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Ashtree Court, BIRMINGHAM, B38 9FP

This stretch of the canal is between bridges 70 and 71.

Presumably carrying water or sewage.

This is Kings Norton pipe bridge.

A pipe bridge can be seen ahead. These are fairly commonplace on the canals. No doubt someone local can tell us what this one carries. The Worcester and Birmingham Canal was built in stages between 1791 and 1815 to connect the River Severn in Worcester to the Birmingham Canal System using a quicker route than the earlier Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal. Opposition from other canal companies meant that for twenty years there was no direct connection in Birmingham, the last two and a bit metres of canal there being left uncompleted in 1795. http://wikimapia.org/78582/Worcester-Bar This lunacy was eventually resolved by an Act of Parliament in 1815 and a stop-lock constructed. Grain, timber and agricultural produce were carried to the Midlands. Industrial goods and coal were carried down towards Worcester, often for onward transport to Bristol. Later, salt carrying was added as a regular cargo. Pairs of donkeys were often used in preference to horses, maybe because they could easily be put onto the boats which had to be legged (or pulled by tug) through the tunnels. The canal has five tunnels. The longest at Kings Norton is just under two miles long. Steam tugs were used from the 1870s to haul strings of narrowboats through Wasts Hill, Shortwood and Tardebigge tunnels. The Worcester and Birmingham Canal has locks, 58 of them, climbing 428 feet (130 metres) from the level of the River Severn in Worcester up to Birmingham. In the twenty-first century the ring now formed by the two canals and the river makes a popular two weeks holiday route, albeit partly a strenuous one, lockwise, but there are plenty of pubs, though some are now merely restaurants with a bar. The Worcester and Birmingham Canal travels through some very pleasant countryside, climbing from the Severn through rolling fields and wooded cuttings and slicing through a hilly ridge south of Birmingham. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worcester_and_Birmingham_Canal

The Image At this point Wharf Lane, from the left, becomes Parsons Hill leading away to the right. Notice the red panel with the fire hydrant sign above. These are still a common sight in Birmingham and the surrounding areas. The red panel would originally have been a small wooden doorway and was installed during WWII. These doorways allowed firemen to pump water directly from the canals particularly after bombing raids when main water supplies may have been disrupted.

The Worcester and Birmingham Canal to the north of Wasthill Tunnel at King's Norton.

Bridge 71 carries Wharf Lane over the Worcester and Birmingham Canal at King's Norton.

On the Birmingham and Worcester Canal.

Known as King's Norton Bridge and carrying Wharf Road at Kings Norton. Note the red fire service door for abstracting water from the canal. There is also a separate pipe bridge alongside.