Stourbridge Canal
Encyclopedia
The Stourbridge Canal is a canal
Canal
Canals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...

 in the West Midlands
West Midlands (region)
The West Midlands is an official region of England, covering the western half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. It contains the second most populous British city, Birmingham, and the larger West Midlands conurbation, which includes the city of Wolverhampton and large towns of Dudley,...

 of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It links the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal
Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal
The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal is a narrow navigable canal in the English Midlands, passing through the counties of Staffordshire and Worcestershire....

 (at Stourton
Stourton, Staffordshire
Stourton is a hamlet in Staffordshire, England a few miles to the northwest of Stourbridge. There is a fair amount of dispute over the pronunciation, being pronounced 'stower-ton', 'stir-ton' or 'store-ton' by different people from the area. The nearest sizeable villages are Wollaston and Kinver, ...

 Junction, affording access to traffic from the River Severn
River Severn
The River Severn is the longest river in Great Britain, at about , but the second longest on the British Isles, behind the River Shannon. It rises at an altitude of on Plynlimon, Ceredigion near Llanidloes, Powys, in the Cambrian Mountains of mid Wales...

) with the Dudley Canal
Dudley Canal
The Dudley Canal is a canal passing though Dudley in the West Midlands of England. The canal is part of the English and Welsh connected network of navigable inland waterways, and in particular forms part of the popular Stourport Ring narrowboat cruising route....

, and hence, via the Birmingham Canal Navigations
Birmingham Canal Navigations
Birmingham Canal Navigations is a network of navigable canals connecting Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and the eastern part of the Black Country...

, to Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

 and the Black Country
Black Country
The Black Country is a loosely defined area of the English West Midlands conurbation, to the north and west of Birmingham, and to the south and east of Wolverhampton. During the industrial revolution in the 19th century this area had become one of the most intensely industrialised in the nation...

.

History

The Stourbridge and Dudley canals were originally proposed as a single canal in 1775, with a primary purpose of carrying coal from Dudley to Stourbridge. Robert Whitworth had carried out a survey, which was approved at a meeting held in Stourbridge in February, at which the estimated cost was promised by subscribers. The chief promoter was Lord Dudley, but the bill was withdrawn from Parliament following fierce opposition from the Birmingham Canals. Two bills were presented in the autumn, one for each of the canals, with the details largely unchanged, and both became Acts of Parliament
Act of Parliament
An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...

 on 2 April 1776, despite continued opposition from Birmingham. The Act allowed the promoters to raise £30,000, but unlike most such acts, did not make any provision for additional amounts. Thomas Dadford
Thomas Dadford
Thomas Dadford, Senior was an English canal engineer, as were his sons, Thomas Dadford Junior, John Dadford and James Dadford.He probably originated from Stewponey or Stourton near Stourbridge. He started as one of James Brindley's many pupil-assistants, in which capacity he worked on the...

 was appointed as engineer, with James Green as an assistant. Work started on the aqueduct which would carry the canal over the River Stour
River Stour, Worcestershire
The Stour is a river flowing through the counties of Worcestershire, the West Midlands and Staffordshire in the West Midlands region of England. The Stour is a major tributary of the River Severn, and it is about in length...

.

The £30,000 of share capital
Share capital
Share capital or issued capital or capital stock refers to the portion of a company's equity that has been obtained by trading stock to a shareholder for cash or an equivalent item of capital value...

 had been spent by April 1778, and although not authorised to do so, the company issued bonds to raise more money. Construction was largely complete by 1779, and trading began. All of the canal was probably open by December. Dadford resigned in 1781, and the following year, a second Act of Parliament was obtained, to authorise the raising of an extra £10,000, and to legitimise the bonds already issued. The total cost was thus £43,000. Tolls on coal which originated on the canal and was then carried on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal
Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal
The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal is a narrow navigable canal in the English Midlands, passing through the counties of Staffordshire and Worcestershire....

 were higher than for other coal on that canal, and the Stourbridge Company had failed to get this clause repealed. They therefore sought to bypass the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, and approached the Birmingham Canals in 1784, with a proposal for a link between the Dudley Canal and their system. This resulted in an Act to build the Dudley Tunnel
Dudley Tunnel
Dudley Tunnel is a canal tunnel on the Dudley Canal Line No 1, England. At about long, it is now the second longest canal tunnel on the UK canal network today....

, which opened in 1792. They also proposed a 26 miles (41.8 km) canal from Stourbridge to the River Severn
River Severn
The River Severn is the longest river in Great Britain, at about , but the second longest on the British Isles, behind the River Shannon. It rises at an altitude of on Plynlimon, Ceredigion near Llanidloes, Powys, in the Cambrian Mountains of mid Wales...

 at Diglis, which would have required two tunnels and 128 locks. The bill
Bill (proposed law)
A bill is a proposed law under consideration by a legislature. A bill does not become law until it is passed by the legislature and, in most cases, approved by the executive. Once a bill has been enacted into law, it is called an act or a statute....

 was rejected in 1786 when it reached the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

, following opposition by the Staffordshire and Worcestershire company, but they reduced their tolls for Stourbridge coal two years later. A healthy trade in coal, ironstone
Ironstone
Ironstone is a sedimentary rock, either deposited directly as a ferruginous sediment or created by chemical repacement, that contains a substantial proportion of an iron compound from which iron either can be or once was smelted commercially. This term is customarily restricted to hard coarsely...

 and limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

 developed, supplemented by iron products, bricks, clay, earthenware and glass. A dividend
Dividend
Dividends are payments made by a corporation to its shareholder members. It is the portion of corporate profits paid out to stockholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, that money can be put to two uses: it can either be re-invested in the business , or it can be distributed to...

 of 2.45 per cent was paid in 1785, which had risen to 6.3 per cent by 1789.

Operation

Trade continued to increase, reaching 100,000 tons in 1796, and continuing upwards as the iron and coal industries developed and the canal became part of a through route, following the opening of the Dudley Tunnel and the Dudley Canal
Dudley Canal
The Dudley Canal is a canal passing though Dudley in the West Midlands of England. The canal is part of the English and Welsh connected network of navigable inland waterways, and in particular forms part of the popular Stourport Ring narrowboat cruising route....

's extension through the Lapal Tunnel
Lapal Tunnel
The Lapal Tunnel is a disused canal tunnel on the five mile dry section of the Dudley No. 2 Canal in the West Midlands, England....

 to Selly Oak
Selly Oak
Selly Oak is a residential suburban district in south-west Birmingham, England. The suburb is bordered by Bournbrook and Selly Park to the north-east, Edgbaston and Harborne to the north, Weoley Castle and Weoley Hill to the west, and Bournville to the south...

. Dividends increased steadily, with 13.75 per cent being paid in 1840. In order to maintain their position, they helped to fund the enlargement of Gad's Green reservoir, on the Dudley Canal, and also gave money to several coal mines to assist with pumping, on condition that the water was diverted into the canal. Stourbridge basin had to be enlarged in 1807 to cope with the volume of traffic. Further traffic came after 1815, when the Worcester and Birmingham Canal
Worcester and Birmingham Canal
The Worcester and Birmingham Canal is a canal linking Birmingham and Worcester in England. It starts in Worcester, as an 'offshoot' of the River Severn and ends in Gas Street Basin in Birmingham. It is long....

 opened. Iron bound for London was shipped from Coalbrookdale
Coalbrookdale
Coalbrookdale is a village in the Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire, England, containing a settlement of great significance in the history of iron ore smelting. This is where iron ore was first smelted by Abraham Darby using easily mined "coking coal". The coal was drawn from drift mines in the sides...

 via the canal and the Dudley's Selly Oak branch.

In the 1820s, several wharves were built on the Fens Branch, to serve the developing collieries near Kingswinford
Kingswinford
Kingswinford is a suburban area in the West Midlands.Historically within Staffordshire, the area is mentioned in the Domesday Book its name relates to a ford for the King's swine - Latin Swinford Regis. The current significance is probably in tourism, education and housing...

, and the company considered applying for a new Act of Parliament in 1829, to give them powers to build extra lines in this area, but they did not proceed. Instead, plans were developed for the Stourbridge Extension Canal
Stourbridge Extension Canal
The Stourbridge Extension Canal was a short canal built to serve a number of mines in the Kingswinford area of Staffordshire in England. Although connected to the Stourbridge Canal, it was independent from it. It opened in 1840, and was abandoned in 1935...

, which served a similar purpose and opened in 1840. On a more personal level, the lockkeeper at Stourton received a pay rise in 1830, as the locks were now in use all night and on Sundays, while the Stourbridge lock-keeper received a similar reward in 1834, and a larger one two years later. In 1836, 144,606 tons of coal were carried, besides all the other traffic.

Railway Age

In 1844, the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway (OWWR) announced their intention to build a line which would partly run parallel to both the canal and the Dudley Canal. Despite opposition by the canal company, the line was built and opened in 1852 and 1853. However, its effect was not immediately significant, and a proposed reduction in tolls was not deemed to be necessary. Some goods were transferred to the railway from a private basin, which ultimately led to an agreement on tolls for such transfers and the construction in 1858 of a transhipment siding on Stourbridge wharf. Trade held up well, derived from six ironworks and a tinplate works situated on the canal above the Stourbridge flight, traffic from the collieries on the Extension Canal, and various other industrial concerns, including fire-brick manufacturers and glassworks. In 1865, a new Act of Parliament introduced powers to charge mileage tolls for traffic using the upper level, but not passing through any locks. Income gradually dropped, and the dividend was below 8 per cent for the first time in 1873. For many canal companies, the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, which became law in 1888, had a detrimental effect on revenue, but the Stourbridge tolls increased significantly, from £1,695 in 1894 to £2,718 in 1896.

A programme of dredging and other improvements, which enabled local trade to continue, kept the company profitable until effective competition from road vehicles began. In 1929, tolls were £3,750, although revenue from other sources increased income to £5,270, and a 3 per cent dividend was paid. By 1938, the operational profit was just £222. Tolls were down to £1,278 in 1946, and commercial traffic continued to decline until it ceased.

Stourbridge Extension Canal

A separate company built the Stourbridge Extension Canal
Stourbridge Extension Canal
The Stourbridge Extension Canal was a short canal built to serve a number of mines in the Kingswinford area of Staffordshire in England. Although connected to the Stourbridge Canal, it was independent from it. It opened in 1840, and was abandoned in 1935...

 from the Fens Branch to Shut End (in Kingswinford
Kingswinford
Kingswinford is a suburban area in the West Midlands.Historically within Staffordshire, the area is mentioned in the Domesday Book its name relates to a ford for the King's swine - Latin Swinford Regis. The current significance is probably in tourism, education and housing...

) thus opening up another part of the coalfield to development. This passed into the hands of the West Midland Railway, the successor to the OWWR in 1860, which then became part of the Great Western Railway
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...

 soon afterwards. It remained in use until after the Second World War. Most of it was then filled in, apart from a few yards at the Fens Branch end, which remain watered and serve as a mooring place.

Course

The canal leaves the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal at Stourton Junction, and immediately enters a four-lock flight to gain height. The pound above the locks is 1.7 miles (2.7 km) long, and crosses the River Stour on an aqueduct just before Wordsley Junction. At the junction, the Stourbridge Arm continues on the same level into the centre of Stourbridge, while a flight of sixteen locks takes the canal up the hill towards Pensnett Chase, where there were collieries. The bottom lock is just above the junction, and Leys Junction is just above the top lock. From here, the Fens Branch is a short, navigable feeder from Fens Pools
Fens Pools
Fens Pools is a 37.6 hectare biological site of Special Scientific Interest in the West Midlands. The site was notified in 1989under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and is currently managed by the Country Trust.-History:...

 and the main canal continues for 1.8 miles (2.9 km) to Delph Locks
Delph Locks
Delph Locks or the Delph Nine are a series of eight narrow canal locks on the Dudley No. 1 Canal in Brierley Hill, in the West Midlands, England....

, a flight at the start of the Dudley Canal, which originally consisted of nine locks, but was rebuilt as eight in 1858.

The canal forms part of the Stourport Ring
Stourport Ring
The Stourport Ring is a connected series of canals forming a circuit, or canal ring, around Worcestershire, The Black Country and Birmingham in central England...

, which is one of the popular cruising rings for leisure boating. The length of the route is 74 miles (119.1 km), and it passes through 105 locks located on six inter-connected waterways.

Stourbridge Town Arm

At Wordsley Junction, the Stourbridge Town Arm heads south-east into the town of Stourbridge
Stourbridge
Stourbridge is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, in the West Midlands of England. Historically part of Worcestershire, Stourbridge was a centre of glass making, and today includes the suburbs of Amblecote, Lye, Norton, Oldswinford, Pedmore, Wollaston, Wollescote and Wordsley The...

. The Stourbridge Town Branch Line
Stourbridge Town Branch Line
The Stourbridge Town Branch Line is a railway branch line, in Stourbridge, West Midlands, England. It is claimed to be the shortest branch line in Europe, and many miniature railways are certainly longer....

 railway was built in the 1850s from Stourbridge Junction railway station
Stourbridge Junction railway station
Stourbridge Junction railway station is a railway station on the Birmingham, Worcester and Kidderminster Line in West Midlands, England. Stourbridge Town Branch Line runs from the station to Stourbridge town centre...

, via Stourbridge Town railway station
Stourbridge Town railway station
Stourbridge Town is a railway station near the centre of Stourbridge, West Midlands, England. It is situated at the end of a short branch line linking the station with Stourbridge Junction just 0.8 miles away, where passengers can change for mainline train services...

 to serve Stourbridge Basin
Stourbridge Basin
Stourbridge Basin was a canal basin at the end of the Stourbridge Branch Line in Stourbridge, West Midlands, England. It was built in the 1850s...

. The basin was for interchange between the railway and the canal and this aided the canal's continued use.

Restoration

In 1958, the government-appointed Bowes Committee had listed the waterways which they thought ought to be retained for commercial operation, and the following year the Inland Waterways Redevelopment Advisory Committee (IWRAC) was set up to consider what to do with the rest. The Inland Waterways Protection Society, which had been formed in the East Midlands in 1958, produced a detailed proposal for the restoration of the Stourbridge and Dudley Canals, which they presented to the IWRAC in August 1959. The Inland Waterways Association also began campaigning for the waterway, after the Stourbridge flight was closed in 1960, to allow a bridge to be repaired.

To assist their case, the Inland Waterways Association organised a national boat rally at Stourbridge in 1962. British Waterways erected signs to announce that the Stourbridge flight could not be used, and the Stourbridge arm was already partially blocked by a shoal. After failing to get any assurance that the shoal would be removed, volunteers took action, and cleared the canal using a dragline excavator which they had borrowed. There were letters in The Daily Telegraph from both the IWA and British Waterways, which generated more publicity, and 118 boats arrived for the rally. Press coverage included sympathetic articles in The Times and The Daily Telegraph, local authorities showed support for a revived canal, and the role of the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal
Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal
The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal is a narrow navigable canal in the English Midlands, passing through the counties of Staffordshire and Worcestershire....

 Society, who had jointly organised the event, was properly recognised.
The British Waterways Board published a report in January 1964, called The Future of the Waterways, in which they suggested that the case for retention of the Stourbridge Canal was borderline, but that if there was practical support from those interested in its survival, then that might alter the balance. With the 16 locks unnavigable, the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal Society (S&WCS) proposed a restoration programme to the newly formed British Waterways Board in late 1963, where the navvying would be done by volunteers under the direction of British Waterways, who would also provide the materials. The 1962 Transport Act had paved the way for canals to be considered for their amenity value, rather than as purely commercial enterprises, and against this background, the S&WCS proposal was accepted as a test case by the Board, and restoration began in 1964.

Work of the canal was undertaken by weekend working parties, including members of the S&WCS, the Dudley Tunnel Society and the Coventry Canal
Coventry Canal
The Coventry Canal is a navigable narrow canal in the Midlands of England.It starts in Coventry and ends 38 miles north at Fradley Junction, just north of Lichfield, where it joins the Trent and Mersey Canal...

Society. A progress report issued by the IWA in April 1965 ultimately led to the formation of a publication called Navvies Notebook, which informed people about what was happening. It allowed volunteers to be drawn from a wider area, and in 1967, a record 45 people participated in a weekend working party on the canal. The canal was opened to through navigation again in May 1967. Following that success British Waterways went on to accept similar restoration working parties across the canal system.

2008 Breach

During flooding of the River Stour on 7 September 2008 a major breach occurred. This swept away a length of towpath and bank between Bellsmill and Stourton Locks, completely draining the pounds, including the Stourbridge Town Arm. The problem was caused by the River Stour flooding the area around the Stourbridge terminus, resulting in water level surges further along the canal. British Waterways restored navigation from the Dudley Canal, via Delph Locks and Wordsley Junction into the Town Arm fairly quickly. The canal was re-opened on 18 December 2008 after British Waterways completed repairs costing £650,000 ahead of schedule. The work included a 105 cu yd (80.3 m³) concrete block constructed at the foot of the embankment to stabilise it.
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