 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
birmingham :: index :: walking the canals
> Birmingham section
galleries
photographic
tour
about
Brum
fascinating
facts
history [draft]
news
stories
top
nosh in Brum
West
Midland links
places
to visit
Spaghetti Juntion
the canal
network
walking the canals
> Main site
about
index
sitemap
search site
quotations
military
RMAS
N. Ireland
sports
combat cat
RAF
Lincolnshire
Portugal holidays
jobs
links
contact
not
for profit
copyright
Data Protection
A walk on the quiet side
By David Ward
(Originally appeared in BIRMINGHAM magazine of
the University of Birmingham, October 1999)
AMAZING. Here we are, three-quarters
of a mile from the centre of one of Britain's biggest cities, and the air
is full
of the sound of birdsong, rather than of buses, bikes and trucks.
We are on the towpath of the Worcester and Birmingham canal and have just left behind the echo and drips of the Edgbaston tunnel. Five ducklings are dozing on the water and wake only when they hear our feet. A canoeist paddles by, his ripples barely disturbing the peace of a bright morning.
At Bridge 85, we catch our first sight of the BT tower in the city centre and some lurid graffiti. A siren (police? fire?) wails from somewhere to the east. At Bridge 86, we are under Bath Row and can hear the roar of engines fighting their way round Five Ways; an aircraft glides across the cityscape.
It is just 900 yards or so to Gas Street Basin at the heart of Birmingham's canal system. We stroll on under Granville Street, past a grand brick warehouse (with a glimpse of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's base) and turn sharp left at Salvage Turn, with the premises of G & S Brough (Washers and Gaskets) across to the right.
The blue glass bulk of the Hyatt hotel and the grubby exterior of the Convention Centre come into view. Just past the elegant, white-painted former headquarters of the canal company, the Worcester and Birmingham stops dead at a lock and within sight of a clutch of moored narrow boats. Now we have reached the basin, rescued from the oblivion of industrial decline twenty years ago and transformed into a popular waterside ambling, loafing and drinking place.
Still surprised by the air of tranquillity, we retreat to the Malt House, where Bill Clinton had a drink when he came for the G8 gathering in 1998, and order a couple of pints. Four Canada Geese glide by; crocodiles of young Brummies on school trips file past with clipboards; away to the right, the Birmingham Main Line (a canal not a railway) potters off towards Wolverhampton while Birmingham and Fazeley (yet another canal: remember, Birmingham has more waterways than Venice) sets off in the direction of Tamworth.
We had planned this walk some time before. The aim was to stroll from the University and enter the city by the back door noting en route what had changed and what had stayed the same over the last few decades. We set off from Chancellor's Court in brilliant sun, unencumbered by brollies or bags. At the station, we take the flight of twenty-seven steps down to the towpath and head north along a straight, tree-shaded stretch of the cut with banks stuffed with Queen Anne's Lace (or keck or cow parsley; it's a p]ant hvmned by both Larkin and Shakespeare).
An iron sign tells us it is just five kilometres to Gas Street. No sweat. The joggers are out and so are the cyclists, who tend to creep up behind walkers and shout 'Bike!' at the last minute, hoping to shock them into a leap into the drink. A holiday boat chugs through the bridge under Pritchatts Road and its relaxed skipper offers a cheerful hello.
The campus is loitering away to the right. It and the railway are still with us as we walk under Somerset Road and discuss how the University has grown in its ninety-nine years. We talk of halls of residence, of the need to keep up with changing student tastes, how the two-bed shared room is giving way to the single en suite with phone point and computer network connection.
It wasn't like this in our day and we begin to feel our age. We go all radical and begin to wonder whether universities should get out of the accommodation business and leave the private sector to take the strain.
By now, we have reached the Vale, the clutch of halls which welcome conference delegates once students have headed for home. There's a new bridge (84a) over the canal at The Vale, the only one on its thirty-mile route to the Severn to carry the crest of the University of Birmingham. New students can cross the water and take the towpath route to classes, passing on the way the sweetly-named Maple Bank Meadow, an area transformed from a tip and an eyesore to a pleasant area of greenery, thanks to cooperation between the University, British Waterways and the City Council.
[photo intentionally inverted! Note the pleasant mirror image]
A friendly information board urges us to seek out damsel flies, dragonflies, and pond skaters. We fail to see any of these.
We, the canal and the railway continue towards Edgbaston Tunnel and glance across to grand houses and well-tended gardens which sweep down to the water. Eventually we come upon more halls of residence which have risen on the site of the former accident hospital, familiar to generations of medical students. We hope today's students enjoy the view.
Once in Gas Street Basin we argue a bit about Sir Norman Foster's design for the National Sea Life Centre across the water and wonder idly what would happen if its sharks found their way into the canal system. We consider another pint but decide instead to keep strolling, wandering around Brindley Place, with itsbars, cafes, and restaurants, and on to Broad Street, once a tatty thoroughfare, now home to several hotels and Ronnie Scott's jazz club.
We have a look at the Ikon Gallery, now housed in a beautifully refurbished school, and then return to cross the basin and settle a major controversy: is Symphony Hall closer to the canal system than the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester? It's almost certainly a shorter walk from a narrow boat to Symphony Hall, but the Manchester approach is by far the more stylish.
The Convention Centre emerges into Centenary Square, a grand public place which would astonish Brum graduates who have not been back to the city for years. The Rep is on the left and in the middle is a curious but loveable piece of socialist-realist sculpture that would not have looked out of place in old-style Albania.
Further on lies the memorial to John Baskerville, the great Birmigham typographer whose name lives on wherever printing of quality is valued. His tribute is the word Virgil in a giant version of the type which bears his name, it reads, as it should, from right to left and visitors can be seen pondering what ligriv means.
On we go to into Paradise Forum, wincing gently because it is not one of the glories of the New Birmingham, and out into the light behind the Town Hall (looking a little bewildered now that the CBSO has moved out) in Victoria Square (formerly Paradise Place and Chamberlain Square).
We are looking for something but cannot find it, fearing it may be hidden behind the scaffolding on the Central Library. So we turn back into Paradise Forum, and there we find it: a discreet plaque recording that it was here, in the heart of the city, that the University of Birmingham was born.
We are content and only slightly footsore. Time for lunch.
David Ward is a feature writer for The Guardian…
