Old, new, borrowed, blue

Old meets new: Spon Lane Locks under the shadow of the towering M5

The canal weaves in and out the motorway, its familiar bridges in alien territory

No, I haven't been planning a wedding, this perfectly sums up what we saw on our trip from Birmingham to Tipton. 
First, the blue. In an unremitting hostile post-industrial area we saw not one but two flashing blue kingfishers on separate occasions along the way. Not to mention an unfortunate heron that had chosen to earn its livelihood fishing under the concrete forest of M5 motorway support columns. As well as a fox, basking in the sun amid the detritus on the offside bank.
The 'new' – well, pretty new anyway – is the motorway. For more than a mile the canal squirms it wandering way in and out of its concrete legs like a small child playing among adults at a party. It seems incredible that its old brick bridges, locks and aqueducts all survived this concrete onslaught and survive, albeit in surroundings too sterile and dreary even to be deemed a wasteland.
The 'old' is the canal; more specifically the Old Main Line which we switched onto via three locks at Smethwick to wind out way Tipton-wards. There are some fine views and handsome structures but some equally un-handsome deposits of rubbish.
We got a lucky opportunity to look around the big pumping engine whose towering chimney dominates the scene at Smethwick; it's normally only open every second Saturday but was being got ready for the coming weekend. It's a fine building, built to pump water up to the summit level of the old canal. What's remarkable, though, is that has been rebuilt from almost the ground upwards including a new version of that iconic chimney.

The towering Smethwick Pumphouse

And as it was before restoration

Inside the engine house is a modest but enjoyable display with a butty back cabin and life size models of canal workers and a towing-horse all backed by some useful explanatory boards about the canal. Centrepiece is the steam pumping engine (sadly not working at the moment until funds are found for repairs. And this is where we come to the 'borrowed' bit. This isn't the original engine which was sold for scrap when the pumphouse closed back in 1930.

Part of the enjoyable and informative display inside the pumhouse

This engine is contemporary in age and style. And it was built in Birmingham by the local firm, Tangye.  Richard Tangye and his brothers established a huge factory canalside in Smethwick which made hydraulic jacks and systems and went on to build gas and diesel engines. The factory has long gone but the name survives on modern hydraulics. Richard Tangye and his brother helped found both Birmingham Museum and Birmingham Art School.

The big Tangye diesel pump engine

This was the scale of the firm's Smethwick works

To come up to date, we are now moored in Tipton, a popular spot for boaters as the little town sits at the junction of both Old and New Main Lines. Indeed, it was once made an island by a third canal, the Toll End which filled in the triangle between the two main lines. Only a pathway survives these days.
Tipton is famous for the 'Tipton Slasher', seven years the champion English prizefighter in the 1870s, the nearby and marvellous Black Country Living Museum and Mad O'Rourke's Pie Factory, a pub famed for its ginormous Desperate Dan Cow Pies, though boaters tend to prefer the homely canalside 'The Fountain'. That and a few shops make the otherwise unremarkable little spot an ideal stopover for we boaters.

A last look at Brum...

We've headed off to Tipton now but before we left we had a last look around some of Birmingham's impressive buildings – new and old. So here are just some:

From 18th century Cambrian Wharf to C20 tower blocks to C21Library

The exquisite Grade I listed Art College

Ornate tile work surrounds the buildings

Fine detailing like this is everywhere

Another Grade I listing for the former telephone exchange buuilding

Marvellous lobby to old National Provincial bank (now a bar)

The spectacular gleaming exterior of New Street Station

Another Grade I building: the city hall

And still the city centre development goes on...

Out and about in Brum

Distant views of central Birmingham across the Edgbaston reservoir

If you are a keen shopper you could certainly spend a happy weekend (and a wallet-full of cash) in Birmingham's big, modern Bull Ring shopping centre.
We're not – and we have Seadog Brian to consider – so we have been spending a lot of our time outdoors. And yesterday was the perfect day for exploring; bright, sunny and – out of the chilly wind – even spring-like in its warmth. So we set off to take a stroll around Edgbaston Reservoir, not far from us, which is now a nature reserve and watersports centre.
The reservoir was devised by Thomas Telford to feed the canal network. The 58 acres were dug out – by hand remember – to a depth of 40 feet and the job took five years, finishing in 1829. You have to see it to grasp the enormity of the task, just one of so many similar feats achieved during the canal age.

Icknield Port with its collection of canal buildings and former working boats

The reservoir feeds into Icknield Port Loop, now a loop off the New Main Line but originally another of the many bends of Brindley's original canal that Telford straightened up. The Loop is now a hidden treasure for at its apex is an unpoiled little area of workshops, crane and house, together with a small collection of old working boats.

Historic tug: Nansen II, built as an ice-breaker 

We walked to it via the towpath and then down a side street that cut between razed-flat warehouses. The old area is up for sale to a developer to build 1150 homes: it's Birmingham's last big inner city site. Let's hope that the character of the Port area survives among the much needed tidying up.

Another of Birmingham's angular modern buildings, the test cricket ground

The previous day we'd taken a bus out to the much larger Cannon Hill Park near the futuristic looking Edgbaston Cricket Ground. Like so much public space in Birmingham, its paths and gardens were immaculately maintained.

Small but beautiful, St Philip's Cathedral

And its wonderful interior of columns and stained glass

Brian was back on guard duty in the boat when we did our last bit of weekend sightseeing to St Philip's Cathedral. It's a shock to see how tiny it is – the third smallest cathedral in England apparently. It's not old either: built in the 18th century, it only became a cathedral in 1905. But it's a handsome building in a chunky, baroque style and quite beautiful inside, with tall columns and huge pre-stained glass windows by leading pre-Raphaelite artist, Birmingham born Edward Burne-Jones.
During WWII, the cathedral was bombed and gutted, though fortunately the windows had been removed earlier for safe keeping and were replaced when the building was restored post-war.

The fascinating world of Smith & Pepper

Traditional goldsmiths' circular bench - leather pouches catch valuable scraps

More tourism today. We spent the afternoon wandering around the famous Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham. Jewellery has been made in the workshops here for 250 years and the area is now the largest centre of jewellery related businesses in Europe and makes forty percent of the jewellery sold in the UK.
The streets of the Quarter have more than a trace of their past – handsome old workshop buildings and houses mingle with modern ones, there's a sizeable, and spooky, graveyard, the factory of Thomas Fattorini that has been manufacturing bespoke badges and regalia, and medals for nearly 200 years and the last Georgian square left in Birmingham with the handsome St Paul's church at its centre.
Over the years the Quarter has seen booms and declines, as wars, depressions and competition from abroad hit trade. At its Victorian peak 40,000 people were employed; now it's nearer 7000 and what was a largely wholesale and manufacturing trade is now full of retail shops, though it's still an area very much comprised of small craft businesses and family firms.

Timewarp of a workshop at Smith & Pepper's

One of these was Smith & Pepper, manufacturers and wholesalers of gold and silver jewellery. Mr Smith and his uncle, Mr Pepper were both goldsmiths and started the business in 1899. In 1981, still a family firm in the hands of three of Mr Smith's children, it closed down, a buyer couldn't be found so the doors were locked and the factory left to become a time capsule of traditional jewellery making that forms the fascinating Museum of the Jewellery Quarter.

The ancient office and, above, its hi-tech wiring

For the &P works is not so much a time capsule of the 1980s as the 1900s. Scarcely a thing was changed over the years that Tom the goldsmith, brother Eric the salesman and Dora the office manager ran the business. Old ledgers, worn workbenches, sagging wooden shelves heavy with stamps and dies, antiquated electrics and even the workers' tea cups are all still there as if the staff had just disappeared for an hour or due and would be through the door any moment.
The place is brought to life by its brilliant, knowledgeable tour guide who talked us through the workshops and demonstrated pieces of the equipment. From her we learned how carefully waste gold was recovered: materials were weighed out to each worker for his job every day and at the end of the day weighed back in in finished or waste form. Only a two percent margin of loss was permitted.

No just jewellery in the Quarter - this huge factory made pen-nibs

Each evening Mr Tom would sweep the factory floors to recover the dust which was collected and burned in the furnace downstairs to separate out the precious metals that were in it. Workers even had to wash their hands in a special sink from which the waste water ran down into a tank holding straw to collect all the particles of dust before the water went on to the sewers. The straw, once again, was burned in the furnace to recover metals.
But by the 1970s the owners were in their 80s (none had married so there were no children to inherit) and the country was in recession so no-one wanted to buy an antiquated business. So the three of them paid off the remaining staff, shut the doors and went home to retire.
Leaving us to enjoy the best four quid's worth of museum experience in a long time.

The Assay Office where precious metal items are checked and hallmarked

Handsome St Paul's Square; Birmingham's last surviving Georgian square

Spooky catacombs in the Quarter's graveyard 

Fixing the hole where the rain gets in

The dammed off and drained stretch of the canal

Imagine the West Coast Main Line being shut at Crewe. Well substitute Crewe for Birmingham and boats for trains and that's what it's been like for the past couple of weeks. The canal 'highway' that takes boats east to west through the city has been shut.
Two weeks ago a leak was discovered on the Worcester and Birmingham Canal just before it joins the Maine Line and right in the centre of the city. Not just a little leak but one into a railway service tunnel which had the potential to flood New Street Station!

Draining the canal revealed just what a selection of junk finds its way there

The canal was dammed and fifty yards pumped dry to trace the source – and discovering quantities of scrap metal, old tyres and other detritus that had been buried in the silt.

Digging down through the silt to expose the clay bed 

It could have been a long job with disastrous consequences for the local canal trade, hire boaters and anyone else wanting to pass through this busy route.
But fortunately the source of the leak has just been found and today workers began the messy job of digging down through the silt to uncover the clay lined bed of the canal and re-seal it. All being well, it should re-open middle of next week.

We love Brum

Dominating the city centre skyline is the remarkable new £189m library

It's been tough at times getting here but it's been worth it. Birmingham is a thoroughly enjoyable city.
It would be hard for a boater to dislike a place that embraced its place at the centre of Britain's canal network so wholeheartedly but this is not just about canals. It's the architecture I enjoy – a magnificent hot-pot of eras and styles from Victorian Gothic to 21st century steel and glass and in between everything from brutalist concrete to elaborate red brick. Some of it is awful; some of it will probably be considered awful in years to come and some of it is simply superb – like the Council House in Victoria Square and the Library.

A different sort of grandeur – the Victorian Council House

And from ultra-modern Selfridges...

...it's but a few steps to the bustling Rag Market

But what I really enjoy is the way one can step behind the scenes and glimpse a very different side of the city. A few steps away from the Bull Ring shopping centre and futuristic Selfridges are the markets; the Rag Market selling every sort of fabric, the outdoor market with its rows of fruit and veg stands and the Indoor Market, where the aroma of the fresh fish and butchery stalls greets you as you enter.
And when we wanted something for the boat we just walked a few minutes away from the centre to unearth White's Ironmongery, whose interior is probably unchanged in 50 years. Brown boxes of screws line the shelves behind the time-worn wooden counter.

A few minutes from the centre is this timewarp ironmongers

More gleaming modernism in The Cube

Boaters like us also appreciate the ease with which one can walk about the virtually vehicle free centre of the city – from the canal to the Bull Ring you don't need to dodge a car. Instead you walk through squares graced by public sculpture. And all of them kept beautifully clean; free of litter and unmarked by graffiti.

Space age interior of the library contrasts with the rich intricacy of the Shakepeare Room

Today we visited the new library whose gleaming gold and silver structure covered in distinctive interlocking circles rises in the skyline ahead of us at our mooring. It's some building: the largest public library in the UK and the largest regional library in Europe. Opened last year it was designed by Mecanoo architects and Baro Happold engineers. And it cost an eye-watering £189 million!

Admiring the view from the ninth floor 'secret garden'

Inside, escalators rise up through the centre with circular walls of books around them at each level. A garden terrace at the fourth floor gives impressive views from three sides of the city and beyond and there's another garden terrace right up on the ninth floor. Here too is the richly ornate Shakespeare Memorial Room, a Victorian masterpiece carefully saved from the old library and rebuilt here.
The library is more than just a place to borrow a Lee Child novel or doze quietly in a reference section. It has huge archived collections, including those of the Boulton & Watt factory. Unfortunately, the cash-strapped council is already having to cut opening hours to save money!

Well and truly trollied

Entertaining the crowds as we get Harry unstuck: spot the shopping trolley

If Friday was a bad day today was worse. And not just because it slashed down with icy rain and wind for a couple of hours.  No, the real problems came in the sunshine.
In the first half mile from Ogley we saw six shopping trolleys in the water. But the ones that caused the trouble were the ones we didn't see. I ran over one at the very first bridge but fortunately the boat slid off it and we carried on. To the next bridge where I ground to a halt on another one, reversed back (with difficulty) and pulled the muddly remains out of the canal.

It's the ones you don't see that do the damage

Another trolley and more junk held us up here for half an house

But that was just the start. Harry still wouldn't get through. I prodded the black depths with the boat hook and pulled out various bits of rubbish including a long length of cable that refused to detach itself from something down in the deep. Then the two of us tried pulling the boat through: no joy. Finally, after removing various other items from the drink including a rusty towbar we finally squeezed through past something very large and very solid that was buried in the edge.
All looked fine after the first lock; the canal was wide and only a footbridge crossed it. I went off to set the next lock a few hundred yards on, and waited for Vicky. And waited. And walked back to find her hauling the remains of another trolley onto the deck from beneath the footbridge. But still stuck.
Only with the help of a couple of hefty local lads pulling on the ropes did we finally work the boat back and clear. There's a retail park beside the canal so the local scrotes' pastime is to lob trollies off the middle of the footbridge. Local boaters know to 'keep right' apparently!
They also know that the Ryders Green flight of eight locks leak like the proverbial sieve. The pounds of water between the locks which had been full an hour before were now half empty. Fortunately a local boat was coming down and flushed water through as he came so we were able to get up and out of the flight with no more problems. But just to stop us getting too cheerful, it started to rain.
In half a mile we turned out onto the Birmingham Main Line, the through route from Wolverhampton that we'd left after the 21 locks a week or more back. The Main Line is wide, deep and largely straight. That's thanks to Thomas Telford who was called in to sort out Brindley's earlier, wandering route which had outgrown the numbers of working boats using it. Bits of the Old Main Line survive, mainly in small loops in and out of the new route but the best known is the old Wolverhampton Level which is reached by three locks at either end – a real bottleneck in the past.

Brindley's original route is left up three locks while Telford's goes right

The impressive cutting is spanned by several handsomebridges and a short tunnel

Telford by-passed it with a massive cutting whose scale still impresses today, leaving the old roue to entertain enthusiasts today. But not us: in increasing squalls of rain we opted for the fast, direct – if dull – line. It has its moments, notably in the big spans of the bridges that cross it, from Victorian to motorway. Finest of them all is the exquisite cast iron aqueduct that takes water to the old canal summit from the Engine Arm and Edgaston Reservoir. It was pumped there by a huge steam engine whose pump house, now restored as a heritage centre, stands nearby.

Finest of them all is the exquisitely detailed Engine Arm aqueduct

Toll houses on these narrows allowed loads to be measured and fees charged

After stopping briefly to defrost and put on more wet gear in one of the many toll house narrows along the canal we reached central Birmingham at last, mooring just short of Old Turn where the NIA and Sealife Centre face each other across the canal junction.
If we'd had any alcohol left on board I think we would have got well and truly trollied ourselves!