{"id":1964,"date":"2017-12-04T18:44:49","date_gmt":"2017-12-04T18:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/narrowboatingforbeginners.com\/wordpress\/?p=1964"},"modified":"2017-12-05T19:56:59","modified_gmt":"2017-12-05T19:56:59","slug":"day-3-birmingham-to-phepson-farm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/narrowboatingforbeginners.com\/wordpress\/day-3-birmingham-to-phepson-farm\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 3: Birmingham to Phepson Farm, 26.7 miles"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The pier or walkway you can see to the right of the picture is the Worcester Bar, which used to be a physical barrier in Gas Street Basin that separated the Worcester & Birmingham Canal from the older Birmingham Canal. The Birmingham Canal Company didn\u2019t want its water going to the \u201cdownstream\u201d Worcs & B\u2019ham (even in rain-soaked England, water is a precious commodity). Goods would be taken off a boat on one side of the bar and transferred to a boat on the other side. It wasn\u2019t until 1815 when a stop lock was installed on the bar that allowed boats to pass from one canal to another. Gas Street Basin is so named because it was the first area in Birmingham to be lit by gas lamps. From pictures I\u2019ve seen, the basin is still pretty by night but since I always went to bed early I never saw it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"\"<\/a>On Saturday my goal was to go south from Birmingham, following the canal to Hanbury Wharf, just east of Droitwich Spa, and from there to Phepson Farm Bed and Breakfast and Cottages. I would be retracing my ride of the previous day until I got to Kings Norton and the Wast Hill Tunnel, about which I was a little nervous.<\/p>\n

The tunnel, which is about a mile and a half long (2,726 yards\/2,493 meters), is a fun but spooky adventure on a narrowboat, but because <\/a>there\u2019s no towpath1<\/sup><\/a> through the tunnel I would have to go aboveground. However I\u2019d read a post on a cycling discussion board about being harassed while riding through the housing estates surrounding the tunnel, so I was apprehensive.<\/p>\nMap: Birmingham to Kings Norton<\/span>

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Unfortunately I again had little sleep. The temperature in my room at the hostel must have been in the 90s when I\u2019d returned from my dinner with Andy. I told Philippa the night desk clerk and she battled with heat registers, control panels and even moved part of a wall in the lobby to turn some knob. That finally stopped the heat, but it took some time for the room to cool. Sometime during the night, however, the heat returned, making for a miserable night.<\/p>\n

Consequently I was miserable in the morning and the weather\u2014cool and misty with dull, gray skies\u2014didn\u2019t help. Once I started riding, however, my mood and the weather improved. Although threatening in the morning, it never really rained that day. By 10 am I made Kings Norton, where the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal meets the Worcester & Birmingham.<\/p>\n

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Worcester & Birmingham Canal<\/h3>\n

Like every canal ever built, the Worcs & B\u2019ham Canal was a compromise. Worcester investors were the primary proponents of the canal, eager to reduce the cost of transporting Black Country coal to the city. An Act of Parliament authorizing the canal was obtained in 1791 and construction began in 1792 from the northern end. The canal didn\u2019t reach Worcester until 1815 due to water supply problems; sub-standard lock and bridge construction; and cost overruns. These problems required additional rounds of financing and Parliamentary approval, further delaying progress.<\/p>\nRead more \u2026<\/span>

\nThe canal is 30 miles long, drops 428 feet from Birmingham to Worcester and is supplied by the Edgbaston, Cofton, Bittel and Tardebigge reservoirs. The northern half of the canal was cut to accommodate boats wider than the present-day seven-foot-wide narrowboat. All the bridges on the northern half are large enough for a ten-foot-wide boat and all the tunnels on the canal are wide enough for two narrowboats to pass.<\/p>\n

Once it came time to dig the first lock, however, the prospect of making 58 wide locks proved too much for the owners. The remainder of the canal was made to accommodate narrowboats only.<\/p>\n

The present top lock, number 58, replaced an experimental human-powered boatlift. Boats would have entered a caisson and then two men turning a windlass and aided by counterweights would have lifted or lowered the 64-ton caisson. It actually worked but apparently no one believed it would last. Its removal meant lock 58 had to be unusually deep at 11 feet.<\/p>\n

Although the arrival of the canal in Worcester was greeted with much fanfare, the canal\u2019s heyday was short lived once the railways arrived. For a while the canal company received rent from the Midland Railway for rights of way needed for the Birmingham West Suburban Railway, but in 1868, the canal company went into receivership. The canal itself was temporarily saved in 1874 when the company that owned the successful Gloucester & Sharpness Canal bought it.<\/p>\n

The Cadbury Chocolate company ultimately saved the canal, using it to ship chocolate crumb\u2014a mixture of sugar, milk and cocoa liquor\u2014from the Severn to the Bournville factory. In February 1961, chocolate crumb was delivered to the Cadbury factory for the last time aboard the Olive<\/i>, a \u201cSeverner\u201d narrowboat. After that final trip the Olive<\/i> was cut in half to make two pleasure boats.<\/p>\n

Thankfully an original Cadbury crumb boat survives. The Mendip<\/i>, built in 1948, was restored beginning in 2009 with a grant from the chocolate company, and in 2011 it revisited Bournville. The boat, which could carry a 25-ton load, now resides at the National Waterways Museum in Ellesmere Port, near Liverpool.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The surrounding trees provide a tranquil setting for the former toll house and the arched bridge over the Worcs & B\u2019ham. I could easily ignore the faded graffiti on the somewhat battered bridge, evidence of a few wayward narrowboats. Eventually hunger intruded on my appreciation of beauty (yes, this is a theme). My breakfast at the hostel was already forgotten, so I asked a passing cyclist if she knew of somewhere to eat.<\/p>\n

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The former toll house at Kings Norton Junction has a reproduction of a sign that list tolls for specific cargoes. You can just see the sign in the picture above on the wall fronting the canal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/a>She gave me directions to two nearby caf\u00e9s (pronouncing them caffs<\/i>), but while in search of them, I encountered the Navigation Inn<\/a>.\u2009 (Navigation Inn is a very popular name for a canal-side pub.) I\u2019d noted it while planning my trip and as it was open, I thought I would eat lunch there. Unfortunately I was too early for food service and declined the suggestion of a pint. The bartender, however, said I could use the toilet, for which I was very grateful.<\/p>\n

Leaving the pub, I realized I was at a roundabout that met the Redditch Road\/A441, which was one of the two routes around the Wast Hill Tunnel I\u2019d planned. I decided to push on rather than stop to eat, thinking I could have a later lunch at the Weighbridge in Alvechurch.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\nMap: Kings Norton to Alvechurch<\/span>

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The Redditch Road was busy, but I stuck to the sidewalk and I was never threatened by hooligans. I felt pretty silly about my baseless fears and was making good time on the road. I should have followed the Redditch\/Birmingham Road all the way to the canal, but when I was planning the route, I saw that Lea End Lane rejoined the canal close enough to the south tunnel portal for a photograph.<\/p>\n

This was one of the few instances where Google Maps failed me, or more correctly, I failed to correctly interpret the Google Maps terrain view. Lea End Lane does cross the canal, but I should have appreciated how deep the cut is. It was 25 feet from the road down to the canal and although there was a gate that indicated a path, it would be stupid to attempt it. Naturally I went for it, both because I was loathe to backtrack to the Birmingham Road and because I thought it would make a good story.<\/p>\n

First I took the two panniers and my camera bag down the slope on separate trips. Then I took the bike down, which was more difficult because I didn\u2019t have my hands free to hold on to tree roots or the side of the bridge. I ended up sliding down the last part with the bike on top of me.<\/p>\n

I reattached the equipment to the bike and took pictures of the portal and congratulated myself on surviving my foolish descent. As I prepared to leave, however, I realized I was missing a glove, which meant another ascent and descent to find it (actually two up\/downs because I missed the glove the first time).<\/p>\n

Eventually I was ready to resume my ride but it was immediately obvious the towpath to the south of the tunnel was very different from what I\u2019d experienced so far. Until Kings Norton the towpath had been paved in some fashion, but here it was a <\/a>single, dirt track.2<\/sup><\/a> It returned to paved south of the Birmingham Road\/A441, then became a wider dirt track near Lower Bittell Reservoir and then back to a single, dirt track. It remains a dirt track until <\/a>the dead arm3<\/sup><\/a> near Alvechurch, when it goes back <\/a>to being paved.4<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n