Distance: 4 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: medium

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps

Walk primarily along the Birmingham Canal Navigation Main Line from central Birmingham to vibrant, multicultural and deeply historically important Smethwick.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

Birmingham or Black Country?

Generally speaking (unless you are in Sutton Coldfield) most people agree where the boundaries of Birmingham are situated.

One area which is arguably in dispute however, is the little knot of towns due west and partially enveloped by the city comprising: Bearwood, Warley and Smethwick.

Historically they were something of an anomaly, not incorporated into Birmingham in the late 19th or early 20th Centuries and never really considered part of the Black Country either.

If you visit today it is hard not to be struck by the similarities between the towns and adjacent areas of Birmingham like Quinton, Harborne and Handsworth.

This said, since 1974 they have all been incorporated into the resolutely Black Country Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, so it appears to be with the Black Country that their foreseeable future lies.

Of the three towns Smethwick – the largest – is the one perhaps most historically intertwined with western Birmingham. It was even the case that Smethwick’s Old Church was historically a kind of sub-parish of Harborne’s main church in the centuries when both areas were part of Staffordshire. Even to this day it is in a Church of England Deanery which units Smethwick and Edgbaston in Birmingham.  

As Britain began to develop the factory system the Boulton and Watt company – who manufactured the first modern steam engines – opened a factory in Smethwick in 1796, which was joined in time by other precision engineering and heavy industrial firms, alike. No doubt lured by the presence nearby, of the Birmingham Canal Navigations Main Line, which runs very close to Smethwick high street, linking Birmingham with Wolverhampton via the heart of the Black Country. The presence of Boulton and Watt, and later from the 1870s the brewers Mitchells and Butlers adds to the impression of Smethwick’s historical ties to what is now Birmingham.

Whilst Smethwick’s industrial history forms the basis of its recent past and has shaped its development since the late 18th Century, today it is notable for being one of the most ethnically diverse parts of the West Midlands. There are few places with more options of where to go for a pint and a curry than Smethwick, served up by well established “Desi pubs”.

At least fifty Punjabi Sikh families had settled in Smethwick as early as 1917, finding work in the area’s factories and foundries. Today it is alongside Wolverhampton and Southall in London one of the major centres of Punjabi Sikh settlement in the UK. The Guru Nanak Gurdwara, on Smethwick high street, fully opened in 1961, is believed to be the largest gurdwara in the UK. 

After 1945 the pioneering Sikh families who had settled during the early 20th Century were joined by many others, along with other migrants from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and African Caribbean migrants as well.      

Initially these newcomers faced great hostility from the established white British population of Smethwick. The area’s celebrated desi pubs initially began life as refuges where people of colour, especially South Asian men, could go and eat, drink and socialise at a time when many white owned establishments – completely legally – refused to serve them. 

This came to a head in 1964 with the bigotted Tory primary school headteacher Peter Griffiths ran a notorious and disgracefully racist campaign to be the town’s MP. Something which he briefly succeeded at before losing his seat at the 1966 General Election which returned Harold Wilson as Prime Minister with a much strengthened majority. Griffiths later went on to spit further venom from the backbenches of the House of Commons as the MP for Plymouth North throughout the 1980s much of the 1990s. 

In the same year as Peter Griffiths was elected Smethwick’s MP the Labour controlled County Borough of Smethwick Council attempted to make Marshall Street – near the town centre – at the resident’s request, a “whites only road” through a policy of purchasing any houses which became vacant. This disgraceful policy, akin to aparthied, added to Smethwick’s reputation as being a place torn by racial strife and hostile to people of colour. Eventually the tepid 1965 and 1968 Race Relations Acts made explicitly discriminatory policies like that embarked on by Smethwick Council illegal. 

It was this reputation which saw Smethwick gain a solidarity visit from Macolm X during his trip to Britain shortly before his assasination. Malcolm X toured the area, visiting Marshall Street, walking along it, and posing for photos next to its street sign in defiance. 

Those images of Malcolm X have since become iconic. And today, whilst it suffers from many of the same issues as largely deindustrialised towns and urban areas across the Midlands and beyond, Smethwick is iconic as a place where people from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds, and a plethora of different countries, generally rub along very happily together.

The Walk

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps

I create the Walk Midlands routes via Ordnance Survey Maps Explorer enabling me to take them on my phone. Subscribe yourself via the banner above.

This walk from central Birmingham to Smethwick begins from New Street Railway Station’s Stephenson Street exit.

Having reached New Street’s Stephenson Street exit, turn left.

Walk along Stephenson Street heading for the A38 and the Mailbox shopping centre.

Upon reaching a raised section of the A38 keep walking straight ahead beneath the road.

On the far side of the road turn left walking towards the entrance of the Mailbox.

Climb the steps and enter the shopping centre.

Head of the Mailbox’s escalators, walking straight through the shopping centre.

At the back of the shopping centre you come out onto a terrace.

Here head left and follow the terrace around passing a series of bars and restaurants.

On the far side of the terrace beside the Cube tower block, turn right and head across a foot bridge spanning the Worcester and Birmingham Canal.

Having crossed the bridge, keep walking straight heading along the towpath.

You pass through Gas Street Basin and then pass through a short tunnel with Broad Street and a row of buildings above.

After the tunnel you keep walking straight ahead.

Soon you come to a canal junction.

Here head right up onto a bridge.

Keep heading to the right crossing the bridge.

Then walk straight along the towpath.

Here on your right hand side on the other bank of the Birmingham Canal Navigation stands the recently reopened Birmingham Roundhouse.

Having passed the roundhouse keep walking, heading out of Birmingham city centre.

Initially you pass through the far north of Edgbaston and the Ladywood areas of the city.

The route you are walking is the straightened and widened 1820s and 1830s Birmingham Canal Navigation Main Line, which slashed the distance between Wolverhampton and Birmingham by about 7 miles over the original route from the 1770s. Vestigial traces of James Brindley’s original line for the canal are visible on either side of the waterway in the form of orphaned “loops” where the canals wide contour curves were cut away during the early 19th Century modernisation and retained, largely to service factories and warehouses lining their banks.

You continue walking for several miles. It is worth stopping to read the canal heritage boards which line the route, and explain in detail with reference to lots of interesting old photographs, artworks and maps, how the canal developed and has been used over the years.

Keep on walking along the towpath passing beneath a series of bridges.

At a site where once a canal weighpoint stood in the middle of the waterway (the means by which barge owners were charged a toll for using the waterway) I opted to cross over and walk on the far side. But you can continue to walk along the left bank if you wish.

Near this point you move from Birmingham into Sandwell.

A little further on and the canal forks. Here you can choose either arm to continue towards Smethwick.

I opted to take the left hand arm and soon approach a grand cast iron canal aqueduct.

Here, upon the advice of a helpful local resident, I opted to scrabble up the bank and switch to the other line of the canal. However, based upon my guides advice it is equally possible to continue several hundred metres further along the canal to a set of steps which take you up more or less immediately adjacent to Smethwick High Street.

On the other arm of the canal I kept walking for a couple of hundred metres.

Soon on my left there was a steep brick paved path sloping up to the road. This is also near where the steps off the other arm of the canal lie.

Once upon the road turn left and walk a short distance.

On your right there are steps up onto a footbridge.

This footbridge takes you across the railway line between Birmingham and Wolverhampton and the busy main road which slices through the heart of Smethwick.

Having crossed the footbridge you are on Smethwick High Street. This is where the walk ends.

Getting Back

From Smethwick High Street there are many buses running back towards Birmingham and to many of the other towns in the Black Country. There are also trains towards Birmingham and Wolverhampton from Smethwick Rolfe Street. As well as trains to destinations further afield including Worcester, Stratford-upon-Avon, Kidderminster, Shrewsbury and Liverpool from Smethwick Galton Bridge, which also has very frequent services to Birmingham and Wolverhampton.