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Tame Valley Canal

image.png This is a very surprising (and lovely) view of the Tame Valley Canal as it passes under the Walsall Road. I have a question. Why are there passing points (?) on the bridge ie those indents along its wall? I was always under the impression that these were to allow pedestrians to safely pass each other and to avoid stepping out into the traffic. I think it's perhaps normally where the road and pavements are narrow. But the bridge wall on both sides of the Walsall Road are very far apart. Viv.
 

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Could they have been added during or just before WW2 as observation or gun points in case of invasion?. They would have been in a good position to observe the enemy coming up the valley
 
oldMohawk said:
As children in the Perry Beeches area, the canal was our playground ... we used to call it the 'cut'.
In the 1960s at the Hamstead GKN factory we had long lunch hours and during one cold winter on several days we went along the towpath from the Walsall Rd bridge and skated on the Basin marked on the map below.
So I was still playing on the canal in my twenties !
View attachment 110712
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Think it was probably 1959 when I remember when the canal was empty at Tower Hill. The Lock by the Cottage was covered in dead fish, Roach I think, which we had spent a couple of years trying to catch but all we ended up with was gudgeon and stone loach.
 
Vivienne14 said:
View attachment 110714 This is a very surprising (and lovely) view of the Tame Valley Canal as it passes under the Walsall Road. I have a question. Why are there passing points (?) on the bridge ie those indents along its wall? I was always under the impression that these were to allow pedestrians to safely pass each other and to avoid stepping out into the traffic. I think it's perhaps normally where the road and pavements are narrow. But the bridge wall on both sides of the Walsall Road are very far apart. Viv.
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I notice that the are only two indentations per side and they match the stone work on the canal side of the bridge, but I can't think why.
walsallrdbridge.jpg
 
Heartland said:
Tower Hill also supplied stone for the canal contractors
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In May of 1845 the Tower Hill Quarry advertised saying that most of the bridges on the new Tame Valley Canal are built of stone from the quarry. So Zoom in on the Walsall Road bridge!
 
I remember the old road from West Bromwich to Walsall used to go down a steep hill then a sharp left turn under the Tame Valley Canal before rising the other side of the valley. I used to ride this way on my bike. The modern road goes over the canal.
 
My Dad was born in Bridge Road, now under Spaghetti. It was a real community then and the houses were solidly built. They couldn't have been much more than 50 years old when they were demolished. Another Birmingham sacrifice to the car. Dad was born in 1913 and used to play on the canal (as I expect most boys would've done then). He fell in and went down between two boats (barges?). He always said he was very lucky as he went straight down and came straight back up again as, if he'd hit the bottom of the boat, he would've been a gonner. Don't expect it stopped him playing by the canal though! There was an outdoor in Leamington Road, just at the end of Bridge Road, I can still remember the smell and see the copper funnel used to transfer the beer into your own bottles. I also seem to remember big wooden doors at the side of the outdoor which led to the canal.
 
Hi Viv, your post #32 made me wonder if the indentations in the bridge were merely following the design of earlier bridges in the area. When the Bridge Trust was set up (1600's? - I think by Nicholas Hodgetts but willing to be corrected) all the bridges were narrow and had them. The one at Perry Barr, opposite Wickes, is still there.
Handsworth Grammar school badge appears to show the same shapes and the funding for this came from the Bridge Trust didn't it?
 
Very plausible Lady P. As you say, the Walsall Road Bridge and Aldridge Road Bridge both seem to copy the old Zig Zag (Perry Pont) Bridge in style. The old thread link below suggests that the old Zig Zag Bridge (which is parallel with the Aldridge Road bridge) had rights to draw off water and to fish from there.

Maybe the indentations along the original Zig Zag bridge were designed originally as passing places (once a busy bridge used by carts) but later used for these other purposes. It's quite possible that the later Aldrdge Road and Walsall Road bridges incorporated the original Zig Zag features into their design with no specific purpose other than decorative.

https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/zig-zag-bridges-of-brum.9557/

Viv.
 
Looking at the satellite view, I would say that this work was to strengthen the abutments for the new bridge bearing in mind that the road is on a made up embankment both sides of the bridge.
Tame Bridge.jpg
 
Always thought of these as "pack horse bridges" and imagined that the recesses enabled horses with panniers to pass each other in much the same way as passing places on narrow roads allow cars to pass. I always thought that the recesses on the bridge in Walsall Rd were design features, so mainly decorative.
 
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devonjim said:
Always thought of these as "pack horse bridges" and imagined that the recesses enabled horses with panniers to pass each other in much the same way as passing places on narrow roads allow cars to pass. I always thought that the recesses on the bridge in Walsall Rd were design features, so mainly decorative.
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I would agree that the recesses appear to be decorative design features. The Tame Valley Canal bridge on the Aldridge Road, about a quarter of a mile north of the 'zig-zag' River Tame bridge, never had recesses even when the road was relatively narrow up to the end of the 1950s. What would be interesting to see is an early photo of the A34 Walsall Road bridge but I cannot find one.
 
It does suggest here that some canal transportation to Hardy Spicer did take place from the Witton firm of Forgings and Presswork Ltd. (a subsidiary of HS since 1938) as a result of the Suez Crisis. The Suez crisis was in 1956 - I know I was in the RAF at the time and great staff movements were organized and curtailed pretty quickly due to pressure by the USA and much to the annoyance of France. It was the first occasion I was issued with petrol coupons.
I wonder how long this canal shipping lasted? Did it last until the canals closure whilst Spaghetti Junction was constructed and a new canal line built?
 
I remember the GEC in Birmingham was still generating their own electricity with coal in the 60's. All the coal boats lined up outside about half a mile from Salford Junction.
 
There has been discussion about the bridge at Tower Hill. Notice issued October 1943 refers to it being known as Freeth Bridge.

F6072910-F6E1-466A-8CDF-1E63FF9DB717.jpeg
 
James Walker was an important engineer in BCN terms- he was responsible for many improvement of the BCN including the Cannock Extension Canal
 
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