1.2 The Lost Canal Basins of Birmingham

[Music] [Music] so hello and welcome to Birmingham welcome to this edition of wider 2.3 miles an hour and more specifically welcome to this latest episode of canal hunter gas treat basin is a vibrant center of canal life it is and always has remained full of fascinating our working boats and it's always a place worth coming to visit gas treat Basin sitting at the very end of the old Birmingham canal is an ideal place to start this story out to the north there were the coal fields of West Bromwich and Birmingham was a city in need of fuel to rather rely on pack horses trails they decided to build a canal in 1769 and where I'm standing now gas Street Basin is the terminus or one of the two terminus of the old canal the other one is in Newhall Street over that way and we'll go and have a look at that in a bit so here we are gastrique Basin looking through two under Broad Street through past all the old working boats to the back end of gastrique basin and the entrance to old Wharf Birmingham isn't the ideal place to build either the centre of the Industrial Revolution or heavy metal working industry it's it's up here high on the plain it's about 550 feet up that's about 150 metres above sea level it has no natural water sources but what it did have was in Birmingham we had a nucleus skilled artisans who were good at using metalwork and then further out to the north there was a huge supply of coals we looked at in our introduction 30 feet of the thick of the stuff what they needed was a canal to get from one place to the other so in 1769 dejectedly in he'd built a canal they went through from here in Birmingham out to West Bromwich and a stroke it cut the cost of coal in half for all of its glory of what you see today the canals of central Birmingham are only a shadow of what they you once used to be this very tip of the Birmingham plateau was absolutely covered with wolves I would like to do in this episode is to go and walk the line and show you some of the bits that used to exist now I can't promise to show you lots of tangible remains it's just the lightest fingerprint left on the landscape but nonetheless as this is the end and the destination of the bell Birmingham Canal this is the place to start standing behind me you can actually see a bridge and the bridge led off the back end of gas Street Basin into what is known as old Wharf in old Wharf you went through that bridge and the canal then separated out it's two long arms and the long arms reached right the way back to those white buildings you can see behind me used to run under the site of the old central TV television studios these days it runs out to where the foundations of the HSBC building are and if you go out as far as our four tower that sits on the foundations of the old Burnham canal navigations head office the rebuilt end to a straight basin and the entrance to old wolf it now enters the area known as a arena central so I'm selling my back to gastric basins looking out directly into the entrance for old Wharf it's kind of nice that the basement entrance into the HSBC building dips down and would pretty much follow the bed of the canal and you'll have one arm sliding off to the left under its foundations another one going off on the right and heading towards the hotel just at the back and the the old head office for the Birmingham Canal navigations would be at the foot of alpha tower that you could just see beeping out around the back of the you HSBC building the question is sometimes posed when exactly is a lost canal a lost canal and when is it merely a lost Wharf well this little archway here in gastric Basin is a classic case in point it's at the end of bar lock footbridge and this little tiny hole so the canal through and out into a dead straight line up for about 400 meters beyond to serve the the coal works and the inner foundries that went beyond it no doubt this arm was built at the same time as the Permian canal and about 1769 we wouldn't know exactly when it was closed off however just above the entrance you'll see a little red door and the little red door was access for the fire we had houses in the Second World War so that would suggest that this arm still in water at least until 1945 if you walk around the side you will see there's another fire hose to come into the basin itself and because it's two walls there's another fire hose entrance beyond so this area was still being used on in water at the end of the Second World War so here we stand on the austere birmingham side of gas street facing and if we look at a bistro pierre and old building sit on the side we see an archway and the archway contains the entrance to yet another lost arm so here we are around the back of the bistro and we have with all the tell-tale traces of a lost canal as you can see the towpath who rises up or should I say the footpath and rises up in the hump they sure don't get knocked over but the road has been leveled out and flattened so it took over the back side of the bridge and emerging from underneath is to all intents and purposes okay now as we can see it's pretty shallow it's just a normal mental pond full of fish and plants but it is undoubtedly an inescapably an old canal wolf right down to the stone aging and they Wharf would have continued up this little alleyway pretty much to where that white building is at the end now I must admit I have to be known here once before and at that time this building opposite was an office building and I got slung out on my ear one of my lesser dignified exits there you go so a little tangible reminder of an old canal alarm which still exists being used in a very different way here we are at Cambrian Wharf one of the twin fin finishing points for the old Birmingham Canal and as you can see the line of the canal continues on into the the modern-day moorings next to the flapper pub and to the left there is the top of the farmers bridge locks where the canal the Birmingham Phase II canal starts its long descent away from the Birmingham level plateau so the new hall branch continued on beyond the end of Cambrian Wharf and that's what we're going to go and explore back into Cambrian Wolff you can almost feel the line and I can I'll come me underneath my feet and if I gradually turn ourselves around looking down the first couple of locks with a farm this bridge flight we're heading down the pathway here and this pathway it's a fair reflection of where the old aníbal branch used to go here we are at the end of the blocks of flats and as you can see the line of the Newhall branch was sticking tightly to the Birmingham level contour as it was hugging the very end of the contour if we walk just across here you can see the top few lakhs of the farmers bridge flight and you can see how already the level of the canal is dropping away off the edge of the plateau really fast so another quick look back there's the line of the Newhall branch coming along or following me on around the back of the flat wall it went straight this block as it right beside the line of the canal emerged from just beyond those billboards and those trees followed the main road round at the level I'm tracing in the middle of the screen and following it exactly the modern-day Road around the corner and then disappeared straight underneath that enormous office block now occupied by the University College burning them but so we find ourselves in New Hall Street end of the line for the canal into the line for this hunt legacy New Hall Street that dips down very dramatically drops down to the farmers bridge locks terminus was to my left over here excuse the bobbins we look away down the great Charles Street way around so when the land stopped the canal stopped and here they built the wolves for the coal and the mine works and all the other judgments of the Industrial Revolution now the story of the Newhall branch wouldn't be complete who didn't share its little secret as the Newhall branch came around the back of that block of flats and act through those trees and came on the road in front of us the Gibson branch left and the Gibson branch wait pretty much underneath the multi-story car park which is basketball house car park and then underneath that big white building which is Baskerville house now the arms from the the wolf that it reached under there reach down underneath the new Birmingham library which is that big golden colored building just beyond what all those were pop round into a centenary square and have a bit more of a look about where the Gibson Army used to be we are on the back of Baskerville house and the line of the canal this section was all built over so it was pretty much a tunnel underneath we go around the other side of Baskerville house centenary square it squired by the local authority back in the early 1900s and the idea was that they were going to create a larger civic expansion Baskerville house of 1/2 a house of remembrance to the other on the other shadow of Baskerville house it's supposed to be here but then the war happened this isn't actually inside the Hall of memory it's not a building I've ever actually been in before it's quite quite stunning as I say it maintains the memory of the four wonderful mayor of people of Birmingham during the First World War in fact is quite amazing really if you look up at the roof it's got a very Roman issue type it's up to it and it's quite reminiscent to the Pantheon in Rome no bit of a Jenny here in the middle of Birmingham if you just appear to the central piece you can see the books over this bed so here's a better view of the War Memorial Baskerville house in the background Gibson War branch came underneath up through one lock and it had twin arms the second leg play Knight as far as the War Memorial and then went out up through centenary square heading straight for what is nice and for me Hall it was a thermal brought further branch that came out right behind me I'm finished just about here and as you can see of the Newhall branch the land is sloping away fast and there was nowhere else to go in terms of canal building so another end of the road this is the start of the first war and the war farm went out underneath the library and through to the theater beyond fact when they dope the library footings a few years ago they actually unearthed part of the old to come now line as you can see from the photos I've inserted into the video so that's the end of the exploration of a new whole line and the Gibson line next time we'll take a trip up the old the old line of the canal heading north from Birmingham have a look at the lost loops so I hope you enjoyed this episode and I'll see you next time [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Life at 2.3 miles an hour

Views: 14,661

Keywords: iMovie, Canal and River Trust, Birmingham, Canals, Boating, Narrowboats, Old Wharf, Gas Street Basin, Brindley Place, Old Turn Junction, Cambrian Wharf, Newhall Branch Canal, Gibson Branch Canal, Centenary Square, Birmingham Canal, Birmingham Canal Navigations

Id: lH6Jve5rqY4

Length: 15min 24sec (924 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 28 2018

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