River Works & Drainage

There have been intermittent river works since medieval times, damming and diverting, clearing and enlarging of channels to make fishponds, leats, and millpools. On or beside Aston Brook were made Brodemore (Broad Moor) and Pike Pools, Thimble Mill and Benton's and Park Mill Pool. Rea fed the D. and N. Park millpools. Continuous small and occasional large changes of course across the flat meadows necessitated frequent attention to the channels.

When mills were rebuilt, requiring greater power from more and bigger wheels, the pools had to be enlarged to increase the reserve, especially as more and more mills were built upstream and more water was diverted into their pools. But the provision of free-flow tailraces and flood-courses was equally important. Mill buildings were often damaged by flood, and their works tended to impede river flow. There was sometimes dissension between adjacent millers, as in 1822 when the Saltley tenant raised his dam and took a greater share of Rea water, to D. 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 N. Park Mill was straightened by 'navvies' constructing the B. & W 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.

D. 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 inundated 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, D. and N. 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 surprisingly 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 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 N. 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 '58 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 N.

Was this so that a district outside the Borough (until '91) should have the shameful association while 'Nechells' remained a desirable building estate ? In '78 was set up the Tame & 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 '61 had permitted the widening, deepening, and improving of Hockley (Aston) Brook : but the major works of sewerage and flood control were car-ried 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 siphon 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 '92.

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 '84 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 becoming choked with rubbish, and so in '90 work began on a deep smoothly-curving storm-water culvert, brick lined and walled, from Bourn Brook to Lawley Street. This major undertaking was completed in three years, and has needed only repairs since then.

In '97 similar work was begun on the lower Rea from Lawley Street. By 1904, not only was the river wholly tamed but the conversion of the sewage works to perform bacterial filtration was complete at N. and Minworth. The great sewage farms were no longer needed and could be sold. After bed deepening under D. Mill Road in '09, no further work was done until '33-41 : then the Rea in Saltley was lowered still more, and the Tame was so widened to and beyond the City bound-ary that grass and trees are growing in a 'natural' bed within its walls.

The u1timaite 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 D. and N 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.