Distance: just under 7 miles

Difficulty of terrain: easy

Get the Route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

A varried suburban and rural walk between Selly Oak in Birmingham and Halesowen in the Black Country along the route of the long closed Lapal Canal. Including the site of the ill-fated Lapal Canal Tunnel and the sites of the ruined Weoley Manor and Halesowen Abbey.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

Not the Best Geology for a Tunnel

On paper it sounded an excellent idea. 

In 1792 after nearly a decade of legal wrangling and incredibly hard toil by the company’s navvies – including chipping away through solid rock to cut a 2.9km tunnel under the centre of Dudley itself – the shareholders of the Dudley Canal were vindicated. Their town, it’s collieries, manufactories and foundries was connected to the rest of the West Midlands via the Birmingham Canal Navigations and onwards to the north through Staffordshire.

Even greater prosperity for this 18th Century north Worcestershire boom town and it’s hinterland loomed. So, likely reckoning that success begets success, the shareholders voted at a meeting in Birmingham on the 31st August 1792 to raise nearly £90,000 to build a new canal running south to join the Worcester and Birmingham Canal Company’s planned route to the River Severn. Which in an apparent double win was near a junction with a proposed canal via Stratford-upon-Avon to London.  

The sum required to build the canal could have paid the wages of 9,000 workingmen for a year, but the possibilities for the town and the wider midlands if it could be pulled off were immense. Trade via the ports of London and the River Severn to every corner of the globe. Trade which at a time of escalating demands from Parliament for taxes to pay for a world wide war with the increasingly alarmingly radical revolutionary government in France was sorely needed.

Dudley’s second canal, the Dudley No. 2 Canal as it was christened, would be a marvel of the emerging industrial age. From Dudley it would run past the collieries at Netherton and Halesowen, across an embankment which at 18 metres would be the highest canal embankment in the world, through a tunnel which at 3.47 kilometres would be the longest in the world, past the ruins of the Manor at Weoley, onto the brick kilns at Selly Oak where – once built – it would join the Worcester and Birmingham Canal.

With capital raised and Parliamentary approval granted work began in early 1794. Progress initially was smooth. However, when work began on the Herculean effort of digging the gargantuan tunnel under the rolling hills of the Woodgate Valley, between Lapal near Halesowen and the remains of the old fortified manor house at Weoley Castle, major flaws in the plan were unearthed. 

It transpired that the route chosen for the tunnel largely ran through sand. Despite the best efforts of navvies toiling down thirty different drilling shafts the material was nearly impossible to dig through without subsidence. What’s more the shafts were in constant danger of overflowing with water. Three steam engines were brought in and run constantly to try and keep the water from completely flooding the tunnels. 

The canal company pressed on whilst the costs mounted and mounted. By the time the route was ready to open in May 1798 a total of £162,500 had been spent constructing the canal which was just under 11 miles long. Nearly twice over budget most of this had gone on the unfortunate tunnel. The tunnel the contractors eventually turned over had a diameter of just 7 feet 9 inches. Once the canal was filled with water this meant that there was only 6 feet of headspace available for boats, cargo and bargees combined. It was far too narrow for a towpath, and on the verge of being so narrow as to be utterly unworkable, the workers employed to “walk-the-boats” through, struggling to squeeze themselves enough so as to fit on top of the barges.

To cap it off, the Worcester and Birmingham Canal Company were behind schedule when it came to completing their navigation, so the two canals didn’t actually join up until 1802. By this point the Dudley Canal Company had spent £200,000 on the new canal. 

Things improved slightly from then on, with shareholders even being paid a dividend between 1822 and 1844, but the tiny tunnel was never a success. Navigating the tunnel was improved somewhat in 1841 by the construction of a steam engine at the Halesowen end which used a clever system of lock gates and paddles to create an effect not unlike a swimming pool wave machine, and push boats through the tunnel that way. 

But in the face of the railways, improved road transport and changing patterns of local industry, mechanical gimmicks could only do so much for traffic on the canal. Throughout the life of the tunnel it was prone to cave-ins, these got worse in the 1890s, and after one especially bad collapse in 1917, it was decided to cut losses and close the tunnel forever.

The rest of the canal, now cut into two stubs, staggered on throughout the first half of the 20th Century. The south eastern end of the canal between Weoley Castle and Selly Oak was kept busy by some brickworks at California near where the tunnel had begun, however, these began closing in the 1920s meaning that by the Second World War that traffic had evaporated. The short section along the really high embankment between Halesowen and Lapal where the tunnel had begun ran through Leasowes Park, a country estate which had been given to Halesowen Council for the people of the town. The canal, now devoid of traffic, became a leisure attraction with children sailing model boats and adults rowing on it. In both cases however, by the 1960s the canal was overgrown and abandoned, and the British Waterways Board decided to declare it “unnavigable” and completely shut. 

Heroic efforts by volunteers throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s mean that most of the Dudley Canal between Tipton where it joins the Birmingham Canal Navigations and Halesowen remains open and navigable to boats today (if you fancy walking it, here is my guide). The section east of Halesowen today lies largely forgotten with relatively few traces remaining. Though as I discovered one late summer afternoon, the 5-6 mile stretch of former canal remains eminently walkable.  

The Walk

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

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I decided to begin my walk along the route of the former Dudley No. 2 Canal at it’s Birmingham terminus in Selly Oak. In the 18th Century it was a fairly remote location 3-4 miles from Birmingham home only to clay pits and brick kilns, but by the end of the 19th Century the area had become heavily industrialised with a large metalworks, railway coal yard and many other factories having opened in the area. 

This industrial heritage has been largely cleared away today, but the area retains excellent transport links in the form of Selly Oak Station (served every 10-15 minutes by commuter trains running from Birmingham New Street, as well as Redditch and Bromsgrove) which is located 2 minutes walk from the start of the route. There is also a very frequent bus service with the 61, 63 and 144 buses running right past where the walk begins, whilst the 11, 48, X21 and X22 also stop nearby.     

Today the centre of Selly Oak, running along the A38 heading south west from Birmingham, possesses a transient gritty and grimy cosmopolitanism ambiance, full of chicken shops, hairdressers, and budget supermarkets serving the area’s vast student population who study at the nearby University of Birmingham. The beginning of the walk is marked by one of the most visible signs of the university’s presence in Selly Oak, an 18 storey tall private halls of residence, clearly visible from several miles away which whilst under construction was described by a friend of mine “as the worst building [they’d] ever seen”.

Approaching the student tower block from the A38 you spot a sign part way across the green painted metal bridge carrying the road over the Worcester and Birmingham Canal. In one direction the sign points to the nearby Selly Oak Railway Station, in the other it points out the canal below. Two flights of steps were recently cut by the developer who recently built a quasi-out of town retail park in the area. This includes a gigantic Sainsbury’s as well as a Marks & Spencer’s, Costa Coffee, Gregs, Nandos and several clothes and homeware shops. 

Walking down these steps takes you onto the canal towpath opposite a grassy area in front of the railway arches which carry the line down to Bristol. Here at the foot of the steps you are standing near the point where the Dudley No. 2 Canal once joined the Worcester and Birmingham.

Behind you beside the student tower block you’ll see a covered underground walkway, this slightly unforbidding portal takes you underneath the loading bay and stock room of the giant Sainsbury’s.

As you walk through the walkway you’ll see a tall, sturdy, slatted fence on your left hand side. If you peer through into the murk beyond you’ll see a culvert full of stagnant water. This, believe it or not, is your first sight of the Dudley No. 2 Canal. The Lapal Canal and Tunnel Trust, an enthusiastic, dedicated and very well organised lobbying group who are campaigning for the disused southern section of the Dudley Canal No. 2 Canal to be reopened. When the retail park you are walking through gained planning permission in the early 2010s the Lapal Trust secured a commitment the line of the old canal would be preserved and partially restored so as to readily enable the anticipated reopening. The concrete culvert running under Sainsbury’s is the first part of that.

Leaving the covered walkway head across the retail park’s car park. This can be quite dangerous, especially at busy times such as weekends, so take care as you do so. One way to avoid the worst of the traffic is to follow the yellow clay and gravel path along the retail park’s perimeter fence, this marks the preserved canal, so by doing so you’re also adhering closely to the route.

At the top of the retail park there is a Sainsbury’s branded petrol station. Here you can either continue along the yellow clay and gravel path and then scramble up a short but steep bank onto Harborne Lane or you can walk around the petrol station on the pavement. When crossing the car park you will have noticed that there is a low road bridge over a culvert blocked off by a metal grill. This is part of the old canal line and the bridge was put in by the council in the late 2000s to enable the canal to be potentially restored and run under the road causing minimal disruption one day. Once on this bridge look to cross Harborne Lane and head in the direction of Selly Oak Park immediately opposite, this can be achieved by means of some traffic lights slightly further down, if you don’t fancy waiting for a gap in the traffic to cross the busy roadway.

Once on the side of the road by the park you’ll see a single story building with the Scouting Associate logo. Walk into the park and across the small tarmacked carpark in front of the scout hut. From here you’ll see a wooden fence and some tall grasses just by the side of the scout hut. This is the start of a short section of semi-restored canal. The wooden fence exists to stop people falling into the water at the bottom of the canal ditch (or “cut” to use the traditional West Midlands term). 

Walking along besides the partly restored cut you’ll see quite a fine, rather weathered red brick bridge in front of you. This is one of the surviving canal bridges on this section, today it forms a means of accessing Selly Oak Park from Harborne Lane, but you can walk under it and take a look before continuing on your way.

The Semi-restoration peters out shortly after the bridge, but the outline of the cut remains clear running along the bottom of the park. There is a clear path running along the side of the overgrown ditch enabling you to easily follow it for several minutes as you cross the park.

At the end of the park the old cut peters out, but there is a wide, very clearly worn path which you can follow through the overhanging trees. This is situated to your right at the bottom of the park.

 At this point you are walking on what used to be the canal. Today – whilst it is a public footpath maintained by Birmingham City Council – it is a bit of a no-man’s land between the back gardens of the inter-war semis lining the route. There are very few signs in this section that this was ever a canal, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a bit of leftover land when the houses were built, but in fact when the houses in this part of Selly Oak were constructed 80-90 years ago the canal was at least notionally still operational so nobody could build there.

For about the next mile or so, the route continues in much the same vein. There are several points along the route where the path curves dramatically or branches. These instances always remain on the larger path.

After about a mile there’s a break in the trees and you find yourself standing next to a strange square of grass separating two roads on the Weoley Castle estate. Presumably in the mid-20th Century when the surrounding houses were built by the City Council the canal still existed in some form, hence why the two roads do not meet up. Later after the canal became formally disused it was covered over to create the patch of grass, and then as a traffic calming measure it was decided to keep the two roads divided. 

Cross the grassy area and head down a path into the woods on the other side.

By this point you are nearly at the end of this suburban section of the walk. You can either carry on across the grass into another thicket to follow the line of the old canal all the way to another of the few surviving bridges over the canal, at which point you have to turn-off and walk to Barnes Hill through the Weoley Castle estate for a while, or you can detour into the park on your left to visit the ruins of the medieval fortified manor house from which Weoley Castle gets its name.

You can glimpse the surviving remains of the manor house through a wire fence and some trees when you’re following the path that leads along the old canal line. However, if you’re interested in medieval remains it might be worthwhile taking 10-20 minutes out from following the main route to view the ruins. After all, whilst there’s relatively little of the building remaining, there’s little else like it in Birmingham. Today the ruins are cared for the Birmingham Museums Trust, and according to their website the manor house was constructed in the 1270s by the Earls of Dudley to sit at the heart of their 1000 acre deer park. 

Over 500 years later the Earls of Dudley had a significant hand in the building of the Dudley Canals, including family members sitting on and chairing the company’s board. An example of how landed interests adapted and used their wealth, connections and formal power to retain their sway into the industrial age. Interestingly when the No. 2 Canal was built in the 1790s, as well as cutting close to the remains of the building and using it’s moat as a waste tip for spoil, some of the stones were reused by the canal company in the construction of bridges and other infrastructure for the waterway.

So, even if you don’t take the detour there’s a chance that at some point on the journey you might spot a chunk of the old Weoley Castle…

Back on the canal route once you soon reach an old canal bridge which has been largely submerged beneath the undergrowth and decades of accumulated detritus. The bridge partially retains the distinctive slated steps that would have aided horses pulling narrow boats. However, at this point a large metal fence blocks you from following the route of the old canal any further. 

My solution was to turn left down the side of the park where the remains of Weoley Castle are situated and then right onto Alwold Road and then head right up to the junction with Barnes Hill.

When I consulted Google Maps whilst writing up this walk, however, I realised that a more accurate route to follow the line of the old canal would probably be to turn right at the bridge onto Somery Road and then left onto Stonehouse Lane. The one advantage of the route that I took if you’re feeling hungry at this stage in the walk is that there is a KFC restaurant on the corner of Alwold Road and Barnes Hill.

Once past the KFC turn left onto Stonehouse Lane. Walk a couple of hundred metres down the road, past the large ASDA supermarket on your left.

Once on Stonehouse Lane you will see a patch of grassland fringed by trees. The area you are now in was completely transformed between the end of the Second World War and the 1980s as it was developed for housing. Somewhere underneath the grassland in front of you sits the eastern portal of the Lapal Tunnel. The only features which remain from prior to the mid-20th Century are a single terrace of late 19th Century workers cottages and a small chapel which sit on a slight ridge above the main road which lies just left of the grassland.

The name of this small, wild park is Old Quarry. The area of the city you are now in is evocatively called California, though it has now particular connection to its North American namesake. It was in this area that the brickworks which gave a brief reprieve to the eastern stub of the canal was situated, hence the park being called Old Quarry.

From Old Quarry Park cross over Stonehouse Lane near the back of the terraced houses, close to where a power line runs. Here there stands an old wall formed from large stones. Apparently – so my sources tell me – this is a surviving wall built by the canal company.

After the wall turn right and walk up the road a short way towards the traffic island where Stonehouse Lane meets California Way, Barnes Hill and West Boulevard. Take care crossing the road as it’s quite a busy junction, and then head down West Boulevard, this is the large tree lined road, positioned directly opposite Old Quarry Park. 

Walking on the left hand side of West Boulevard you are right next to Woodgate Valley Park. At this point you have pretty much departed from the route of Dudley No. 2 Canal, however, as at this point the route is following the path of the ill-sited, ill-fated Lapal Tunnel, much like how the Tube Map doesn’t show the actual route of it’s tracks, we don’t really need too.

After a few minutes walking down West Boulevard, at the bottom of quite a steep hill, turn left onto the footpath through Woodgate Valley Park.

Woodgate Valley is a very pleasant, but rather municipal, green lung for people living in south west Birmingham. For most of the way through the park it is quite difficult for you to get lost, just follow the course of the Bournbrook River which flows all of the way.

There are two very good paths to follow, and a couple of interesting vaguely post-modern (perhaps recalling the canal which once ran beneath our feet?) footbridges, which allow you to swap sides if you happen to get bored of the bank of the river that you’re walking along.

The path on the left hand bank of the river is entirely metalled, whereas the path on the right hand bank’s path is a sturdy, well worn track.

As I walked through Woodgate Valley Park I speculated on why this green valley had not been built on after the Second World War like so many other areas of the city. Whilst the land doesn’t seem especially steep, it is easy to see why the Dudley Canal Company decided to tunnel it, because it undulates a lot, whilst generally sloping upwards. I did wonder however, whether the reason why Woodgate Valley became a Country Park rather than a council estate, is because they City Council’s engineers in the 1960s and 1970s were worried (with good reason…) about the potential for subsidence in the area from old mine workings, clay pits and yes, a nearly 3.5km long canal tunnel, built quickly over 150 years before, through sand…

Approaching the end of Woodgate Valley Park a line of pylons and the vista of a 1980s vintage Barret type estate loom on the horizon. At this point there are a myriad of paths to potentially follow but keep following the Bournbrook as it heads along the perimeter of the 1980s houses. By now you will hear the roar of traffic from the M5 Motorway nearby, which is a sign that we’re about to leave Birmingham for the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the Black Country.

Leaving the path that runs up from the park you come out onto Watery Lane. Once on Watery Lane turn right and head the short way up to Carters Lane.

At Carters Lane you will find yourself opposite a flat roofed mid-20th Century pub called The Old Crown Inn. Cross over the road here and head down the side road running next to the pub called Lye Close Lane.

Walk past the rather nice little estate of 1970s vintage terraced council houses towards where the road passes through some trees.

By now the sound of traffic will be very loud. Once past the trees the bridge over the M5 is in front of you. Cross the bridge over the deep fast flowing culvert of traffic beneath you. Apparently in the 1960s when the motorway was built, the workers constructing the road somewhere near where you are standing, found themselves cutting into a section of the old Lapal Tunnel. To avoid the road collapsing they resorted to pumping it full of gallons of concrete and sealed the superceded mode of transport under the motorway forever. Much as their 18th Century forebears had utilised the remains of the old manor house Weoley Castle to construct the canal in the first place.

Once over the motorway bridge turn right along Lapal Lane. This is true greenbelt country. There is much less exurban and suburban sprawl than is the case on the other side of the motorway, but it still has a strange not quite country feel, whilst also feeling a bit more in stasis than areas further out from the town. Take care walking down the road, as I found it quite busy with rat-run type traffic looking to get across one of the few ways of bridging the M5 without the hassle for drivers of getting onto the local A road network.

After a solid 10 or so minutes walking, a little way beyond the Lapal House care home, you will see a sign for the Monarch’s Way. The route is sign posted as off a little layby into a field. Once you have headed into the field turn right down the fairly well work track. At this point you will be rewarded with one of the best views of the walk as the land slowly slopes away across neatly tended fields, thick hedgerows and little copses towards an impressive and quite pointy range of hills in the distance.

Keep following the Monarch’s Way around the edges of the field. At this point I rather felt that I had lost the route of the old canal. However, on reflection given that the tunnel – of which pretty much all surface trace has vanished – ran very close to Halesowen. Combined with the sheer volume of building in the form of the motorway, slip roads and bypasses that have been built since the 1960s, it is perhaps not surprising that this section is the least faithful to the original route.

Presently you come to a style. Cross over and continue along the path on the other side.

Nearing the bottom of the hill I was walking down I did come upon a substantial and obviously human dug earthwork forming a wide channel. Was this a former part of the Dudley No. 2 Canal? It if anything looked overly substantial to be the work of navvies in the 1790s hurrying to complete a massively over budget project in reasonable time.

The answer it transpired was that these were the former fishponds for the Abbey of Halesowen. This religious institution dominated life in the town of Halesowen and its surroundings prior to the reformation in the 1530s and the dissolution of the monasteries. I even vaguely recall them being used as a case study of how monastic manorial management worked in books and articles I read whilst an undergraduate.

Now besides the substantial fish ponds only a few upright sections of the Abbey’s buildings remain, as well as a single barn which is today looked after by English Heritage. Perhaps some of the Abbey’s stones were also used to build the canal?

Once opposite the Abbey ruins – turn right – and head up the path in the direction of the interestingly looking modernist office block on Manor Way. When I googled it upon my return home I discovered that it is a plant and R&D centre for Swedish metals company Sandvik.

This is Halesowen’s southern ring-road, and once you’re on the other side you are properly into the town. Before I walked the short way up to the crossing point on this busy road I read a fading information board about the Abbey and it’s ruins which was quite interesting. Today the description of the means through which the site was most recently substantially restored and made accessible to the general public in the early 1990s feels almost as distant as the ancient rites and patterns of life which underpinned English monasticism.

Once safely across Manor Way you will see on your right the beginnings of a tarmacked footpath which runs adjacent to the back gardens of a late 20th Century vintage private housing estate. As you walk down this, believe it or not, you are as you were prior to entering Woodgate Valley Park walking the precise route of the old Dudley No. 2 Canal. 

Heading along the path past a children’s play area, you come to a fork in the path. At this point you head straight across the junction and begin walking along the world beating 18m high embankment.

Before you do so the Lapal Canal and Tunnel Trust have a notice board which tells the story of the canal and their efforts to conserve and potentially reopen it.

Continuing on your way you are once again walking along something which looks like a canal cut. It is worth taking a moment to look over the edge of the path and marvel at just how high up you are and how steep the slope is.

Presently the side of the cut becomes bricklined and there are a large number of marshy and shallow water plants growing in the canal, indicating the presence of water.

This section was partially restored by Dudley Council in 1990 as part of a central government funded scheme to improve the local environment and give a few of the thousands of people in the Black Country thrown out of work by deindustrialisation from the 1970s onwards, something to do. The idea is that if the canal is ever restored then it will be relatively easy to return this section to a navigable state. Whilst the restoration is definitely showing its age this section is pleasant, and on the late summer evening I was there, a lot of Halesowenites were out enjoying it. In contrast to much of the rest of the route this section does actually feel like walking along a canal towpath.

Presently the route enters Halesowen’s lovely Leasowes Park. Prior to being given to the people of the town the park was the grounds of a great house. They were developed between 1743 and 1763 – a generation prior to the Canal – by the poet William Shenstone. A man who was such an important local entity that the Halesowen branch of Wetherspoon’s is named in his honour. To get the best view of the Grade 1 listed parkland and gardens it is best to walk on the right hand side footpath following the route of the canal.

The end of Leasowes Park is the end of the walk. Here the semi-restored section of the Dudley No. 2 Canal finishes in a muddy pool of the water overhung with trees and creepers. If it is ever to be reunited with the navigable section on the other side of the A458 a short tunnel under the hill, under the road, and beneath a small industrial estate will have to be reconstructed. On the other side however, the still open part of the Dudley No. 2 Canal runs freely all of the way to Dudley town centre 5 or 6 miles away.

Having completed your walk, Halesowen is well worth spending some time to look around. It’s one of the Black Country and the West Midlands more prosperous towns, with many companies having their offices in the town centre. The town centre itself is a very pleasant, but quite nondescript, example of mid to late 20th Century town planning and design. In many ways it feels more like a regional centre in Germany or Scandinavia than the English midlands, but it is interesting for this. The town’s centre is also quite dramatic being splayed across a range of jagged hills and outcrops. Very few signs that the town was a coal mining centre for hundreds of years remain.

Getting Back

Halesowen’s well kept bus station is served by the 9 and the 10 which go to central Birmingham via the Hagley Road, there’s also buses to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital on the edge of Selly Oak only a 10-15 minute walk from where this route began. If you’re after trains, Old Hill on the Jewelry Line between Worcester and Snows Hill in Birmingham is your best bet. It is 1.7 miles away and can – handily – be accessed by walking north along the towpath of the navigable section of the Dudley No. 2 Canal as far as Station Road.