Birmingham to The Waterfront at Merry Hill.

Last night we visited the £189M Central Library in Birmingham. Some building as you woukld expect for £189M. As well as books (!) it has various art displays, cafe's, roof garden and collections of historical documents. Worth anyone's while paying a visit as the views over Birmingham are superb. Mind you the building is not without its critics in this time of smaller library cuts plus the fact that the £189M was borrowed and has to be paid back by Birmingham city.

So set off about 1030 from our mooring opposite the Indoor Arena down Telfords New Main line. Wide and deep the waterway cuts staright through the industrial outskirts of Birmingham and through Smethwick. It never fails to amaze me on this section that there is mile after mile of either Blue Brick edging or cut stone edging to the canal. There must be many millions of these bricks.

Miles of Blue Brick canal edging

Miles of cut stone edging

In this Post Industrial age this route has more than its fair share of wasteland but around Avery Bridge near Smethwick and around Tipton some industry does seem to survive next to the canal. 

After about 8 miles a sharp left turn brings you onto the Dudley No 1 canal and you are soon in the long dark Netherton tunnel. On emerging into daylight it soon becomes aparent that the terain has changed this side of the watershed. The Rowley Hills are behind you and the Clent Hills in front. The canal twists and turns such that sometimes Netherton church is to the left and sometimes to the right, the slopes of the hill its mounted on tumbling towards the canal.

Netherton Church hill

 Unlike the straight New Main line out of Birmingham the Dudley no1 twists and turns and goes through a very tight hairpin bend at Blowers Green. Lots of detritus in the canal around Peartree Lane and through the site of the Round Oak steelworks closed in 1984. Soon we are mooring up at The Waterfront next to the Merry Hill shopping centre just before the onset of todays promised rain.

S