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The Midland Metro tram service opened between Wolverhampton and Birmingham the other year, largely following the route of the former Great Western Railway line. A few stations along the line are handy as starting points for explorations and this piece describes a walk between two stations which includes a considerable amount of canal interest.
Wednesbury Parkway Metro Station is roughly on the site of the former Goods Station but no trace remains in this redeveloped area. A left turn outside the station, down Hallens Drive, leads the walker to a pair of gates by a roundabout next to the Walsall Canal. These were the main gates to the Patent Shaft Company's works which stood on this site. A massive concern by the beginning of the twentieth century, the first all steel bridge in the world, at Benares over the Ganges, was built here. After closure in 1980 the whole site was cleared and is now developing into the biggest automotive park in Britain where scores of related firms have their factories and warehouses. Four large bolards stand on the towpath edge between the new Monway and Willingsworth Hall bridges - great for the planners but not so good for canal boats.
A few yards further along is Moorcroft Junction where the Bradley branch leaves the Walsall Canal. After crossing the footbridge in the company of a huge pipe, it is worthwhile walking into the woods to find the lakes and rocky hillocks which give a sylvan contrast in this industrialised area. Industrialised for the third time. First there was mining, then iron making and now the legoland buildings of the automotive park rise around. The woodland owes its existance to the former industries for the lakes are sawgs caused by subsidence while the rocky mounds are made of slag, the glassy detritus of oron smelting.
Bradley locks were built in two sections with the lower three opening in 1796 to serve coal mines around Bradley Hall and the upper six following in 1849 to complete the link to the Gospel Oak loop section of Brindley's original main line. The chambers of the bottom lock, in the shadow of a railway bridge, and its near neighbour are still largely extant over forty years after abandonment. As this lenght of time has seen closure of the GWR line, the pulling up of its tracks and its renaissance as the Midland Metro, perhaps there is some hope for the eventual restoration of the Bradley locks. Bradley Bridge on Gospel Oak Lane is bricked up but retains its hump. Some of the copings bear the name of J.WHITEHOUSE, BLOOMFIELD.
The third lock was immediately above the bridge and then the route of the canal follows the green strip between the houses. Undulations towards the top indicate where some of the higher six locks were while masonry marks the position of the top couple.
At the top of the former locks stands a large windblown horseshoe of public open space, usually inhabited by a man walking his dog and the inevitable Black Country 'osses, whence the visitor gets the archetypal Black Country vista of pylons, houses, piles of bricks and distant factories, in a area which was once dyked by canals. Brindley's original Birmingham Canal looped around roughly what is now the edge of the open land while a cut off, dating from the opening of the top section of Bradley Locks, headed north towards Batman's Hill and Bradley. A convenient footpath leads to Bradley Lane while the canal ran approximately along the line of the factory yard. A path almost opposite gives access to more public open space just down the road from the site of Tup Street Bridge by the Old Bush public house and the Bradley Workshops of British Waterways Midland Region. The present end of the canal can be seen from the pub car park and several interesting are often moored outside the workshops. Here is the pumping station which provides the BCN with its water. The canal can be reached, opposite the Wilkinson Primary School, immediately after passing the BW buildings. The school is named after the great iron master John Wilkinson who built his ironworks hereabouts in 1766, giving the Black Country tremendous industrial impetus.
The towpath can be followed to Pothouse Bridge. Turn right down Loxdale Street to the Metro Station.