RIVER WORKS AND DRAINAGE

There was sometimes dissension between adjacent millers, as in 1822 when the Saltley tenant raised his dam and took a greater share of the Rea water, to Duddeston Mill's detriment. After a long lawsuit, compensation was paid to the Galtons. Canal building caused minor diversions, and water was lost to them. Railways, sewage works, and flood control brought major changes. Thus the long leat to Nechells Park Mill was straightened by 'navvies' constructing the Birmingham & Warwick Junction Canal, and when the reservoir was built the main Rea channel was diverted into the headrace to make room, returning to the old bed in a culvert under the canal just short of the millpool.

Duddeston Millrace was also carrying the main flow: its sluices allowed water but not solids to pass, so that by mid-century a mile-long pool of untreated sewage from town drains had gathered above the dam 'covered with a pestiferous surface of white scum'. After the great floods of 1852, when all of lower Birmingham was inun-dated by polluted water, the impeding works were removed and the river flowed in an improved channel beside the railway yards.

Having so simple a relief, Duddeston and Nechells ought not to have had difficulty in developing a drainage system by gravity flow into their bordering valleys. But the Acting Surveyor for the Streets Commission in 1845 (when the population was moving towards 30,000) was a saddler and beerseller who 'never had no instruction', 'never could see that there was any art in laying down sewers', and 'took levels by three sticks' !

Not sur-prisingly the single culvert then built was of little use to the hamlets, as 'one part was too low and the other had been laid too high, and no cross drains had been laid in'. When the Borough of Birmingham took over the Commissioners' functions in 1852 they had to tackle promptly the linked problems of sewage disposal and river works. The aims were the provision of piped drains for all built-up areas, the keeping of sewage out of natural streams, the disposal of solid wastes, and the confining of floods.

The first main sewer was completed on the west side of the Rea within a year, but there was none along the Aston Brook valley until 1880. The outfall of the great brick drain and its successors was at the Borough's lowest point, the Tame/Rea confluence in north-east Nechells. Here were built the first settling tanks and drying sheds. These multiplied in response to suits brought by C.B. Adderley of Hams Hall: his home stood in a great loop of the Tame which became horribly polluted by Birmingham's sewage and dead fish.

From 1858 onward he fought the Borough and the Drainage Board. Thirty acres of land about the confluence were bought for the dumping of dried sludge, and the Hams Estate was cleaned up at Birmingham's expense: eventually 2000 acres of down-Tame meadows were in rotational use as sewage farms. The works themselves were always called 'Saltley Sewage Works', though having no access from Saltley and being at first wholly in Nechells. Was this so that a district outside the Borough (until 1891) should have the shameful association while 'Nechells' remained a desirable building estate ? In 1878 was set up the Tame and Rea District Drainage Board, which thenceforward was able to prevent other authorities' undoing the Borough's good work by continuing to discharge untreated sewage into the rivers.

An Act of 1861 had permitted the widening, deepening, and improving of Hockley (Aston) Brook: but the major works of sewerage and flood control were carried out by the Borough and Aston Board of Health jointly from 1879. By then the brook was choked with sewage and refuse. The flow had been diverted into Thimble Mill's headrace, but the dam obstructed the passage of storm water. The miller's water rights were bought, a brick invert was made from Hockley to Long Acre, 12 bridges were altered or rebuilt, and a double iron syphon was made under the Fazeley Canal at Chester Street. But free flow was still obstructed by Park Mill dam, and this was not removed until 1892.

Three years later the Hockley Brook Sewer had to be rebuilt, proving inadequate after only 15 years' service. Further work was necessary in 1917, both on sewer and brook: the latter was further lowered and completely buried in a brick tunnel from Winson Green to Thimble Mill Lane, and from Plume Street to Cuckoo Bridge.

By 1884 the Tame and Rea had been turned into new channels surrounding the sewage works, so that the confluence was wholly artificial and 400 yards east of the original. All through the town the Rea was be-coming choked with rubbish, and so in 1890 work began on a deep smoothly-curving storm-water culvert, brick floored and walled, from Bourn Brook to Lawley Street. This major undertaking was completed in three years, and has needed only repairs since then. In 1897 similar work was begun on the lower Rea from Lawley Street.

By 1904, not only was the river wholly tamed but also the conversion of the sewage works to perform bacterial filtration was complete at Nechells and Minworth. The great sewage farms were no longer needed and could be sold. After bed deepening under Duddeston Mill Road in 1909, no further work was done until 1933-41: then the Rea in Saltley was lowered still more, and the Tame was so widened to and beyond the City boundary that grass and trees are growing in a 'natural' bed within its walls

The ultimate and indeed the interim effect of these river works was the making available to railways, services, and industry of much former meadowland: so that residential Duddeston and Nechells became gradually hemmed in by great walled enclosures, gasholders and retort houses, engine sheds and warehouses, and the buildings of scores of engineering firms - with all the grime, smell, and noise that these produced.