Summer Cruise - Birmingham to Stourton Top Lock

Thursday 31st July
Birmingham to Stourton
The canal in Birmingham was constructed in two main phases - the 'old' (Brindley) and the 'new' (Telford) which cut out a lot of the winding about. We decided to go around a couple of the "old" loops - mostly routes between warehouses - the way much of Birmingham used to be and passing Winson Green Prison as we went. Then up on to the original James Brindley Canal avoiding the later "new" Birmingham Main Line, which is the canal equivalent of a motorway through Birmingham. It's 3 locks up onto the old line, then 3 down again for the Netherton tunnel that we needed to pass through.

This is me steering out of a lock going up onto the old line.


Under the M5 - The old main line is quite fascinating - they've built a motorway over the canal - making it very dark. As it was very rainy it was a relief to get out of the rain sometimes!

One of the things about going to Birmingham by canal is you have to go up through an awful lot of locks to go there. Leaving Birmingham means going down through an awful lot of locks. By road it's less obvious that it's on a hill.

Leaving the old route we went through Netherton Tunnel emerging near Windmill Hill - the junction between the Canal and the Boshboil Arm and the Dudley Number 2 canal. This is Windmill Hill.


Then onto the very deep Delph locks, which just seem to disappear over the edge of the hillside.


Delph Locks

In a deep lock



















The Delph locks tend to flood at the bottom. This means that it can be hard to see exactly where the bottom lock is - which makes it interesting for the steerer. Here David watches me into the lock.
After the Delph locks we had the Stourbridge 16 to do (mostly in the rain) - by the end of the day we tied up exhausted.


Daily Total: 21.22 miles, 31 locks, 2 tunnels

Running Total: 124.7 miles, 141 locks, 7 tunnels