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1. RIDGEWAY (Walton Hill, Clent). In the thickly forested pre-historic
Midlands only the gravelly ridge-tops were comparatively clear.
They provided firm going for feet and hooves.
2. WQODLAND TRACK. A few tracks led down through the woods to firm
crossing- places on rivers and streams which animals had found by
trial and error. Such tracks may be found at Moseley Bog (on slide),
Moor Green Woods, Lickey Hills.
3. HOLLOWAY. These unmade tracks soon became worn. Water ran down
them, and mud was carried away on feet, hooves, and wheels. Examples
are Old Yardley Green Road and Scribers Lane Hall Green (first on
slide), The Holloway and Bell Holloway Northfield.
4. FORD. Where a stream-bed is rocky or gravelly, the water spreads
out, making a wide but shallow and firm crossing-place. If a gravelly
island forms, there are two channels to cross, but each has only
half the flow. Surviving fords in Birmingham are paved : the slide
shows a ford on the Blythe.
5. ROMAN ROAD. Roman engineers made fine roads running straight
from one sighting point to another. They used local materials, layers
of stone and fine gravel, with a stone paving for the more important
routes. This is 'Ryknild Street' (a name given in the Middle Ages,
the Roman name being unknown). Because this part of it crosses Sutton
Chase, it has survived 1500 years of neglect. The sandstone paving
has crumbled away, but the gravel 'agger', the raised and cambered
road-bed, is still visible. The road is in use still in south Birmingham
(Lifford Lane, Stirchley Street), but lost across the city.
6. BRIDGE. Earliest bridges in this forested region were of timber.
They were often washed away by our quick-flooding streams. Sandstone
bridges were built in the Middle Ages. There were two across branches
of the River Rea at Deritend ford. The slide is of the 'Zig-zag
Bridge' of 1711 at Perry Barr. Like all pre-Cl9th bridges it was
wide enough for only one wagon to cross, and pedestrians waited
in the pier-top refuges. There is a Tudor stone bridge at Water
Orton.
7. PACK-HORSE BRIDGE. Most bridges were for pedestrians and horses
only, like this one, the Four Arches Bridge between Hall Green and
Billesley. The bridge is narrow : the (rebuilt) parapets are kept
low so as not to impede the panniers or bundles on horses' backs.
The sharp cutwaters on the upstream piers deflect the current and
floating debris. The wain ford was on the downstream side of the
bridge.
8. TOLLHOUSE. Houses like this were to be seen beside tollgates
on all main roads from the mid-Cl8th. There are plenty left, but
not in Birmingham. This one is in Smethwick High Street. Ours have
all been pulled down, like the high gates and fences, because the
Turnpikes were all freed more than a century ago. Travellers paid
to use the road - so much for a horseman, so much a head for stock,
more for a wide-wheeled wagon, most for a narrow-wheeled coach.
The tolls were painted on a board on the house wall. They were used
to pay an engineer and for materials - but local people had to work
on the roads for six days a year without pay. The odd shape of the
house enabled the keeper to look both ways along the road.
9. TOLLGATE, TELFORD ROAD SURFACE at Blist Hill Museum, Ironbridge.
(House, gate, removed from Holyhead Road) Surface made to Telford
standard. The usual way of repairing a road - tipping stones into
the worst holes and harrowing or rolling the ruts out flat - was
useless. Macadam and others went back to Roman methods. They dug
out all the soft material, put down graded layers of broken stone
on solid foundations, cambered the fine-gravel top layer, and dug
deep ditches on both sides. Traffic ground the surface into sand,
and rain washed it into the cracks to bind the whole road together.
In practice, the road surface was muddy in wet weather and dusty
in dry.
10. BRISTOL ROAD. The early Turnpikes were the old winding lanes
improved a little but still including holloways, sharp bends, and
narrow village streets. Later in the C18th, when canal flyboats
were challenging stage-coaches because they travelled faster and
more smoothly, some roads were re-aligned. Bromsgrove Road, seen
here near Chad Brook, was a new road cut through the Calthorpe Estate
in Edgbaston. The old way across the Hall Park, using Over Mill
Dam (on the Golf Course) was abandoned. The road seen here is a
dual carriageway, made in the 1920's. Electric trams ran on the
central reservation. The tollgate by Edgbaston Church, was removed
: a modern house thereby, replacing an old one, is still called
'Tollgate House'. So is a commercial building on the Handsworth
Turnpike, at the Hamstead/Villa Road corner.
11. MILESTONE. After 1745 all main roads had to have milestones
showing the distance to London and the nearest towns. The only one
left in Birmingham is this one. It used to be on Holyhead Road by
Milestone Lane : now it is nearby, in the grounds of St. James's
School.
12. CRESCENT WHARF. Near this spot in November 1769 the first boat-load
of coal came to Birmingham on Brindley's canal. Two hundred years
later the engineer was honoured by the opening of the James Brindley
Walk. The Newhall Branch continued eastward under Summer Row from
1772 to 1926. The factories and ware-houses that used to surround
the Wharf have gone, as has all the commercial traffic. Now there
is a marina for pleasure craft here at the start of Birmingham'
second canal, the Fazeley 1783-90. This area, with its refurbished
Georgian terrace, Kingston Row, its lawns and walks, its flatblocks
and hostels, is the first part of an ambitious plan to open up the
city's waterways as amenities.
13. CANAL OFFICES. The headquarters of the Birmingham Canal Navigation
Co. was on Suffolk Street opposite Paradise Street. The Old Wharves
lay behind. They and the Offices were redundant by 1926 : the buildings
were demolished and the channels infilled.
14. GAS STREET BASIN. From this point it is still possible, as it
has been since 1815, to travel by water to all four great estuaries
of England. Three arms formerly led off the basin, one leading to
the first gas works in Birmingham. Four bridges over the canal make
a tunnel beneath Broad Street.
15. SITE OF OLD WHARVES. Every narrow boat required 70 feet of wharf
for loading and unloading. Here were the original (1772) wharves,
which were formerly surrounded by foundries and warehouses. The
site is now covered by the Holiday Inn and ATV (Central) Centre.
16. BRIDGE STREET ARM. From Bridge Street the truncated arm which
used to lead to the Old Wharves goes to Gas Street Basin and the
early C19th buildings of the Canal Company - office, tollhouse,
workers' cottages. The canopied ware-house on the left has been
cleared with the rest of the Worcester Co.'s timber and stone storage
yards, to make way for commercial and residential development.
17. FAZELEY JUNCTION. The signpost on the circular island points
south towards Worcester, west to Wolverhampton, and east to Coventry.
Behind it, the Brindley Cut goes in a cutting towards Gas Street
Basin and Old Wharves. Left, it goes to Crescent Wharf and the Fazeley
Canal. Off right, beyond the wide basin which boats needed for turning,
the Brindley Cut winds away to Smethwick, and the Telford Cut starts
its direct line thither. Note the cast-iron roving bridge, the entrance
to (Butlers) Brewery Arm, and the steel strakes which protect the
island edge-stones.
18. FARMERS BRIDGE FLIGHT. The light castings used for the roving
bridges (which enabled horses to cross the canal without unhitching)
were made at Tipton and boated to site. 24 locks in two flights
take the Fazeley Canal down to the Tame at Salford. The great beams
enable boatmen to swing the heavy timber lock-gates.
19. TELFORD/SMEATON/BRINLEY CUTS. At the Smethwick Summit three
stages in the development of the Birmingham Canal may be seen. Up
on the slope to the right a track follows the line of the original
Brindley Cut, infilled, which was reached by six locks on each side
of the summit. Below it is the Smeaton Cut of 1789, which being
lower required only three locks each side. The wide cut in the foreground
is that of Thomas Telford, completed in 1829, which is 70 feet deep
at greatest. There are no locks on the Telford Cut between Birm-ingham
and Wolverhampton. The disused late-Victorian building is a former
pump-house. Boulton & Watt beam engines were used to pump water
up to the Brindley summit level from 1778.
20. WORCESTER BAR. From 1793 the B.C.N. and Worcester Companies
had basins separated by a narrow strip of land called Worcester
Bar. All cargoes had to be transhipped across it. The B.C.N. feared
loss of water to the Worcester, whose supplies were few and far
away. In 1801 a lock was installed which is now permanently open.
21. CURZON STREET STATION. This fine Ionic-porticoed building was
the first railway station in Birmingham : the London to Birmingham
and the Grand Junction from Liverpool and Manchester both terminated
here in 1838. The Queen Hotel beside it was demolished a few years
ago. It and the station were used as a parcels office after New
Street Station was built.
22. NEW STREET STATION. The station built in 1852 was originally
and more correctly to be called Navigation Street Station. Several
mean streets were cleared for the making of the station. A right
of way was carried over the lines and platforms to Queen Street.
A Midland Station was built south thereof in '85.
23. STOUR VALLEY LINE. The London North-Western Co. 'constructed
its Wolverhamp-ton & Stour Valley line in 1852 alongside the
Telford Cut. The two companies worked together for mutual benefit
: eventually the canal was taken over by the railway. Note the grassed
towpath, used only by cycling children, and the elec-tric cable
gantries.
24. OXFORD RAILWAY VIADUCT. The great trenches of the London to
Birmingham (Yardley, Saltley) and the Gloucester (Moseley) Railways
are our major earthworks. The greatest structure is the 58-arch
blue-brick viaduct of the broad-gauge Oxford Railway across the
Rea valley. At Oxford Street the viaduct of 1906 diverges to Moor
Street Station.
25. SNOW HILL STATION. A temporary building on Snow Hill, replaced
in 1871, was the terminus of the Oxford line. The G.W.R. took it
over and built the Birm-ingham Dudley & Wolverhampton line in
1854. The Great Western Hotel was built on Colmore Row in 1879 :
an arched entrance to the new station forecourt was made through
the hotel in 1912. When the hotel and all structures above platform
level were razed, the rest was left, straddling the Newhall Brook
valley.
26. BORDESLEY/SMALL HEATH YARDS. This large area of sidings, coal
and timber yards, was run down after War Two, and is now a grassed
strip whereon the Coven-try Expressway runs. The same fate has befallen
nearly all the goods yards and marshalling yards of Birmingham.
27. MOOR STREET STATION. This station has little freight traffic,
but still serves commuters on the Oxford and North Warwickshire
lines. It was built for the latter in 1909, taking pressure off
Snow Hill, and was intended to bring the produce of Arden to Birmingham
markets.
28. NEW STREET STATION. The slide, a view from the Rotunda during
construction, shows the old station building in right foreground
after the Queen's Hotel along-side had been demolished. The new
station is wholly underground except for its small forecourt, Birmingham
Shopping Centre having been built above it.
29. SNOW HILL STATION, CLEARED SITE. The line wells have been infilled
and the station site is in use as a car park. Many plans have been
produced for the site. It is possible that the latest will be implemented
and that a small rail station might be included for a rapid-transit
route between Olton and Stourbridge Junction. Other proposals for
the Snow Hill tunnel and the viaducts, tunnel, and cutting going
north-west are for a cyclists' way or bus route.
30. ASTON EXPRESSWAY. This wholly new road was cut through a district
of slum houses and old factories which was to be demolished for
re-development. Lich-field Road was thought to be incapable of improvement
to the standard required for a highway between the city centre and
M6. The making of the Expressway involved flyovers, underpasses,
the diversion of the Tame and reducing of Salford Reservoir, and
the raising of the road on concrete stilts near the Interchange.
31. 'SPAGHETTI JUNCTION'. The apparent confusion of roads looping
over and under each other is unavoidable, since it must cater for
25 options of travel to and from two motorways and three main roads
: in addition it covers an area in which a river, a brook, three
canals and a railway converge.
32. HARBORNE RAILWAY CUTTING. The lines were taken up in 1967. Now
the cutting has been infilled beside Summerfield Park, landscaped
beyond, and turned into the Harborne Walkway. An imaginative plan
for paths beside canals, streams, and along disused cuts and banks,
has been started. It will make the oldest form of transport, walking,
a pleasure.
32. SOHO & WINSON GREEN STATION SITE. On the B.W. & D. line.
Nature is taking back the site denied to it since 1854, as it has
done at Moseley, Somerset Road and Church Road Stations. What use
will be found for the site and the route, if any ?
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