Netherton Tunnel Branch Canal, in the

West Midlands county West Midlands is a metropolitan county in the West Midlands Region, England, with a 2021 population of 2,919,600, making it the second most populous county in England after Greater London. It was created in 1974 by the Local Government Act ...

, England, is part of the

Birmingham Canal Navigations Birmingham Canal Navigations (BCN) is a network of canals connecting Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and the eastern part of the Black Country. The BCN is connected to the rest of the English canal system at several junctions. It was owned and opera ...

, (BCN). It was constructed at a 453–foot

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § ...

, the Wednesbury or Birmingham level; it has no

locks Lock(s) may refer to: Common meanings *Lock and key, a mechanical device used to secure items of importance *Lock (water navigation), a device for boats to transit between different levels of water, as in a canal Arts and entertainment * ''Lock ...

. The total length of the branch canal is and the

canal tunnel {{Refimprove, date=September 2009 A canal tunnel is a tunnel for a canal. The building of a canal tunnel is crucial to help a waterway that is normally used for shipping cross a difficult section of terrain. They are also constructed to reduce th ...

is long. Netherton Tunnel was the last

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface f ...

tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

to be built in

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

during the Canal Age. The first sod was turned by the Lord Ward on 31 December 1855 and the canal opened on 20 August 1858, providing a waterway connection between the

Black Country The Black Country is an area of the West Midlands county, England covering most of the Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall. Dudley and Tipton are generally considered to be the centre. It became industrialised during its ...

towns of Netherton and

Tipton Tipton is an industrial town in the West Midlands in England with a population of around 38,777 at the 2011 UK Census. It is located northwest of Birmingham. Tipton was once one of the most heavily industrialised towns in the Black Country, w ...

. It was built to relieve the bottleneck of the adjacent

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. ( Standedge Tunnel is the longest, at , and the Higham and Strood tunnel is now ...

which is very narrow, has alternating blocks of one-way working, and had waiting times of eight hours or more, and sometimes several days. The Netherton tunnel was built with a width of to allow two-way working of

narrowboat A narrowboat is a particular type of canal boat, built to fit the narrow locks of the United Kingdom. The UK's canal system provided a nationwide transport network during the Industrial Revolution, but with the advent of the railways, commer ...

s; and is

brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

lined throughout. It has

towpath A towpath is a road or trail on the bank of a river, canal, or other inland waterway. The purpose of a towpath is to allow a land vehicle, beasts of burden, or a team of human pullers to tow a boat, often a barge. This mode of transport w ...

s running through it, one on each side, which enabled horse-drawn narrowboats to be pulled through it.

Chainage The chain is a unit of length equal to 66 feet (22 yards). It is subdivided into 100 links (PDF) or 4 rods. There are 10 chains in a furlong, and 80 chains in one statute mile. In metric terms, it is 20.1168 m long. By extension, chainage ( ...

(distance) markers are still visible on the Eastern wall. The tunnel was fitted, from the start, with gas lighting over the towpaths, though this was later converted to electricity and it is now unlit. The air vents that run along the line of the tunnel and provide ventilation, and a shaft of light into the canal, are known by the locals as "pepper pots", because of their shape. They are brick-lined and the openings are covered by an iron frame or grill. The wide bore and good ventilation mean that boats using the tunnel today are allowed to use the power of their

internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal co ...

s, which is prohibited in the narrower Dudley Tunnel. The tunnel cost £302,000 as opposed to the £238,000 estimate prior to construction. The main reason for the project being overbudget was the extra works necessitated by the condition of the ground through which the tunnel passes.

Repairs

In 1983, the British Waterways Board had of the brick invert replaced with concrete as a result of the invert rising sufficiently to impede navigation."Repairers wary in Netherton heaving invert", ''

New Civil Engineer ''New Civil Engineer'' is the monthly magazine for members of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), the UK chartered body that oversees the practice of civil engineering in the UK. First published in May 1972, it is today published by Metropoli ...

'', 1983, 30 June. In 2011, significant cracks were found in part of the tunnel lining. Traffic through the tunnel was limited, as a result. Repair work began early in 2013.

Route

The canal runs south-west from the BCN New Main Line at Dudley Port Junction and under the Old Main Line at Tividale Aqueduct. The northern mouth of the tunnel is near Dudley Road West, close to Tipton's border with Oldbury. An air-vent stands in the middle of Aston Road; another stands between two houses in Regent Road, both in the Tividale Hall estate near

Dudley Dudley is a large market town and administrative centre in the county of West Midlands, England, southeast of Wolverhampton and northwest of Birmingham. Historically an exclave of Worcestershire, the town is the administrative centre of the ...

. The southern mouth of the tunnel is in Warrens Hall Park on the border of Dudley and

Rowley Regis Rowley Regis ( ) is a town and former municipal borough in Sandwell in the county of the West Midlands, England. It encompasses the three Sandwell council wards of Blackheath, Cradley Heath and Old Hill, and Rowley. At the 2011 census, the com ...

- the Bumble Hole and Cobb's Engine House are nearby. The Bumble Hole is a landscaped man made lake on the site of a former

clay pit A clay pit is a quarry or mine for the extraction of clay, which is generally used for manufacturing pottery, bricks or Portland cement. Quarries where clay is mined to make bricks are sometimes called brick pits. A brickyard or brickworks i ...

. The Dudley No. 2 Canal and the Boshboil Canal Arm are joined at Windmill End Junction. The Boshboil Arm was once part of a loop of the original Dudley Canal which went around Bumble Hole. This loop ceased to be part of the main line when a more direct line was cut. The loop became severed into two arms as a result of subsidence. The northern arm is the Boshboil Arm the southern is the Bumble Hole Branch.

Features

Gallery

File:Cobb's Engine House.jpg, Cobb's Engine House near the southern portal File:Netherton Tunnel inside northern portal dual towpath.jpg, Netherton Tunnel inside northern portal showing the dual towpath File:Bumble Hole - 2004-06-02 - Andy Mabbett - 10.jpg, Slippage in the roof of a southern end of the tunnel, caused by the

2002 Dudley earthquake __NOTOC__ The following is a list of notable earthquakes that have affected the British Isles. On average, several hundred earthquakes are detected by the British Geological Survey each year, but almost all are far too faint to be felt by humans ...

File:Netherton Tunnel northern portal QF.jpg, Netherton Tunnel northern portal File:Tividale Aqueduct with turbine QF.jpg, Tividale Aqueduct with old turbine which once generated electricity to illuminate the tunnel File:Tividale Aqueduct and Netherton Tunnel.jpg, Tividale Aqueduct and Netherton Tunnel northern portal File:Canal cottages at Tividate Aqueduct QF.jpg, Canal cottages on the branch at Tividale Aqueduct

References

External links

*Shead, Ji
Netherton Tunnel Branch Canal
*Shead, Ji
Netherton Tunnel Branch Canal History
{{Birmingham Canal Navigations Buildings and structures in the West Midlands (county) Canal tunnels in England Lists of coordinates Canals in the West Midlands (county) Birmingham Canal Navigations Tunnels completed in 1858 Canals opened in 1858 Tunnels in the West Midlands (county)