The Worcester & Birmingham Canal Guide and Map

The Worcester & Birmingham Canal

The Worcester and Birmingham canal links the two cities, built to connect the River Severn in Worcester to the Birmingham Canal System via a quicker route than the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal.

 

In the early days, because of opposition from other canals, there was no direct connection in Birmingham, the last few feet of canal in Birmingham were left uncompleted. These days the ring formed by the two canals and the river makes a popular two weeks holiday route.

 

The canal travels through some very pleasant countryside, climbing from the Severn through rolling fields and wooded cuttings and slicing through a hilly ridge south of Birmingham.

 

Worcester has a fine Cathedral which dates from 1074 and Georgian buildings. Close to Hanbury is the 16th century Hanbury Hall. At Bournville is the Cadbury's Chocolate Factory which has tours and exhibitions. Cadbury's had a fleet of immaculately painted narrowboats which carried their raw materials to the factory. There is also the village built by the firm for its workers and two half timbered houses which were moved here from other parts of Birmingham.

 

The canal has four tunnels, the longest at Kings Norton near the junction with the Stratford Canal is just under two miles long. Steam tugs were used from the 1870's to haul strings of narrowboats through the four tunnels. There's also the famous flight of thirty locks at Tardebigge, hard but interesting work for boat crews. The locks fill and empty very quickly so it's possible to do them all in an (energetic) morning! The Worcester and Birmingham has plenty to see and plenty to do!

The Worcester and Birmingham canal is well known for its locks, 58 in all climbing 428 feet from the level of the River Severn in Worcester up to Birmingham. Originally it was planned to use lifts to greatly reduce the number of locks and to save canal water.

 

However there was some concern over whether the lifts would be robust enough, and good water supplies were secured by building reservoirs at Tardebigge and later at Upper Bittal, so locks were built instead. Tardebigge reservoir was below the canal summit level so a steam engine was used to lift the water above the locks. The engine house still stands. One lift was built, but it was not reliable and became the top lock at Tardebigge. This accounts for it's great depth, fourteen feet, one of the deepest on the canal system.