3.7 Lord's Hayes Branch Canal, BCN

Andy Tidy explores the 1.5 mile Lord's Hayes Branch Canal on the Birmingham Canal Navigations, which could so easily have been so much more. This is one of two branch canals approved when the Wyrley and Essington Canal was extended to Huddlesford, near Lichfield. Lots a scrambling through the undergrowth, a few ruined bridges and a lot of scratches on my legs....

[@martinmessiah7130]

I am finding these videos fascinating, for thirty years me and my friends have hired boats for a week .every year . After getting bored with usual rings . We decided to cruise the Stourport ring . And that’s were I got a taste for the Birmingham canals . There is usually about six to eight of us on a boat . When we find ourselves on the Wyrley and Essington or the Walsall canal people are genuinely shocked to see us , it’s like a post apocalyptic world we feel we have the whole canal system to ourselves .

[@lifeat2.3milesanhour57]

Martin - it is a bot like entering a parallel universe isnt it! We Moor at Longwood to we travel the backwaters a lot and get very blase about the bridge holes. As you say, you can go for days without seeing another moving boat.

[@danielsedgwick5476]

Always very interesting, you are keeping history alive...

[@fredskingle3503]

What a fascinating series, thank you for all your work and please keep it up!

[@djmossssomjd8496]

Another wonderful episode Andy. Your in my neck of the woods and I thank you for risking the wrath of a local farmer to create this video. Great job!

[@lifeat2.3milesanhour57]

Its always a pleasure to make them. Lots more to come.

[@grahamcolling5087]

Very Interesting, many thanks. I live less than a mile from this section and regularly photograph around the Fishley Rover Bridge where it joins the Wyrley and Essington. The Yates family (you mentioned Mrs Yates) are the farmers who own most of the land your were walking across.

[@royfellows5468]

I live just up the road from the retirement home at a bungalow called "Greengables". previously to that I lived other side of Bloxwich. As a young teen I used to fish in the old Fishley Canal as we called it, this about 1960. Actually the far end of Lord Hayes branch. This had been blocked off by tipping direct from the Fishley road bridge, but had water as far as the main canal. It was well known for its pike. It was not until years later that it was completely filled. A lot of fish removed first, inc pike up to 3 feet, I was told. At the Newtown end, the basins are still there, at least in part, but very badly overgrown and difficult to get to. Before the retirement home there was a garage, "Newtown Service Station". Interesting that the Newtown Road Bridge went in 1931, I was wondering about that. So the basins were cut off at least that early. I fancy that the pools, not shown on old maps, are the result of either mining subsidence or flooded opencast, and maybe caused by a breach in the canal in that area?

[@lifeat2.3milesanhour57]

Hi Roy - I have always figured that he lakes are flashes caused by subsidence. Its great to hear accounts of these old waterways before they were completely filled in.

[@royfellows5468]

Hi me again. I now have some local info. My next door neighbour worked at the Newtown Service station and I am informed that there was a massive opencast operation in the 1990s, he could look over a wall at the back of the garage right into the opencast, So there is your canal extension gone. The smaller of the two pools, the one behind the retirement home, is artificial and part of land drainage put in after the opencast. There is a culvert draining into it probably from the North Walsall Cemetery. The northern of the two basins is part under the retirement home car park and land to the east of Newtown Farm, which was built on the site of the Cannock Lodge Colliery no 5 and 6. The opencast would have worked round this area. The south basin would have gone with the opencast. I was therefore wrong in my last posting, anything that looks like remains of the basins is coincidental and probably from drainage channels put in after the opencast. Any bits of wall from the one behind the garage. If you want to get onto the nearby Wyrley and Essington canal, a pleasant walk, turn into Long lane off the A34 and proceed towards the bridge. There is an entrance on the left into the Junior Playing Fields, you can park to the side and a pedestrian entrance is always open. One of the buildings was the offices of the opencast and the whole of the fields between the canal and the A34 was a massive opencast, so so much for the canal archaeology. There should be some old photos around, when the virus has cleared I will try the Bloxwich Gold Club. Old photos usually get framed and hung on walls. Retirement home may have something.

[@lifeat2.3milesanhour57]

Thanks Roy - Opencast has a lot to answer for! In truth, there the local canals were built to access the coal so I guess its no surprise they were also lost when the last scraps were grubbed out. If you ever find any old photos I would love to add them to the archive.

[@lrmwharf864]

Great video again Sir

[@johnward9421]

What a easy Canal to restore ?

[@lifeat2.3milesanhour57]

Technically simple but in a deeply unpopular area!

[@btudrus]

@@lifeat2.3milesanhour57 Why unpopular? BTW, the Hatherton restoration plans to make use of a part of this branch, maybe more could be restored as well? (And wouldn't it be possible to restore the Wyrley branch and extend the Lord's Hayes Branch to connect to the Wyrley branch? Just dreaming... )

[@lifeat2.3milesanhour57]

@@btudrus Its remote and quite hard to get to - nice enough when you get to Pelsall. The branch dosn't really go anywhere so no real incentive to restore it. The Wyrley Bank Branch's big problem is water. Back in the day it was supplied with water pumped from he adjacent mines but today there is no supply. This branch and the Lords Hayes are very close geographically bit on very different levels making a connection difficult.

[@grahamkennison6896]

Andy, Congratulations on another wonderful episode. Are there any plans for restoration on this branch?

[@lifeat2.3milesanhour57]

In part yes. There is a long term plan to use the first 1/3 of a mile to link into the Hatherton branch, but they need to complete the Lichfield restoration first.

[@danensis]

I don't understand your commment about a Hayes belonging to Mr Lord. What is a Hayes? Is it a local term?

[@lifeat2.3milesanhour57]

Hayes is a local term for a coppice or a stand of trees. The area the canal covered was very featureless and the assumption is that in the absence of any better landmark it went to a Mr Lord's hayes (coppice). Not sure if that clarifies or not.....

[@danensis]

@@lifeat2.3milesanhour57 - thank you. I'd not heard the term before.

[@taeglig]

I wonder when coming to an area of a former canal bed that is fenced off & unenterable whether a drone would be helpful ?

[@lifeat2.3milesanhour57]

Its something I have thought about, but its more kit to carry. I have access to a few drone pilots and may enlist them from time to time/ The biggest problem is getting availability when the weather is good. Not a lot of good days this winter!

[@biggaG75]

Are you going to be doing the hatherton branch?

[@lifeat2.3milesanhour57]

Yes. Whilst technically its not part of the BCN it does share its DNA and falls under my category of "outliers" - like the Stourbridge Extension. In terms of timing, next week is the Cannock Extension as far as Norton Canes, then the second part to Hednesford (filmed yesterday) followed by Churchbridge Locks (Semi BCN), and then the Hatherton Branch of the S&W.