Distance: 8 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: medium

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

Black Country canal towpath walk from Black Lake Midlands Metro stop on the edge of West Bromwich town centre to the New Art Gallery beside the Walsall Canal wharf in Walsall town centre.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

A New Art Gallery for Walsall

Across the Midlands there are many incredible art galleries. However, if I was to pick an overall favourite on balance I would probably go with the New Art Gallery in Walsall.

It is not controversial to state that the record of the Millennium Commission which used National Lottery revenues to fund projects across Britain in the decade between the mid-1990s and the middle of the 2000s was decidedly chequered.

As the name implies the Millennium Commission was created to fund projects which enhanced life in Britain as it stood on the threshold of the Twenty First Century. Some projects were unambiguous failures, whilst others such as the National Cycle Network, conservation initiatives, and some major schemes such as the Falkirk Wheel, Eden Project and Leicester’s National Space Centre were immediate successes. Others such as Birmingham’s Millenium Point, the Sheffield Popular Music Centre and Millennium Dome undoubtedly flopped in their first incarnation but have since enjoyed successful reincarnations with their Millenium Commission funded buildings repurposed for a range of uses.

Walsall Art Gallery is definitely in the middle category. Designed by Caruso St. John, its genesis lies in the early 1990s when the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall closed its existing art gallery and arts centre, though the Garman-Ryan Collection which gives the gallery its permanent heart has a far older origin story.

The Garman Ryan Collection came into Walsall’s possession in 1973 when it was gifted to the town by Kathleen Garman. She had been born seven decades earlier in Wednesbury, a smaller town due south west of Walsall, and despite living most of her life in London retained an affection and affinity for the Black Country. Kathleen Garman was married to Jacob Epstein, one of Twentieth Century Britain’s most renowned sculptors, and many of his works are in the collection. However, it is far broader than just Epstein’s work, Kathleen Garman having been helped in choosing modern art pieces, and older works including ones by Constable, by her friend Sally Ryan who was also a sculptor.

Artists in the collection include Degas, Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh and Lucian Freud. In addition to the three hundred and sixty five components of the Garman Ryan the New Art Gallery continues to collect works by or connected with Jacob Epstein. They also collect other works for the permanent collection from time-to-time, especially relating to Black Country artists and Black Country topics.

The permanent collection however, is just a small part of the New Art Gallery. The top two floors host visiting contemporary art exhibitions, whilst the ground floor hosts visiting locally connected exhibitions in a community gallery. On my most recent visit (prior to writing this piece) in January 2023 the New Art Gallery was hosting an Arts Council Collection exhibition celebrating and exploring British women’s sculpture since 1945, an exhibition by the Walsall Society of Artists and The Exiles Billy Dosanjh’s epic series of cinematic photographs recreating and celebrating the early years of South Asian settlement in the Black Country after the Second World War.

What is most striking about the New Art Gallery in Walsall is just how open and inviting it is. It is located right in the heart of the town on a small site, a blocky, modernist tower block of art. Its interior is all Scandinavian exposed wood and concrete, it could be a government building or corporate headquarters commissioned anytime since 1950, there is nothing inherently welcoming or un-elitist about it. Yet, the culture of the gallery is such that whenever you visit it is quite normal to see people just sitting around in it. Whilst many spaces are not open to the public the resources room and library is generally unlocked with the door open. The people of Walsall appear to repay this openness in kind, with the space being popular for quiet reflection, meet-ups and visits to see the art by residents of the town of all kinds.

The Walk

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

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 West Bromwich to Walsall begins at the Black Lake West Midlands Metro tram stop just north of West Bromwich town centre.

Upon alighting the tram turn left (if coming from the direction of Birmingham, turn right if coming from the direction of Wolverhampton) and follow a footpath running alongside the track for a short distance.

After a little way, just after the southern end of the tram stop, there is a gap to the right leading through a fence and down a bank.

At the bottom of the bank runs the Ridgacre Branch Canal. This once formed part of the Wednesbury Old Canal serving factories, foundries and coal mines in this part of the Black Country. Today it is not navigable to canal boats, but Sandwell Council maintains this section as a linear park of sorts, where wildlife lives and some local residents into angling come to fish. It is also interesting for the views of the area’s still prevalent industry that you get from its banks.

Down the bank and by the side of the canal turn right. Follow the rough track at the bottom of the cut for some distance.

Presently you come up onto the access road for a Greene King pub called The Ridgeacre and a branch of Premier Inn. Here take a slight left, cross the road and head down a path on the other side back onto the path beside the canal.

Continue for some further distance along the side of the canal.

You come to a stretch of tarmac path which runs up to the side of the A41 road.

Cross the road via a crossing located immediately to your left. Then take a slight right, passing through a micropark to get back onto the canal side path.

Continue along the line of the canal passing through an industrial area called Ryders Green.

After a fair way you come out onto a spit of land jutting out into the line of the Walsall Canal.

Annoyingly the footbridge across the Walsall Canal to the towpath is long dismantled.

However, if you clamber across a broken down wall to your right and head a short way along the canal’s wide grassy bank you come to a lock.

Here you can do as I did and walk across the lockgate (NB. it’s design means that it is not the easiest lockgate to walk across, but I managed it fine) or continue heading to the left up to the road bridge where there is a gap in the hedge out onto the pavement. Once on the pavement turn left, cross the bridge and then left again, down a short paved path onto the towpath.

Either way once on the Walsall Canal walk underneath the Ryders Green bridge and start walking straight ahead. The canal leads you all the way from West Bromwich into Walsall town centre.

The first section runs straight heading out of West Bromwich towards Wednesbury.

You pass under a major road bridge, then a railway bridge.

Shortly after this off to your right on the far side of the canal stretches the long straight line of the Tame Valley Canal which runs off wending its way into northern Birmingham.

You keep walking.

A little further on, nearing Wednesbury, at a footbridge, the towpath switches sides. Moving from the left hand bank to the right hand bank.

Shortly after this you pass beneath a dark blue, almost purple painted bridge carrying the Midland Metro overhead.

This lies near the boundary between the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell and the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall.

Just over the boundary in the Walsall suburb of Moxley, part of Darlaston, you pass through an area of nature reserve known as Moorcroft Wood.

This section of towpath forms part of the genuinely quite bonkers Monarch’s Way long distance footpath, which stretches for 625 miles around much of western central England, comprising the route that the future Charles II took to escape Parliament’s forces seeking to arrest him following the Battle of Worcester in 1651.

The long curving stretch of the Walsall Canal around the edge of Darlaston is generally quite green. This left hand bank is bounded by A roads, forming in places the boundary between Walsall and Wolverhampton council areas.

Passing by a cemetery and crossing a small river via an aqueduct before passing underneath the M6 motorway.

On the far side of the motorway the towpath approaches the centre of Walsall.

It passes beneath a series of bridges.

Eventually coming to a junction where a spur runs off to the right to a wharf right in the town centre.

You turn right here and follow the canal path past some impressive new public art a series of 2000s vintage flats.

Soon Walsall’s New Art Gallery comes into view on the canal basin surrounded by other buildings of New Labour era vintage.

Keep following the canal into the basin until you are right in the town centre by the art gallery.

This is where the walk ends.

Getting Back

Walsall is well served by trains running into Birmingham New Street and beyond, in some cases as far as London, whilst others run a lengthy route to Wolverhampton. There are plans for direct trains to Wolverhampton via Willenhall but they probably won’t start until 2024-25 at the earliest. Trains also run north to the towns of Cannock Chase District including Hednesford, Rugeley and Cannock itself. Walsall is also well served by buses to Wolverhampton, Lichfield, Birmingham, Sutton Coldfield, Burntwood and many other outlying towns. Wednesbury or West Bromwich are the nearest places with West Midlands Metro stops.