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Falls of coal, falls of stone and rubbish, gas and fire and inundation by water were all hazards facing miners in South Staffordshire and East Worcestershire. On the surface they might be drawn over the pulley and fall down the pit shaft. Then there were the run away tubs. Mining was simply a...

The Elizabeth Line was due to open in 2018. The new date of 24th May 2022 is going ahead with work still being done on Ilford and Romford stations. There will be not Sunday services generally; the Queens Jubilee might be an exception. Yet this is quite and achievement with new cathedral like...

Stirchley was also in Shropshire and now near Telford where there were ironworks, coal mines and limestone mines nearby. As stated the girl could have worked underground, but also on the pit bank.

According to the West Midlands Metro site the faulty panels on the trams are to be replaced by the manufacturers with re-fitting taking place at Wednesbury. This lengthy process may be the reason for the delay to reopening

The other view which shows the tunnel has yet to show its extent and a coal store is a likely explanation. Another suggestion has been the transport of water from a a well. However this image appears to have been taken from the hole entrance seen above.

The relocation of services and other work led Metro workers to discover a tunnel whose date and origins are unknown leading to cellars of the Old Crown. Some have suggested a role as a coal chute, others have extended into the roles of fantasy

This is probably the wrong moment to discuss success. The West Midlands Metro story began with failure as Phil Bateman and his team was unable to progress the original scheme through Hodge Hill. Then began the gradual reconstruction of infrastructure along the route to Wolverhampton replacing in...

There was a stop lock on the Dudley Canal at Selly Oak with cottage alongside, but that section was eventually abandoned once the traffic to the brickworks ceased. The part through Lapal Tunnel had ended finally in 1917, but the detached section at the Selly Oak lasted longer. Much of the...

That one was the Birmingham Canal Navigations at the Heart of the British Canal System ISBN 7524 2767 9 The latest BCN book will be launched by author Phil Clayton at the Titford Pump House in May- That new book is the publishers Crowood. I did a book for them on the Trent & Mersey Canal last...

The detachable engine for canal craft was detailed on page 78 and 79 of my book Birmingham Canal Navigations published by Tempus in 2002. This was a scheme proposed by Arthur Hook for the Watercraft Installation Ltd in 1917.

It is said that Birmingham was a city of a thousand trades, but I seem to believe that there were more. The businessmen of the town or the later city grasped invention and pursued new trades aided first through being the centre of a canal network and then a railway network. The diversity of...

Pitt's account of Joseph Heydon is indeed a useful description of how steel was made using Spanish or Swedish iron encased in fireclay and heated by burning coal in a furnace. Perhaps such a method was used by Carless / Careless and the Kettles in Birmingham. There was a decree of secrecy in the...

I finally found a map of Birmingham, dated 1731, which does show Kettle's Steel Houses which are two in number. They are evidently works for the conversion of iron into steel. They are not marked as such on the 1755 map, but there are shapes on that map which correspond Not far away on the...

The Cast Steel furnace is not in Steel House Lane, but the bottom of Fazeley Street, and as noted by the advert was owned by someone outside the West Midlands and yes I agree it became the site of the New Steam Mill. The Kettle property in Steel House Lane may not have been a location for...

It was Hutton in his History of Birmingham published in 1795 that explained the involvement of the Kettles as beginning in the 17th century. It seems that William Kettle was associated with land purchases in the early 18th century including Whitehall Lane, as it then was. The Kettles are...

I did discuss the ironmaking in this area in my book South Staffordshire ironmasters, with the History Press and an article has been submitted to the Black Countryman for possible future publication on Steel Making. But the details of the early steel house in Steelhouse Lane are hard to come by...

The aspect of steel making in central Birmingham probably deserves further research. Joseph McKenna in his Streets of Birmingham mentions that Steelhouse Lane was previously known as Prior's Coneygree Lane(- the lane leading to Prior's rabbit warren) and later Whitehall. later still it became...

The narrow gauge railways serving the sewage works were NOT classed as MINITURE that definition applies to gauges usually less tham 18 in and has power also in miniture

The Jacot Railway Locomotive is shown here

Does anybody recall the Jacot Railway in Handsworth which was in the garden There was a locomotive called Redgauntlet