Navigation Lane Aqueduct nr Walsall

Navigation Lane Aqueduct

Tame Valley Canal

Well, I think it is called Navigation Lane aqueduct as it crosses a lane of that name! It continued to provide access to a small group of modern houses, hemmed in by a dual carriageway and the canal embankment. I am happy to stand corrected.

Navigation Lane Aqueduct - southern perspective

This is another no nonsense cast iron trough set atop tall buttresses made of Staffordshire blue bricks. Typical of its type, the cast ironwork has some interesting raised features which helps it stand out from the ordinary. Function came before form on this canal!

Navigation Lane Aqueduct - northern perspective

This structure is somewhat leaky, with water streaming from either end and running into the drains in a constant gurgle.

Hateley Heath Aqueduct

Hateley Heath Aqueduct
BCN - Tame Valley Canal

This Grade two listed aqueduct was built as part of the Tame Valley Canal, carrying the elevated canal over Hydes Road in Wednesbury.

Hateley Heath Aqueduct - south profile

Hateley Heath Aqueduct - north profile

It comprises a sectional cast iron trough supported on girders notched into brick abutments. The cast iron panels have some rather fine profiling cast into them, and are bolted together across the sides and the bed of the aqueduct.

Whilst the brick abutments are weeping in places, there is very little evidence of leakage in the main trough.

Thoroughly utilitarian but not without interesting detailing. Easily mistaken for a railway bridge.

Spouthouse Lane Aqueduct

Spouthouse Lane Aqueduct
Tame Valley Canal - BCN

A very substantial rock faced sandstone aqueduct carrying the Tame Valley Canal on its unusual double arch facade. The slight recess contains a shallow segmented brick arch, built in 1844.

Spouthouse Lane Aqueduct - north profile

There is some weeping on the southern face, dripping canal water onto unwary pedestrians below.

Spouthouse Lane Aqueduct - south profile

Generations of kids have scrambled over the adjoining embankments and nearby colliery spoil heaps, and the Grade Two listed status should ensure such feats of adolescent mountaineering continue be be a right of passage for the youth of Great Barr.

River Tame Aqueduct

River Tame Aqueduct
Tame Valley Canal - BCN

Another obscurity from the backwaters of the BCN. This late addition to the canal network served as a bypass to the overcrowded Farmers Bridge Locks and BCN Mainline. The Aqueduct can only be reached on foot and its dramatic high arch is somewhat dwarfed by the looming presence of the 6 elevated section which runs alongside this stretch.

River Tame Aqueduct - north profile

The River Tame drains a relatively small catchment basin between Smethwick, Wolverhampton and Walsall. Whilst it is usually no more than a stream, it regularly floods. I has rained hard the night before my visit and it was clear that the surface run off had overtopped the banks and ponded up behind the aqueduct, about 2 metres above the river level you see in the photos.

River Tame Aqueduct - south profile

It is also on of the best bits of moving water in the Birmingham area for canoeing, with some good weirs in the Sandwell Valley and Perry Barr areas.

The Tame Valley Canal has been inundated with overnight rainwater and the normally dry spillway was a foaming torrent beside the 68 steps up to the towpath above.

M5 Aqueduct Tame Valley Canal

M5 Aqueduct
Tame Valley Canal - BCN

One of the more modern aqueducts on the system, carrying the Tame Valley Canal over the M5 in contemporary concrete trough.


Whilst it isn't exceptionally high, the speed of the traffic whizzing by underneath can be quite vertigo inducing!

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1225247

Possibly one of the least crossed aqueducts on the inland waterways? Hands up anyone who has actually passed this way....

Piercy Aqueduct, Hamstead

Piercy Aqueduct

Tame Valley Canal

This is a 1913 view of the Piercy Aqueduct, one of the last built, in 1844 carrying the Tame Valley Canal over the Old Walsall at Hamstead, Birmingham.



Note the deserted road with just the photographers car in view. This image was taken by the elusive Mr H R Hodgkinson, who was a prolific photographer and local historian with a particular interest in the BCN.



Ten points if you can recognise the politician on the hoarding!