Phyllis Nicklin’s canal images

[Heartland]

The image CC50 in the Phyllis Nicklin Archive is labelled as Digbeth Branch Canal but the image actually shows the Warwick & Birmingham Canal (later Grand Union) as it heads off from the junction.



There are other canal images that deserve further comment. These include the group at Gas Street.


In this view the photographer is looking across the Bar Lock, when there was a wooden swing footbridge across the chamber. There used to be gates, two sets at each end, which were closed in the time the Worcester & Birmingham and BCN were independent waterways and only opened for the passage of craft. The long range of warehouses in the background were then the warehouses occupied by BW, but had belonged to the Severn & Canal Carrying Company.

 

[Pedrocut]

The first picture seems to have been taken from the train. I remember taking a picture of the Gun-Barrel Proofhouse that just appears in her picture.

I wish I had looked slightly backward and would have had almost the same picture maybe some 20 years later.

Below is the modern Google Earth picture.

 

[Heartland]

That is a nice Google Earth image. I think it is less likely that it was taken from a train, unless the train stopped at a convenient time to drop a window. There was a side door in the wall, with steps leading up to the embankment, for railway workers to access the meters there and that vantage point provided a similar view.

 

[Radiorails]

Some detail about one of the narrow boats in the Gas Street basin photo. The second link does mention Gas Street which kind of confirms what her history has been. I always recognised the boats name as that of a working boat rather than a dwelling. The place looks a mess but thankfully all that has gone now. I visited the place in 1980 and it was then starting to loose the 'gangland' image. Incidentally what is known as the Birmingham Canal Navigations is not restricted to the cities boundary but does encompass much of the Black Country. Once consisting of some 160 miles it is now curtailed to just over 100 miles. The missing parts were, in the main, arms and basins which served industries most of which have now gone. Back in the mid 1970's - which might well be a date for the photo - was, according to one well travelled canal author, a grim place.
He describes it as "somewhere with lonely bonfires of oil soaked timber and tyres blazing unattended on the cobbles of a lockside, shafts of sunlight striking the peas soup water deep between the fastness of derelict warehouses, or fresh dung from the last working narrow-boat horse that remained on English canals.
Older Members may recall those days but thankfully they are long gone and the BCN is now one of the prime heritage places in Birmingham and The Black Country.
https://hnbc.org.uk/boats/cassiopeia
https://www.workingboats.com/gucc motors.htm

 

[Pedrocut]

That is a nice Google Earth image. I think it is less likely that it was taken from a train, unless the train stopped at a convenient time to drop a window. There was a side door in the wall, with steps leading up to the embankment, for railway workers to access the meters there and that vantage point provided a similar view.[/QUOTE

That is a nice Google Earth image. I think it is less likely that it was taken from a train, unless the train stopped at a convenient time to drop a window. There was a side door in the wall, with steps leading up to the embankment, for railway workers to access the meters there and that vantage point provided a similar view.

You are probably right about the position of the shot. However it seemed that the train made a stop at the very same spot each night, for between say 20 secs to sometimes 5mins! Probably a stopping point before an all clear to enter the tunnel to New Street.

 

[mikejee]

Heartland
I take it your comments don't refer to the google image. I can confirm that even now trains often stop at that point, though now there are more bushes to partially obscure the view

 

[Morturn]

I am tempted to think that Phyllis Nicklin was standing by an old signal box when she took CC50. Most of them had acess for the signal man from the road.

 

[Heartland]

There was no signal box at that spot then, although there was one at Exchange Sidings, when Phyllis took that shot. The date is given as 1968, and whilst there appear to be date errors with some of the captions in her collection, this one looks right.

New Street station had reopened in 1967, but whilst the approach to New Street was altered under the electrification scheme, it also altered again later. So the signalling in 1968 was different to what it now is. Rolling stock was also different. If the image was taken from a train window, it could be carriage stock or a multiple unit. All had drop down windows in those days.

 

[Bob Davis]

The first picture seems to have been taken from the train. I remember taking a picture of the Gun-Barrel Proofhouse that just appears in her picture.

I wish I had looked slightly backward and would have had almost the same picture maybe some 20 years later.

Below is the modern Google Earth picture.

View attachment 126562

The overhead gantries have no supports, but a shadow....ghost images?
Bob

 

[mikejee]

Bob
There is this effect with google images sometimes. Images are taken from high up (plane or satellite), not from the ground and then adjusted electronically to show view from that angle. But this means there are some peculiar effects like this

 

[Bob Davis]

Bob
There is this effect with google images sometimes. Images are taken from high up (plane or satellite), not from the ground and then adjusted electronically to show view from that angle. But this means there are some peculiar effects like this

Mike
Thanks
Bob

 

[Heartland]

Phyllis photographed a narrow boat in Gas Street Basin

Peter Harrison has identfield this craft at the DANUBE. It was completed in April 1912 by William Nurser and Sons, Braunston for the Salt Union Ltd., Marston as a single cabin horse boat. DANUBE passed to Mersey Weaver and Ship Canal Carrying Company Ltd., Burslem and then in 1944 to W.J. Podmore and Sons Ltd., Shelton.

In 1950 DANUBE was sold to Christopher Clifford, a potter at Pallisey China Company, Longton, and once converted to a pleasure cruiser was used to display their wares from time to time. It is also claimed that DANUBE was 'garaged' in Frogall Tunnel when not in use. The last reference I have for DANUBE is details of its sale in 1972, although it may have been seen at Curdworth locks as late as 1979.



The canal was the arm that went onto Paradise Street Basin. The building that replaced the BCN offices 1912/3 is still visible in the distance, in Phyllis's image. Between that and Bridge Street was a car park on the old basin site. Since then the old basin has had a TV studio built on it and now that having been knocked down another new structure is nearing completion with an underground car park access that descends to and perhaps below the original terminus basin there.