A Bimble down the Tame Valley Up the Rushall Canal

North Birmingham is vast and often overlooked by visitors. Professionals and city slickers are drawn to areas around the University and the south of the city; the upwardly mobile favouring leafy Edgbaston and the more bohemian craving the bohemian cool of Moseley. Exotic tales of a Balti triangle within easy access of the regenerating city are as far as many are willing to reach. There are always tales of new areas about to reach peak cool, the most recent is Stirchley, but I remain unconvinced. The reason is that Birmingham is a city where even the locals get lost, bamboozled, without a clue as to how they got where they are.
Anyone trying to drive is in for a tour of duty, as Satnav has given up on Brum. I know many who would not dare to contemplate Birmingham by car and Spaghetti Junction fills them with dread. Although it was built for transport, firstly canals and latterly roads, it is a navigator's nightmare.  There is so much to see but you need to make a plan if you want to get there.  A map is no good. I spent years wondering how to get from Broad Street to Bristol Street and it takes mental strength to get your footing. And now they have ripped it all up again!
The only constant is the canal system so my advice would be if you can master the cut then you will be a Brummie, my son.  Even fewer newbies venture up the hill to explore North Birmingham so its left to a mass of humanity. The area is slowly merging into the softer pudding of the Black Country where the motorways interchange. A range of cultural disparities have developed in relative isolation so each area and ward has distinct characteristics. Aston, Erdo, Lozells and Kingstanding have pleasures the vulgar herd can never understand.

Attempting to find a path through this miasma of tightly packed housing I use North Birmingham cycle path 535.  This route links one of the green lungs of Birmingham, Sutton Park with the city.  There is another contentious claim that, 'Birmingham has more parks than any city in Europe.' For a city so green there are a lot of brownfield sites  Queen Victoria,famously, drew the blinds in her carriage when she passed the Black Country by train.  But I knew there was more to this green and pleasant space.

Eager to prove my thesis I dove down the hill from Banners Gate on to the new cycle path which  offered an off road option through a landscape where it is hard to see the woods for the cars. Travel writers who make epic walks often suddenly skip 40 miles when writing about this stretch from Cannock Chase to Hollywood. Well I wasn't having that.  The path links a series of parks following the course of a brook, breathing spaces for Brummies on lockdown.  Witton Lakes fall down to Brookvale Park where George Road is lined with elegant town houses looking out onto the lake. Maybe the only place in the UK where a palatial 4 bed house with lake views can be yours for just over £200,000. 

 The path runs out at this Greek school, another sign of the community of settlers of disparate heritages in the area. I played football here at the back of the huge Witton cemetery viewed from the M6 which passes overhead. Many lost hours have been spent by drivers stuck here staring at their mortality in static jams.  Advice for the unwitting to pay the toll or the ferryman awaits.

There is beauty in monstrosity, and its worth spending a while soaking in the wonder of these structures.  Its an edgeland, a liminal world where reality has been obliviated to establish monsters traipsing across the blighted landscape.  Giant spider legs carry concrete and noise creating an unresolved sense of danger. The adrenalin of being in a secret zone kicks you on.

Engineers followed the route of the Tame Canal which was established in 1844, late in canal history. It blazed a straight route between Brum and the Black Country and settled scores once and for all. This was when necessity was the mother of invention, a time when Britain didn't mess around. Faced with twisting, convoluted canals tied up with tolls, engineers created a veritable motorway, straight as a die. Any argument over until rail eclipsed it. The M6 followed the same argument but it is the canal link that fascinates; a past highway just as important to the commerce of the UK and the city of a thousand trades.

 Centuries clash as blacktop gives way to cobbles and towpaths designed for horses. Ancient spires of industry poke through the warehouse and factories that line the cut. Ubiquitous plastic chairs decorate makeshift outdoor canteens as workers suck up fresh air and vitamin D before diving back in to red brick caverns.

 Beauty and carnage dwell side by side.

 Crossing the arteries of main roads falling down into the city,  the canal takes you past the BCU sports fields at Moor Lane.  A concerned resident videos the outflow from a factory which appears to have bleached the canal for the past mile.  At other times it is hard to pinpoint where you are, a testament to Birmingham's inscrutability.

A silent stream cuts through the heavily populated Perry Barr and is soon to become a star in a showpiece event.  Alexandra Stadium is rising to the left of the cut alongside a centre for gymnastics.  An aquatics centre is also planned in nearby Sandwell.The 2022 Commonwealth Games has the potential to transform North Birmingham. It could provide vital uplift for the area and could be inspirational for local communities. Things are about to happen here and I hope this secret is about to be revealed.

Perry Barr is a stepping stone for many aspirational Brummies. Perry means small in olde english and the heights of aspirational suburbia are above, past Great Barr, where you find the green dream of Sutton and Walsall. The gold at the end of the rainbow lies in places like Roman Road and Four Oaks where millionaire footballers live next too successful businessmen . The lock-keepers cottage at the top a flight of 13 locks is a reminder of the strategic importance of this spot. It is a barr signifying the barrier between Birmingham and the Black Country. Signs both ways should say 'abandon all hope ye who enter' to satisfy both allegiances. The term 'barr' is ubiquitous around here suggesting an ancient gateway to a Northern wilderness. 

Beyond the barr, it is not long before you reach a stretch of canal that I would call one of the 'seven wonders' of the Midlands canal system. I haven't decided the rest yet but I plan to discover them. A magnificent, deep green jungle cuts through the heart of industrial Birmingham providing an Amazonian link to the Black Country.  It runs straight as a die to an emerald vanishing point overhung by creeping wilderness.  Towering bridges vault above offering the multitudes a tantalising glimpse of a peaceful escape route.

This drop bridge offers a tempting look into a second wonder of the Midlands canal system which is the Rushall flight of locks that lead up to the suburbs of Walsall. On a sunny day this is a stunning location, with dandelion heads flying in the breeze and mayflies flitting,  it deserves that you stand and stare and rest awhile. I like to walk here at dusk, a brief nod from others who know the secret.

Quiet and solitude can be found within sight of the flyover which connects the M5 and M6. Once you pass this mighty interchange you climb slowly into a calmer world. The canal passes the West Brom training ground and an immaculately landscaped school mysteriously named Q3 a, part of the equally sinisterly named Grace Academy.  Dartmouth and Hamstead pupils may feel that anything is an improvement on what went before.

Lucky home-owners back onto the peace of the cut. They bask in sun traps at the bottom of their gardens observing nature in its May glory.  This is more of a swans-way these days as only an intrepid boater would take this route.  As the scenery becomes increasingly rural and you pass the isolated 'lime kilns park' the locks remind you that you are gaining height at a considerable rate.  The mountains of the Midlands mind are close and worth a detour.

I ventured up to Barr Beacon to gain the vantage point across several counties that this high point affords.  Brummie wags claim this is a mountain as it is above 600 feet.  If that is so then you can see a few more mountains from here. The council claim eleven counties can be seen on its information board and at 774 feet you really get a good view. The spires of Lichfield Cathedral can be seen to the North; look South and it is all downhill to Birmingham and beyond. Wales is a bit of a strain on the eye though!   

Next to the Rushall canal is open heath land where aeronauts like Amy Johnson used the height to glide across Midland skies.   Why the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic chose Alrdridge Aerodrome we will never know but we were told in school that this was the highest point between here and Moscow. Heading uphill through the cocounut scent of Gorse you gain quite a view of the Birmingham skyline from the memorial.  Another chance to imagine what Queen Victoria made of it all when she pulled down the blinds down.  The view from Barr Beacon would have been blasted heaths that would make Shakespeare and Tolkien wonder.  Furnaces and open cast mines, fire and all the smoke of Mordor, as far as the eye could see and right round the distant Wrekin. 

A Bimble Down the Cut (Fazeley-Grand Union loop)

Everyone knows that Birmingham has more canals than Venice. If you are a Midlander it is more than likely that you played by a canal, or in one, during a mis-spent youth. Childhood memories are linked with adventure, following these endless watery hollloways further than we could dare to venture. They were avenues of escape; portals into another world.  The closer to Birmingham you got, the filthier they became. Now they are in quite good nick. Gentrification has been slow to drift beyond Gas St. Basin but now Birmingham is in hyper-drive fuelled by student accommodation.  The canals are cleaner than ever as citizens of Brumagem and the Black Country find pride in their waterways once more.  In the midst of urban blight you don't need to go far to find a bucolic spot.  Dip below the chaos and filth of backstreet Brum and you are in a verdant world.

With industry in mind I determined to find an off road route into the mean streets of Brum from my hometown of the Royal Borough of Sutton Coldfield. I am, belatedly, coming to see the benefits of living within cycling distance of some of the most intensively industrialised landscapes in the UK.  The Plants Brook runs from Sutton Park downhill toward the River Tame and a cycle path through the New Hall Valley follows this route that was once dotted with mills using the energy of gravity to grind corn. Sutton Coldfield, High Street is essentially a long dam funnelling the brook through the town from Sutton Park and into the valley. A popular path has been created that follows the brook through Walmley to Pype Hayes Park, once famed for the biggest fireworks display in Brum. Not everyone is sad to see the back of the 'bunfire'! From here you jump onto the Birmingham - Fazeley canal to follow an off road route all the way into Birmingham and indeed on to London if you wish.

 The Fazeley canal runs from Tamworth where it links up with the Coventry Canal.   It enters the Birmingham conurbation at Minworth where there is a huge ASDA which was once a more impressive Carre-Four in the 1980's. We went for breakfast on special occasions. I still go in for the breakfast deal and to reminisce and read a magazine in the upstairs cafe. The canal takes on a post- industrial air as it passes Castle Vale, a new town built on the site of an aerodrome used in the war. Spitfires were built here and are commemorated in a huge metal sculpture. The site lost out to a bigger plot a few miles south which became Birmingham airport. The Vale is handily placed for the factory workers of JLR and housed Birmingham over-spill populations in the 1960's. 34 high rise flats and a new estate housed over 5000 people in a utopian new town. The Ballardian nightmare lasted until the 90's when the social experiment was finally deemed a catastrophe and the high rises were demolished.

The Jaguar Land Rover site is spick and span and the old site of Fort Dunlop is next door, once the largest factory in the world. These plots occupy a vast area where the Spitfire aeroplanes were once made and tested. The canal runs unwittingly beside industry which is in constant flux.  The energy of JLR and logistics companies seems to have brought about activity and new builds on tiny plots rising from the Ashes of once mighty industrial giants like Hardy Spicer and GKN . On the shoulders of giants the area is betwixt decline and constant reinvention.

The Tyburn Road runs parallel through industrial units the Jaguar plant. Scent marks the changing scenery as lurid dog roses give way to the belch of a KFC or the acrid burn of a Dunlop tyre. Nature thrives alongside the faded red brick factory units. An incongruous cowslip provides a memory of Easter as a heron launches into the blue. 

The awkward juxtaposition of nature and brutalism continues until concrete wins at Bromford.  This is where the nexus of a transport network that was the envy of the world begins. Under the bridge and into the future. This is Gravelly Hill Interchange, if you are up high, or Salford Junction if you float below. Once a site of gravel pits at the base of a glacial valley, Gravelly Hill is the start of Birmingham proper. Motor city is hemmed in by a ring of highway.

The spaghetti above is an incredible sight, spitting out tin boxes in 36 different directions. Nearly 600 concrete columns, up to 80 feet high. Opened in 1972 it was a modern wonder of the world soon to be replicated by engineers the world over. But this was the biggest and the best. They said it couldn't be done. The last hurrah of famed British engineering expertise before the stakes and the dollars rose and the world went truly bonkers.  Two rivers and two rail lines also vie for attention beneath the colossus but it is the confluence of three canals running in four directions that draws interest. The Tame Valley canal runs west and the Birmingham and Fazeley canal runs on through Aston and into the city. I turned 270 degrees onto the mighty Grand Union Canal.

The weight of history demands that you stop and wonder.  Thoughts of silence are ridiculous as the traffic thunders overhead but there is a stillness in this land that time forgot.  This route allowed the canal trade to avoid tolls and crack through Birmingham avoiding the mainline controlled by greedy magnates and get rich quick merchants. The Tame Valley line opened in 1844 allowed a quick route North to the Potteries and beyond. This part of the canal was originally a link with the Grand Union in shaving hours off a Birmingham passage along congested and contested  routes.

 This stretch goes through the badlands of Birmingham, charmless outskirts of warehouses and scrapyards.  There's brass in muck and the Taroni scrap kings made their pile here. Beyond the  impressionist lily pond below lay a sleeping monster made of metal. The unfathomable British habit of hanging plastic bags in trees suggested this had caught another hungry eye. Sometimes it is hard to discern what is modern art or waste in the city. Nature tries its best to recapture the wastelands and the canal and waterways people are relentless in their conservation and improvement. Beauty is never far away for those willing to look.

The green route through Nechells and Saltley belies the chaos above. Roundabouts, main roads and an expressway take you past local leisure complex, Stab City. The graffiti is sharp and even the geese have an edge to them. This pair would not let me pass for ten minutes until I had summoned the courage to defy the city hoods. 

At Camp Hill locks you can choose to head into bohemian territory of Digbeth or head for London.  These areas are now synonymous with another gang of hoods 'The Peaky Blinders' and you pass Bordesley Green, the home of their pub 'The Garrison'. 

The cut runs out to Small Heath and becomes greener with furtive graffiti artists lurking precariously in vantage points.

Once considered a green suburb Small Heath is full of fading factories redolent in red brick challenging time and dereliction to do its best. There is Brummie defiance here and sawmills and timber yards still line the cut where powerhouses of industry like BSA roared and rifles cracked. Birmingham is famed as the city of a thousand trades and its gun-makers were legendary. Small Heath was the centre of arms production which made it a target during the war.   It is an area that has seen a succession of immigration as the Commonwealth rushed to provide post-war labour. Over 50% of the population is of Pakistani/Bangladeshi heritage and this defines the Islamic culture of the area once you pop your head up from the canal.    

Most kids raised in Birmingham will know the Ackers where you canoed down a less than inviting canal chasing rats and were dragged round the assault course. It looks more inviting today but everything does from this level. 

The River Cole links up with the canal by Tyseley where a vast recycling site regenerates waste. Almost hidden between this towering monstrosity and a huge retail park is a small church that lies on the bank of the infant Cole and provides a link to the past that has been almost wiped off the map by concrete. 

If you know this area then the green passages that link the River Cole to daylight past Chelmsley Wood will surprise you in their tranquility. This is where Birmingham sprawls eastward and includes some of the poorest wards in the UK. The river provides a secluded oasis amidst urban chaos and the parks that line it provide another green lung. I followed the cycle path up to Smiths Wood and over toward Castle Bromwich. I started teaching here and gained a different perspective in my trial of fire.  In the heat greater bonds are formed and I look back on friendships and good times with colleagues with great fondness. I did get that sense of sickness at the end of each day at the ritual humiliation new teachers face in the classroom; a mix of anger and helplessness. Having to repeat the soul destroying dance the next day.   Most kids were wonderful but the unreachable few caused havoc. I remember javelins being thrown down the corridors and one that became embedded in a car. We rounded up those who had broken into the sports store but management deemed it too serious to take action! It might get in the paper they said. A few other things missed the press like a drama teacher taking the act of performance too far and a young teacher who missed five a side on a Friday due to being incarcerated for crimes never to be revealed. The psychological drain on a young teacher cannot be underestimated and I felt institutionalised.
  In the end I got quite good and was rewarded by management collapsing set 5 and 6 full of naughty boys for me to teach. I fell in love with the art teacher, made great friends and taught some of the best kids I have ever met.  My one top set were the only group to attempt 'The Heart of Darkness' albeit through the medium of 'Apocalypse Now' and a high point had been reached. I bit the bullet and bought a round the world ticket, in a rather peremptory act. I can remember the sense of release flying over the vastness of Canada letting five years of torment wash away.

Washwood Heath brought it back and I pushed on past Castle Brom. I am still to walk round the celebrated gardens in their exalted perch above the city. Maybe one day.

Drawing the circle to a close I passed the River Tame which runs under the M6. Mildly hallucinatory in my low fuelled state I wondered if the Anglian tribes that originally colonised this area of Mercia ever dreamt of concrete. I sprinted past the Spitfires and rejoined the canal at the Tyburn House. Gallows humour followed me home. 

Riding a bike is a psychogoegraphic exploration of the skull cinema, rushing with endorphins to start and ending with a depleted sack of unwashed mail.