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Until
recently, the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal was a ‘private’
industrial world behind high walls with three long flights of
locks (Farmer’s Bridge, Aston and Curdworth) coping with a steep
descent from Gas Street Basin at the end of the Birmingham Canal
to the Coventry Canal at Fazeley.
This canal was the first of Birmingham’s re
generation schemes (1984). Farmer’s Bridge Locks were cleaned
up, lit and landscaped. Towpath accesses were created through
the walls. Resurfaced towpaths now attract families on weekend
strolls and relaxing workers on weekday lunchtimes.
The Birmingham and Fazeley Canal Company made
waterways history. Even before they started to seek approval for
their scheme to build a canal to Fazeley they gained
uncharacteristic cooperation from three other independent
companies (1782). Known as the ‘Coleshill Agreement’, incomplete
canals were to be finished and some long distance routes
established. The Trent and Mersey Co., which had already (1777)
linked these two rivers at Fradley, agreed to ‘go halves’ with
the Birmingham and Fazeley on financing a missing link from
Fradley to Fazeley. Coventry Canal Co. agreed to finish its
canal from Atherstone as far as. Fazeley, and Oxford Canal Co.,
which had already built a canal from Coventry as far as Banbury,
agreed to complete its intended route to the Thames at Oxford.
Thus the system around Fazeley was to be connected to London
markets. Within 8 years all four companies had fulfilled their
promises and Fazeley became a busy entrance to Birmingham. A
prosperous Birmingham Canal Company understood the benefits of
such progress and, after the Birmingham and Fazeley had obtained
their Act (1783), proposed an amalgamation (1784) to form the
Birmingham Canal Navigations (1794). The great and good of
Tamworth insisted that canals be routed in the fields at the
edge of their town boundary. The company created wharves and
formed a junction with the Coventry (Fazeley Junction) at the
point where it served the old Roman Road (Watling Street: A5).
44 years later a fugitive from striking workers in Lancashire
diverted the local stream and created a series of water-powered
factories to mass produce calico. The multi-storey mill
buildings still stand alongside the canal.
The M6 is only one of six main roads connected
by the many twisting slip roads that give rise to the name
Spaghetti Junction. Most are on stilts and in the wasteland
below is a four way canal junction (Salford Junction) that has
existed here for 150 years.
Farmer’s Bridge and Aston Locks take the canal
down 150 feet in less than three miles. Only the second
connection to the canals serving the rest of the country, the
flight was provided with gas light for night working and worked
24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Farmer’ s Bridge flight was,
for 50 years, the busiest flight on the system. This was a
serious a bottle-neck. Hemmed in by factory walls, the locks
could not be duplicated and were eventually bypassed completely
(1844) by the 8 mile Tame Valley Canal which connected to the
Birmingham and Fazeley at the bottom of the hill at Salford
Junction. |