1825 AD - Patrick Brennan & Thomas Telford

Standing at the south end of the great dam of Rotton Park Reservoir, I pressed the button to take myself back to 1825. The lake disappeared, as did all the buildings, and I was looking across a wide marshy valley: from the circular Roach Pool, fed by three streams, a brook ran down an artificial channel on the far side.

A great bank of earth and stones was being built out from my side across the hollow, and the old stream-bed was already blocked. The material for the bank came from narrow boats moored in the Brindley canal loop below : it was being shovelled into wheelbarrows, which were then hauled up the steep slopes near me on ropes pulled by horses.

At the top, the men who had guided the loads so skilfully up the narrow plank-ways ran them along the boarded top of the bank and tipped them out at the far end. It looked like a hard and dangerous job, and a very slow one.

Nearby a tall, grey-haired man stood studying a plan. He stepped back without looking round, and one of the barrow-men just missed him.

Brennan: Will you look out, now !

Telford: What ? Do you know who you're shouting at?

Brennan: No, and I'd shout the same if you were Mr. Telford himself! Would you be wanting a load of muck all over your clean boots?

Telford: Well now, I am Thomas Telford, and I'm also obliged to you for warning me. What is your name?

Brennan: Patrick Brennan, sir.

Telford: From Ireland?

Brennan: Wouldn't you know it, sir!

Telford: You're far from home, Brennan - but then so am I, for I am Scots.

Brennan: A man must go where the work is, and that's here ! There's lots of us Irish working for you Mr. Telford. Sure, no-one ever wanted so much dirt moved from one place to another as you do !

Telford: Do you know what it is all for?

Brennan: This bank is to hold back the water from the brooks there, and the water is for the canal - and a great pool of it there'll be!

Telford: But no more than will be needed, though the lake will cover 80 acres! See how low the water is in the Brindley Cut below there : boats can go but half-loaded, and there's hardly width enough for two to pass, narrow though they are. Indeed, the canal is no better than a crooked ditch ! Look at those broken banks, and what passes for a haling-path!

Brennan: Indeed, sir, many's the boat we've hauled off the mud, and many a horse has slid into the water.

Telford: Then you will understand why I am making a new canal to cut across the loops of this one, with banks over the glens, and trenches through the hills. It will shorten Brindley's roundabout way by seven miles, going straight and deep, with shored banks and a haling-path on both sides.

Brennan: I was working at Smethwick before here, sir. We were cutting right through the hill beside the old canal there. Sure, we thought you must expect to find gold there !

Telford: That great cut will make gold for many folk, Brennan. When all is done, there will be smooth passage, all on one level, from Birmingham to the Black Country: and all will gain. You know that at present there are three locks on both sides of Smethwick? At first there were six ! There was great delay for boats and much complaint, for the top pound was always short of water. One of James Watt's engines, made at Soho yonder, was set up in 1777 to pump water back to the summit: and just 40 years ago John Smeaton lowered the cut there so that only three locks were needed to reach it. On this side he made a second set of locks on a side cut, so that boats might go up and down at the same time. But none of these measures long sufficed, for traffic grew year by year, and water was always short. Little work has been done to maintain, far less improve, Brindley's winding cut. Now at least this great reservoir, and the cut at Smethwick which will be free of locks, will end the Navigation Company's troubles.

Brennan: And when do you think it will all be finished, sir?

Telford: In perhaps three years' time. I have other concerns, but I shall be here for the completion.

Brennan: I shall be here all through, sir. It's good to know that there will be work for us 'navvies' so long ahead. But then I think we shall still be needed even when there are no more canals to build. Dolan, a friend of mine, has walked down here from the north; he says he was working up there on a railway for a man named George Stephenson, who builds steam engines on wheels to pull heavy loads at fast speeds. It seems to me that such railways would be wanted here. Dolan says that the engines - he calls them locomotives - can't climb hills, because the iron wheels slip on the iron rails: so that means they need banks and trenches like yours, Mr. Telford, and tunnels too, to keep the lines near level. So we'll not lack for work!

Telford: I am too old to learn new tricks Brennan. I shall stick to what I know. Canals and roads have been my lifework, and with them I shall stay. If these new-fangled locomotives can do better than horse-drawn boats, which I doubt, then younger men may build the ways for them. Tell me, Brennan, how do the folk of Birmingham take to you and your camp of navigators on the edge of their town ?

Brennan: I will not say they welcome us, sir, for they don't. They think we are a drunken, brawling band of thieves, and sure, some of us are! We aren't wanted in the ale-houses, and the Brummagem lads will pick a fight as soon as look at us. But most of the townies don't treat us too ill. It seems they've had to get used to strangers for so many years that a few Irishmen don't bother them - and sure, lots of them are new to the place themselves, or their parents were ! Mind you, we keep out of the town if we can, for a black, stinking place it is! Soot falling all day long, and the sun hardly seen for the smoke from factory chimneys! The smells are even worse.

Telford: Yes, Boulton & Watt engines have brought power and wealth to Birmingham, but they have brought dirt and disease too. Ah, I see that one of your fellows has caught a fish down there. He'd better hide it quickly!

Brennan: Sure, it can't be poaching to pick up a fish that's been washed on to the mud by a boat?

Telford: But it is, Brennan. When Birmingham Heath was enclosed thirty years ago it was divided up among the gentlemen who owned the land around it. The lord of the manor, Christopher Musgrave, received Meredith's Pool on Winson Green Brook, and kept the fishing rights in the brooks and canals. Two years ago he sold his rights to take tolls at the markets and fairs to Birmingham Streets Commissioners, but nothing else. So your friend is poaching!

Brennan: Not for the first or last time, sir.

Telford: I will wish you a good day, Brennan, and - as I believe you Irish say - more power to your elbow!

Brennan: Thank you, Mr. Telford, sir - and luck go with you.

They parted, Telford to his horse, and Brennan to tip his load. I though that Telford would not believe me if I told him that by the middle of the century Birmingham would have fast railway routes to all the chief ports of England: but he would find it unremarkable that his great cut remained in heavy use for seventy years after its opening.

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