mines and quarries to factories, and from factories to ports. Now that many of the mines, quarries and factories are no more, and those that remain are linked by rail and road, the surviving canal system has become a mecca for pleasure boaters as well as a haven for wildlife.

The industrial heritage of the canals means that they pass through the big cities as well as open countryside, and the keen narrowboater can see a great deal of industrial history as well as marvellous views, and experience a tremendous sense of peace as he or she, plus family or friends, chugs along at walking pace.

Owning a canal boat can be an expensive business, if one is talking about a full-length narrowboat that has to be bought, maintained, licensed and moored throughout the year. However, there are many smaller craft that use the canals, and many companies that hire boats out by the week or fortnight, or even for single days or weekends. It must be admitted that a canal holiday is not cheap, with a week’s hire usually costing more than £500, but you certainly get your money’s worth.

The great thing about a canal boating holiday is that you can go wherever the system takes you, stop virtually where you want, for as long as you want (within reason), and let the world pass you by. You can choose to cook all your own food on board, or moor up in villages or towns and make use of the pubs and restaurants that cater for people just like you.

The canals themselves are just great places to be. In rural areas they are mostly lined by reeds and grassy banks, and inhabited by a wide range of water birds including ducks, geese, swans, coots and moorhens. You may be lucky enough to see a water vole or an otter swimming across a canal, or a kingfisher darting into the water.

The industrial architecture of the canals is also worth seeing. Because canals cannot climb hills, locks are provided for this purpose, and many old lock-keepers’ cottages are still to be seen, as well as engine-houses, forges, and canal-side workshops. Many of these buildings are more than 200 years old. Canals are sometimes carried on extensive viaducts, or through long tunnels. There are even a few boat lifts still in working order, designed to take boats and their cargoes between canals and rivers that are at different levels.

When taking to the canals, it is important to know how to work the locks, because on most canals you will encounter a good number, sometimes in “flights” that mean you have to negotiate several locks in close succession. A lock consists of a brick-lined chamber between two lock gates. Because water can only flow one way, a lock operation consists of water being allowed to enter the chamber with the top gate open and the bottom gate closed, then released with the top gate closed and the bottom gate open. A boat will therefore either rise or fall within the chamber, depending on whether it is heading up or down the canal.

The fact that thousands of gallons of water will move down the canal every time the lock is used means that canal users should always be careful to observe the etiquette of allowing boats down the canal before emptying a lock in order to go up. It is also important to close the gates before you leave, and to be careful how you treat the mechanism that winds the “paddles” up and down.

There are some other “rules of the road”, such as keeping your speed to no more than four miles an hour, and not using the canal at night when people in moored boats are asleep. There are also places where you should avoid mooring. It can, for example, often be difficult to find somewhere to stop in a big city.

Learning to steer a narrowboat takes a little time, because the boat does not respond to the helm immediately. There are places where it is not easy to manoeuvre a boat, such as round sharp bends and when approaching locks or turns, and especially when trying to avoid other boats in narrow canals!

It is important to plan your trip so that you cover as many miles as you need to each day. Some routes can make use of “rings”, namely linking canals that will bring you back to where you started. If you are going “there and back” you will need to turn the boat round, which is only possible at certain places called “winding holes” where the canal is wide enough to make a three point turn (or possibly more than three!). You will also need to work out where you will pick up water, or possibly fuel, and where you can stop to pump out your onboard toilet.

Canal boating is great fun, as well as being hard work at times when there are many locks to negotiate. However, it is at these times that you are most likely to meet other canal users and pass the time of day. It is not so much fun when it is raining, as getting dry is not always so easy on a boat. But that is an occupational hazard of living in or visiting the UK!

Once you have tried canal boating, you will always be looking forward to the next time!

© John Welford

The Ashby Canal, Leicestershire

The Ashby Canal is unusual among British waterways in several respects. For one thing, it doesn't go to the place after which it is named, and in fact it never did--although it came close!

For another thing, it proceeds for 30 miles through gently undulating countryside without a single lock. It is therefore ideal for the novice narrow-boater who just wants to get used to steering a boat round lots of twists and turns without having to worry about negotiating locks. On the other hand, "doing the locks" is great fun too!

The canal was originally built to transport lime and coal southwards from the works and mines near Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire. The canal links to the Coventry Canal near Bedworth (Warwickshire), and hence directly to Coventry and indirectly to Birmingham, and via the Oxford and Grand Union canals to all points south. For boaters on the Warwickshire Ring with two days to spare, a trip up the Ashby and back is well worth the trouble.

The first plans for the Ashby Canal included a link to the River Trent at Burton, but this was soon seen as being over-ambitious. Indeed, it was envisaged from a very early stage that when the canal reached the point where locks would be essential, a series of narrow-gauge tramways would connect the canal to the mines and limeworks. The canal itself therefore only ever reached as far as Moira, which is about three miles from Ashby.

The first disaster to hit the canal was the realisation that the coal reserves at Ashby were nothing like as great as had been thought. There would therefore not be the traffic to allow the canal to make a profit, and any thoughts of extending the canal to the Trent were shelved for ever. Good fortune then arrived, in the shape of extensive coal seams being discovered at Moira itself, so the canal found itself a purpose almost by accident. Moira coal was of such high quality that it was in demand as far south as London, and the route to get it there had just been constructed!

However, the second disaster was caused by the very thing that made the canal a success. When you take coal out of the ground, you almost always create subsidence as the layers above the coal seams press down to fill the holes that have been created. This happened in the Measham area, just south of Moira, in 1918 and again in 1966, the end result being that the present canal is about eight miles short of its original length.

As things stand, the canal ends near Snarestone, which is a tiny village with an excellent pub, but not much else. To go the whole length, you have to go through the Snarestone tunnel, which is 250 yards long, but until recently you could only go less than half a mile before needing to turn round and come back through the tunnel. However, a further stretch has already been restored, adding another half mile of navigable waterway. Work is in progress to extend this length even further.

The coalmines at Moira have long been abandoned, but the village now has a new lease of life as the headquarters of the National Forest, which is a scheme to transform a huge area of central England, much of it blighted by its industrial and mining heritage, into woodland and forest. The visitor centre at Moira, Conkers, is an excellent place to learn about how a forest works and its wildlife, as well as being an adventure centre for all ages. The plan is therefore to bring the Ashby Canal back to Moira so that the industrial history of the area can be linked seamlessly with its new role.

The Ashby Canal Association  has been working hard over a number of years to achieve this goal, and there is already a 1.5 mile stretch of usable canal running alongside the Moira Furnace, but it is unconnected to any other waterway. It is no longer possible to use the original route for the stretch between Moira and Snarestone, so the plan is to make use of a disused railway line through the small town of Measham.

For much of its length, the Ashby Canal meanders through open countryside. Because it sticks to the 300 foot contour for the whole of its length, and villages in this area tend to be built on hilltops, the canal passes within sight of several settlements without actually going through them.

One exception is the town of Hinckley, towards the southern end of the canal. This is an ancient town founded on the hosiery industry, but the canal skirts its western edge, passing close to a modern industrial estate and the Triumph motorcycle factory. The Limekilns pub is worth a visit, as it is built where the canal passes underneath the A5 trunk road, which was originally the Roman Watling Street. The building appears to be on two floors if you are on the road, but three if you are on the canal.

Close to its halfway point the canal crosses the site of the Battle of Bosworth Field, fought in 1485 between England's just and rightful king, Richard III, and the foul usurper Henry Tudor. What was formerly presumed to be the battlefield site is well marked out along a circular pathway that offers a good, brisk walk, and there is also a visitor centre. However, recent discoveries have revealed that the battle actually took place about half a mile away.

If you moor up at the battlefield you can also take a trip on the Battlefield Line Railway, which is a preserved four-and-a-half-mile section of the former Ashby and Nuneaton Joint Railway. Throughout the summer there are regular services between Shenton (battlefield) and Shackerstone. The canal passes close to all three stations on the line, although it takes six miles to do so! The Shackerstone Railway Society has preserved a large number of steam and diesel locomotives, many of which make regular trips along the line.

The thing most worth seeing on this beautiful stretch of water is the English countryside at its peaceful best. Canals attract wildlife in droves, and you will almost certainly see family groups of swans, ducks and moorhens either swimming around between the reeds or looking hopefully at you for titbits. You may also see herons, birds of prey and, if you're really lucky, kingfishers. Look out for water voles as well.

© John Welford