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Canals of Birmingham

  • Thread starter Thread starter O.C.
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JudiM said:
A piece on the BBC news site today featuring Birmingham's canal system. It's about health, exercise & social distancing, but there is some good background & pictures & a little history and it's interesting to hear how different people use the canals & how the City canal system has become like parks for people.

www.bbc.co.uk

Canal tow-path exercise: ‘I can’t socially distance’

Canal tow-path users have increased in number by more than 170% in Birmingham during the lockdown.
www.bbc.co.uk
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On reading this this morning I know just how they feel. Our house is on the River Lea Navigation. Since lock down, going for my daily exercise walk. which I did before lockdown, has become a really unpleasant, stressful experience. The tow paths are like an Olympic training route for runners and cyclists. You cannot walk them and keep social distance. I have spent the past few months trying different routes around my village, trying, as requested by Canal and river trust, not to use the towpath unless for local use. As a local, I, unlike many of the users, do not need maps and satnav to know where I am and how far they still have to go for London in one direction and Hertford in the other. All this has been going on since the beginning of lockdown.
 
cba said:
On reading this this morning I know just how they feel. Our house is on the River Lea Navigation. Since lock down, going for my daily exercise walk. which I did before lockdown, has become a really unpleasant, stressful experience. The tow paths are like an Olympic training route for runners and cyclists. You cannot walk them and keep social distance. I have spent the past few months trying different routes around my village, trying, as requested by Canal and river trust, not to use the towpath unless for local use. As a local, I, unlike many of the users, do not need maps and satnav to know where I am and how far they still have to go for London in one direction and Hertford in the other. All this has been going on since the beginning of lockdown.
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I suppose with travel limited & gyms closed many folk have nowhere else to go. There are a lot of apartments around the canal system in the City & precious little outdoor space.

I guess pre-lockdown most of these people would be in the gym or jogging close to their places of work & cycling to & from.
 
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cba said:
On reading this this morning I know just how they feel. Our house is on the River Lea Navigation. Since lock down, going for my daily exercise walk. which I did before lockdown, has become a really unpleasant, stressful experience. The tow paths are like an Olympic training route for runners and cyclists. You cannot walk them and keep social distance. I have spent the past few months trying different routes around my village, trying, as requested by Canal and river trust, not to use the towpath unless for local use. As a local, I, unlike many of the users, do not need maps and satnav to know where I am and how far they still have to go for London in one direction and Hertford in the other. All this has been going on since the beginning of lockdown.
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I live very near the river Lea but in London!
I know exactly what you mean, it's been so busy in the last few weeks especially with joggers and cyclists. I'm not far from the canal either which is just as bad :(
 
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Bob Davis said:
A place on the canal that is large enough to turn a canal boat in. Bow in, reverse out stern first and you are pointing the way you came. With smaller boats in some winding holes you can just take it in a circle as you would round a roundabout. You cannot turn a narrow boat in the normal width canal.
Bobl
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On your travels I hope you threaded the Bobbins, Bob !
 
Bob Davis said:
A place on the canal that is large enough to turn a canal boat in. Bow in, reverse out stern first and you are pointing the way you came. With smaller boats in some winding holes you can just take it in a circle as you would round a roundabout. You cannot turn a narrow boat in the normal width canal.
Bobl
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Thank you Bob, kind of what I thought! I remember the canals wide enough (or narrow enough) for the narrow boats to pass let alone turn. I have seen a couple of narrow boat series on Amazon and do not remember the term winding.

Thank you!
 
There are two winding holes on the Birmingham and Worcester within the city boundary at Bridge 79c The Dingle Selly Oak and Bridge 84a at Birmingham University. If you want to find out wherethey are and usually the are fairly evenly spaced (like Motorway Service Stations), they are well mapped on Google, enter Winding Holes and Canal name.

Bob
 
Bob Davis said:
There are two winding holes on the Birmingham and Worcester within the city boundary at Bridge 79c The Dingle Selly Oak and Bridge 84a at Birmingham University. If you want to find out wherethey are and usually the are fairly evenly spaced (like Motorway Service Stations), they are well mapped on Google, enter Winding Holes and Canal name.

Bob
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Is it pronounced 'WIN-ding' hole or 'WINED-ing' hole if it's 'WIN-ding', any idea where that term comes from?
 
Bob Davis said:
There are two winding holes on the Birmingham and Worcester within the city boundary at Bridge 79c The Dingle Selly Oak and Bridge 84a at Birmingham University. If you want to find out wherethey are and usually the are fairly evenly spaced (like Motorway Service Stations), they are well mapped on Google, enter Winding Holes and Canal name.

Bob
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Great, thank you!
 
Winding Place, Winding Hole, Winning Place, or Winning Hole.

Is a wide place in a canal provided for the purpose of turning a boat round.

Bradshaw’s Canals and Navigable Rivers of England and Wales (1904)
 
Pedrocut said:
Winding Place, Winding Hole, Winning Place, or Winning Hole.

Is a wide place in a canal provided for the purpose of turning a boat round.

Bradshaw’s Canals and Navigable Rivers of England and Wales (1904)
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yup... On narrow and broad canals turning spaces are known as 'winding holes' (as in fast-moving air, the verb 'to wind' describes turning the boat round). They are indentations in one or both banks of the canal, generally V-shaped, which allow a boat longer than the width of the canal to be turned.
 
Canal constructors were never short of diggers - manual rather than mechanical. But steam shovels, aka Steam Navvy's, became widespread after the mid 1880's. The one below is at Beamish Open Air Museum. It is a Ruston Bucyrus 25-RB built in 1931. It was at work in a chalk quarry in Hessle.

1596615349094.png
 
Radiorails said:
Canal constructors were never short of diggers - manual rather than mechanical. But steam shovels, aka Steam Navvy's, became widespread after the mid 1880's. The one below is at Beamish Open Air Museum. It is a Ruston Bucyrus 25-RB built in 1931. It was at work in a chalk quarry in Hessle.

View attachment 147279
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A man's machine, no hydraulic drives, no fly by wires, just big b****y levers. Worked with a 1950s RB22 in 1989, good as gold, but you knew at the end of the day you had been using it.

Bob
 
It was not necessary to find a "winding hole", as boats might be turned if space allowed at basins and canal junctions
 
Bob Davis said:
Agreed, marinas as well.
Bob
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In the days of working canals and boats there were no marinas and apart from maintenance craft few were short in length. Maximum size for maximum cargo. ;) I think the 'Amptons* coal carrying boats might have been the longest working boats at around 80ft. in length.
* 'Amptons named after Wolverhampton.
 
Radiorails said:
In the days of working canals and boats there were no marinas and apart from maintenance craft few were short in length. Maximum size for maximum cargo. ;) I think the 'Amptons* coal carrying boats might have been the longest working boats at around 80ft. in length.
* 'Amptons named after Wolverhampton.
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72ft, the longest now, but the bulk are 68ft, 72ft being the length of the single boat locks which are all of those outside the Grand Union, where you have to be very aware of the cills at one end.
Pedrocut said:
The term Marina, when associated with canals, seems to come into fashion in the 60s ?
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A posher word, often replacing the old workshops, enterprising canal repair/maintenance men saw the future as the narrow boat boom took hold.

Bob
 
mikejee said:
Oh dear. when I first took a boat out in the 1970s the firm put the fear of God into me about cills
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Its their job, the problems caused when a boat catches the cill and ends up like the one in Alan's picture are extensive, costly and time consuming and they will hold up boaters in both directions. However I bet you listened and did not touch a cill on the whole trip.

Bob
 
Bob Davis said:
Its their job, the problems caused when a boat catches the cill and ends up like the one in Alan's picture are extensive, costly and time consuming and they will hold up boaters in both directions. However I bet you listened and did not touch a cill on the whole trip.

Bob
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Very true
 
Bob Davis said:
Its their job, the problems caused when a boat catches the cill and ends up like the one in Alan's picture are extensive, costly and time consuming and they will hold up boaters in both directions. However I bet you listened and did not touch a cill on the whole trip.

Bob
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Not to mention damage to the boat inside and out!
 
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