Wandering on Walsall canal.

After a bit of administrative work we were off quite late, and just as a C&RT work boat wanted to moor. We backed out of the Oker Hill Tunnel Arm and headed off past the Tame Valley Junction and headed towards Walsall.

Along the way there are many banches that have been filled in, along with roving bridges over factory arms. This one is still obvious as it was the  Bradley Branch that used to lead to the Wednesbury Oak Loop up nine locks and so to the Wolverhampton level.

The Walsall Canal has many long straights and these bridges are the start of the Black Country Spine Road that runs parallel to the canal. However it is well screened and above the canal so doesn't seem to intrude too much.

This photo illustrates much of the Walsall Canal. Green but obviously old industrial land but never far from new industrial buildings and housing.

A few relics of the old working canals still survive. This is an old warehouse in Pleck.

There is plenty of green spaces on the route as well as plenty of brown field sites for development.

We headed up the Walsall Town Arm where the bank had been transformed by many new apartment buildings. The basin at the end is protected by a boom. We stopped to see what was what and realised that it was not made fast at one end and on a spring on the other so it was designed to push out of the way on passage and return afterwards to keep the rubbish. We went for a walk round the town for a look see and to find the post office.

Sister Dora was a heroine of Walsall. She came from a large family in Yorkshire with a depressed and violet Father. She couldn't make her mind up about a marriage partner and fled to be a school teacher. She later joined the Sisterhood of the Good Samaritans and became sister Dora, her real name was Dorothy Pattison. She arrived in Walsall in 1865 and worked in hospitals there. She worked continuously through a smallpox epidemic and eventually got known for helping the injured from industry, especially those on the railways and canals. The railway workers raised money for her to get a pony and trap to visit the sick at home. She died at 46 from cancer and at her funeral the whole town turned out to see her coffin carried by eight railway workers in uniform. She died in 1878 and in 1886 the statue was raised for her. It is said to be the first statue of a woman not of Royal blood to be erected in the UK.

The third Guild Hall on the same site was the civic centre of Walsall. It was refurbished in 1986/7 and is now a restaurant. 

'Holderness' on a pontoon at Walsall Town Basin. 

The Town Arm joins the Walsall Canal at the foot of the eight Walsall Locks. Above the first lock is the old Albion Flour Mill that was built in 1849. It has now been changed to apartments.

Looking down the flight from the second from the top. They are all single gates, except on and are  easy to work on the whole.

At the top of the flight at Birchills is the Incorportaed Seaman and Boatmen's Friendly Society, or the Boaten's Mission or rest. Here they could get a bed for the night, food, somebody to write letters etc. That is the building with the arched upper windows. These were for the dormitory. At one time the Mission was a Canal Museum but now is boarded up and looking for another use. The building closer to the the camera was the toll office for the canal.

We continued to Birchills Junction and then turned on to the Wyrley and Essington canal towards Wolverhampton. We stopped at Sneyd Wharf for the night. We saw one boat on the Walsall Arm and then another turned up later and moored on the water point by the buildings in the picture.