CANALS

To avoid the delays on Birmingham's congested waterways, and in an attempt to keep canal transport competitive with the faster freight-trains, the Birmingham Canal Navigation and Warwick Companies combined to build a junction cut: it left the Warwick Canal east of the Rea, and went north along the valley floor to join the Fazeley and the new Tame Valley Canals at Scrafford, alias Salford, Bridge. (No name connection with Saltley). Entering Saltley 200 yards west of and below Garrison Farm, it curved gently along beside the Rea, closely skirting the old moat and Saltley millrace and pool, cutting across the tail-race just below the dam. A long narrow reservoir, fed by rills from the ridge, was made on a Rea meander in Crane Moor, immediately to the north of which the canal crossed into Nechells.

In 2½ miles the cut descends about 30 feet, by way of five locks in Saltley and a shallow one at Salford. The Birmingham & Warwick Junction Canal was opened in 1844: wharves were made at Saltley High Street, Duddeston Mill Road, and Garrison Street, and a lengthsman's cottage (still standing) was built on Crawford Street. Transport of bricks from the kilns on the former demesne, and coal to the gas works, brought local traffic in the 80s to add to the large number of through boats. Saltley Wharf was enlarged in 1898, when the Viaduct was rebuilt and the Public Works Depot constructed. Decline set in after World War One. There was a spurt of activity after the canal had become part of the Grand Union in 1929, dredging and bank shoring, but the locks stayed narrow: by that time there were 18 road and rail bridges across the cut, with seven-foot channels beneath, and the cost of widening would have been uneconomically great.