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Canals of Birmingham

  • Thread starter Thread starter O.C.
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Thoroughly agree, Jim. I take on board your point that ideally any museum should be right in the "thick of it" in the Gas St. area, but bound to be pricy! What about any of the (as yet) relatively undeveloped areas where original canalside buildings could be used? I'm thinking in terms of Sampson Road or Fazeley Street. Anyway - good luck with this, we have needed a canal museum in Brum for ages. Where will the meeting on 18 December be held?

All the best

S23
 
Having canal history in one part of my family (No.1's), I have always been surprised that Birmingham seems to have had little regard for its canal history. After all it was the canals which completely launched Birminghams' industrial growth into something big well before the advent of the railway and road transport.
Maybe the Black Country Museum is deemed sufficient? I don't think so. I have been to the BCM are was pleased with what I saw, but that is not within the City.

The canal museum trail has certainly expanded in recent years. There were once two known well known canal Museum sites: now many are cropping up along the canal banks in towns who, possibly, have little else to commemorate their past. The problem for Birmingham as i, an outsider see it, has been its love affair - almost an obsession - with anything to so with road vehicles, cars in particular, even so all of the Museums that exist which are to do with road transport are all outside the City boundaries. ( I am a member of one of them).
Maybe the reconstruction of the City has been the priority?
It is often difficult to get any historic features up and running. It does take time, money and above all a keen interest. There are, it seems, (reading this Forum testifies to that) many interesting places, which have a historic perspective, to visit in the city. The Pen Room , Jewellery Quarter, Tyseley and so on.
So I hope something is achieved in the City soon, before all the brown sites are re-developed.
 
Or maybe the city authorities are just not interested in history. Most of the historical places in the city have been largely funded from none-council sources. Where money is put in from the authorities, it is usually in large flamboyant projects aimed at attracting large companies either as residents of impressively sited buildings or to large exhibition spaces. Even the recent new library seems mainly aimed at being an impressive "statement" rather than a useful tool for research, and I gather, though have not visited myself, that actual reading and research are pushed into the background, all in the name of the councillor's egos and their image
 
There was about 3500 miles of canals in the UK mostly linked and using rivers, where deep enough, you can still cross the country to the North Sea. It's been a while since I looked at this but seem to remember that there is still about 3000 miles of navigable waterway remaining. Largely used for recreation now. Once on the system, the countryside would be a completely different entity...being viewed from a boat and sights would be seen that would otherwise be completely un-available using other modes of transportation. What a relaxing holiday away from todays hectic life...once becoming accustomed to going at 4 MPH and having learned to steer Cleopatra's needle from the rear end, along a water strip narrower than Summer Lane. It might be that negotiating some systems of locks is a daunting prospect for some. So that manning some of these systems might offer employment and encourage use. In the same vein would not the money be better spent on the 'living system' with small descriptive displays at still remaining buildings and constructions along the routes. After-all, the canals have not gone anywhere; they are still there and used. Visible for all to see but mostly never noticed I suspect. An instance of pushing the present might be more advantageous than remembering the past perhaps.
 
I think the Roundhouse, behind the Fiddle & Bone pub (possibly reopening in the future) is empty. Maybe that is an idle location for a museum?




Currently anything canal related is at the Museum Collections Centre on Dollman Street








Earlier in the year I went to Banbury, and checked out the Banbury Museum. They had a few exhibits over the bridge that crossed the Oxford Canal.





 
Indeed, the roundhouse would be a great place for related material and perhaps horses were sheltered there at the end of a haul.
 
By the fact that this is the 458th post on the Canals of Birmingham thread I think it illustrates how interested members of BHF are in them
and what interesting posts and photos they have contributed.

Perhaps therefore Jim Shead might put a link to BHF on his website and also the Birmingham conservation trust for canals would include us in their section for Links to Birmingham Heritage and History sites.


I saw an item on the Midlands news a couple of weeks ago about a project to start a 'Google earth' type website for the waterways of the Midlands so that in the the same way we can 'walk' down our own street we could walk along the towpaths of the Canals.Filming had already started and they were, at the time, filming the length of Hatton Locks.I look forward to the website becoming available.
 
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The Roundhouse - what a fabulous idea! This place looks ideal! On Google Maps it says that there is a day nursery there - is this currently the case? But there's good access by road and by canal and an authentic bit of canal architecture to boot.
Only conceiveable problem is the attitude of the "neighbours" - remember why the Fiddle & Bone got shut down?


View attachment roundhouse.bmp
 
Its on the junction of Sherbourne Street & Vincent Street - it was used for stabling for horses - that's why it is in the form of spiral ramp so the horses could be stabled on a number of levels.
 
That's Sheepcote Street and St Vincent Street.

View from the other side (through the gate)





It was built 1840 for the London and North Western Railway as a mineral and coal wharf.
When listed as Grade II* in 1976 it was occupied by City of Birmingham Engineers Depot at the time.
 
ellbrown said:
That's Sheepcote Street and St Vincent Street.

View from the other side (through the gate)





It was built 1840 for the London and North Western Railway as a mineral and coal wharf.
When listed as Grade II* in 1976 it was occupied by City of Birmingham Engineers Depot at the time.
Click to expand...

As you were......Ellbrown - you're right of course - its located at Sheepcote Street & St. Vincent Street - the BW sales blurb (PDF https://www.gvagrimley.co.uk/PreBuilt/Residential/Brouchers/Final Final And Bone Particulars.pdf ) describes the building itself as consisting of stabling (similar to Stanley Sidings in Chalk Farm in London) adjacent to wharfage (I assume the environs of the Fiddle & Bone) some of which is now built on.

Still reckon it would make a great site for a Canal museum, though!
 
The canals are for me one of the real gems of Birmingham, Gas Street Basin is one of my favourite places in the city. A canal museum is a wonderful idea and I really hope it comes to pass, if I lived a bit nearer I would be getting stuck in to help.

Simon
 
On my last visit to Birmingham in 1980 (apart from my train journey through New Street recently) I made a visit to Gas Street basin and waked around some of the canal places that were within easy reach and access. It was all very quiet and lonely compared to how I remembered it some thirty years beforehand. It was daytime but I guess there was far more activity (non boating) later in the evening.
 
Radiorails said:
On my last visit to Birmingham in 1980 (apart from my train journey through New Street recently) I made a visit to Gas Street basin and waked around some of the canal places that were within easy reach and access. It was all very quiet and lonely compared to how I remembered it some thirty years beforehand. It was daytime but I guess there was far more activity (non boating) later in the evening.
Click to expand...
Here's a shot i took recently..
Birmingham 013.jpg
 
Decent video of the Basin...
[video=youtube;UqSnKdHMje0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqSnKdHMje0[/video]
 
Radiorails said:
On my last visit to Birmingham in 1980 (apart from my train journey through New Street recently) I made a visit to Gas Street basin and waked around some of the canal places that were within easy reach and access. It was all very quiet and lonely compared to how I remembered it some thirty years beforehand. It was daytime but I guess there was far more activity (non boating) later in the evening.
Click to expand...

If you last came in 1980 then the area may have looked something like this



Now the same area looks like this (this photo is taken from roughly the same spot)

 
My 3x Great Grandfather was a coal dealer on the Old Wharf in early 1800's, it would have looked so different then! I was standing outside in the upper gardens at the new Library and as I looked over I knew that my family had been there so many years before, it was a strange feeling! (OK I'm sentimental, I can't help it!!!)
rosie.
 
Re Canals Museum - this article on the Birmingham Mail from April 2012

Call to create canals museum in Birmingham

VETERAN Birmingham waterways campaigner Terry Fogarty is floating a new venture for the city – in the shape of a Canal Museum.
The pensioner, who has won support from Birmingham City Council for his scheme to speed up the city’s canals with a new diagonal lock network, has now approached the authority with plans for a museum.
Terry, aged 75, from Acocks Green, is seeking public support for a permanent museum complex to reflect Birmingham’s rich history of canals and canalside activities.
His lock scheme, mooted for the Camp Hill area of Birmingham, has also won public backing from British Waterways – and now he is seeking approval for a museum.
Click to expand...
 
Be so good if this can be made to happen. There's a wealth of history to be captured around the life of the canals, both within B'ham itself and in it's links with many other parts of the country. Viv.
 
Gas Street Basin - the Bridge Street end. There is a plaque here about Old Wharf.

It used to be the Bridge Street terminus of the BCN.

Taken in todays bad weather (rain, sleet, hail and snow like stuff).





 
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