March by bridge and lock.

One of the features of the canal are the locks and bridges that are regularly encountered. So much so that we generally navigate using them. The bridges are either numbered or sometimes named and the locks are always numbered and usually named too. When conversing with others, often at a lock, it is usual to refer to the bridges and locks to indicate position or progress. I have therefore thought it would be a nice idea to summarize our year using locks and bridges rather than the more normal nice views etc. Mind you some of the pictures are all three!

We started our year from Streethay Wharf after a repaint of the boat. It did look very smart indeed. I'm not sure what you will think at the end of the year.

We sampled a short stretch of the Coventry Canal to Fazeley Junction before heading up the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal. Very soon afterwards you come to the Drayton  Footbridge. It was built in the 1830's. The canal was opened in 1789. It is Grade II Listed. As it wasn't built when the canal cut a sway through the land I wonder why it was installed 50 years later and built by a respected architect Sir Robert Smirke? This may well be the reason it is such a distinctive bridge. It is also next to Drayton Manor and the owner at the time was the MP for the area , Sir Robert Peel, who later became the Prime Minister.

In this modern era I am so pleased that we have not had to succumb to health and safety gone mad. As you can see a uncovered toothed gear is the main moving part on a lock paddle gear. The design must be getting about 225 years old and is good for that again at least I hope. Simple and efficient is what these are and even in a short shower they work fine on the way up the Curdworth Locks.

On this canal the bridges are named. Below to the left is Will Day's Farm Bridge. A very work a day name. Here we are in No.9 lock and running parallel to the M42 with another bridge. It is surprising just how often the canals and motorways inter react as they both take the line of least resistance through the landscape.

Here we are at a spot on the system I love. I'm not sure it would be on too many boaters top 10 places but it is on my list. Salford Junction is one of those places that has been a transport hub for  as well as the flowingever. Four canals meet here, or rather three, the Birmingham and Fazeley, Thame Valley and the Grand union Saltley Cut. Under this horse bridge is the Grand Union, straight on and left would be the Birmingham and Fazeley and then straight on and straight on is the Tame valley. But it is the dark cathedral like arches of the M6 overhead and the many columned roadways of Spaghetti Junction along with the River Tame flowing below all that makes it an ever evolving location.

We turned left up the Saltley Cut. There was a lot of traffic to the power station along here. It has long gone but there is the Star City area there now. The five locks up to Bordesley Junction have been cleaned up immensely over the last few years and they are a joggers route through the industrial area. Most would look at the attendant buildings and see much redundancy and emptiness, but I choose to see industrial archaeology and interest. Mind you it is very rarely that you get through this canal without a visit to the weed hatch!

After you have climbed the locks there is a pretty straight section. At the top lock there are three railways lines that cross, but afterwards it is the road bridges that take place. In this photo you can see six bridges. Even in a place like this at the weekend the fishermen are out in force. I must say that in Brum the anglers usually smile, at the very least, as you pass.

When is a bridge not a bridge? This is called Ashted Tunnel, but I'm not really sure why it is a tunnel as it doesn't need to bore through high ground. I suspect that it was the coming of the railways, or there was something when the canal was built that couldn't be knocked down to make a cutting. At the moment there is just a dual carriageway with plenty of room for expansion. The fact that the 'tunnel' is so narrow may well indicate that the canal was here first and then covered over.

I think that the Farmer's Bridge Locks are a favourite of most users. Well at least the top 10 or 11, as the bottom two are in the Stygian gloom of a road and rail bridge (that could be tunnels!?). You pass almost under the BT Tower and under office buildings. The locks are well maintained and easy to use. The flight has them close together reducing walking and there are always plenty of people around asking you daft questions and willing tom open or close gates as you suggest. You then pop out at Cambrian Wharf to s cene that has hardly changed since it was built, but plenty has all around it.

No.1 daughter, Amy, came with me after Birmingham and we passed up the New Main line and through Netherton Tunnel (definitely a tunnel). We ran down the Dudley No.2 Canal to it's junction with its big brother, Dudley No.1 at Park Head Junction. Here she is sitting on a checking bollard. I'm not sure what the proper name for it is. I suspect that they were used to slow a boat down before it hits the gate ahead rather than for actual mooring. I suppose a horse rope could be looped round it and heaved back on itself to start the boat out of the lock, going up, too, as the horse wouldn't be able to get a straight pull as the tow path goes round the corner. It is obviously not an old one as there is no wear on it. This is beside Blowers Green Lock which is a 12' rise/fall.

We were soon back at Windmill End Junction, another favourite spot of mine. Straight ahead is back through the Netherton Tunnel but we aren't heading that way just yet. To the right is the Dudley No.2 canal that went to join up with the Worcester and Birmingham Canal at Selly Oak and to the left was also the Dudley No.2 Canal until Telford came along and drove the Tunnel branch through the hill in 1858 and cut off the arm that is now called the Boshboil Arm that formed a loop with what is now called the Bumble Hole Arm. The black and white roving bridges add immensely to the scene and are made of cast iron just down the road  at Tipton by the Horseley Iron Works at Toll End. We turned right.