I note there’s a wonderful video clip been posted by the Lichfield and Hatherton Canal Restoration Trust who as regular readers will know, are reconstructing the canal between Brownhills and Lichfield.
The video is a great aerial fly-trough and is full annotated, made with the most up to date Google Earth imagery and will be a revelation for anyone interested in, but not quite sure of the route of this lost canal.
You can see the film below – it’s really rather excellent.
At the moment, this entirely volunteer-driven project have teams currently beavering away on the route of the lost line between Barracks Lane, Ogley Hay and The Boat pub, on the Lichfield Road at Summerhill, opening the route for walkers, but also at Gallows Wharf, Fosseway near Wall and at other spots along the route.
The Trust have already put in years of work restoring the lost line and it’s features like Borrowcop Locks, and it has been no small undertaking.
If you want to find out how you can help the Trust, check out their website here or their Facebook page here – they are a top bunch of people and really are getting there with this vital and wonderfully historic project.
If you spot anything on the film or have any questions, please do comment here, mail me on BrownhillsBob at Googlemail dot com or give me a shout on social media.
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A most wonderful video. You have taken me back to my childhood. I lived in Shelfield at the time when my brother Bob and I would walk to Pipehill Wharf and following the canal under the Walsall road we would then come to an area of the canal that still held water. Here we would spend around an hour filling two potato sacks with watercress before walking back home. Once home we would bundle the watercress and thankfully the lady who owned the small store opposite Jordans farm in Shelfield (just down from the park entrance) would display them out front for a tanner a bunch. All would be sold and with this money we would of course spend some of the money on candies before using the remainder to buy our Christmas gifts. We would buy our gifts from a store in Rushall which sat kitty corner to The Miners Arms. Old Joes was the store, it seemed to be full of everything possible. After Joe moved on this same store went on to become Crutchleys TV and Radio ( I think) and then onto Bedworths fruit and veg. Thank you again. By the way this would have been around 1959 until 1963.