Distance: 10.4 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: medium

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

Very varied urban, suburban and rural walk from Birmingham city centre to the heart of Halesowen town. Along the Birmingham and Worcester Canal towpath and the route of the infamous Lost Lapal Canal.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

Southern Most Tip of the Black Country

Halesowen is the most southerly town in the Black Country. It protrudes from the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley gently bulging into the south western flank of Birmingham and Worcestershire. 

In true Black Country fashion Halesowen has a bizarre administrative history. Up until 1844 despite being completely surrounded by Worcestershire it was part of Shropshire. 

Halesowen represents the furthest limb southwards of the Black Country coalfield. The Abbey which was created just south of Halesowen in the early 12th Century were amongst the first to exploit the coal on a large scale, though it is thought to have been mined since ancient times. 

During its existence the Abbey was involved in disputes with its tenants, Halesowen residents in 1279 protesting increased rents and other dues. This led to a confrontation and stand-off, both in the courts and on the ground which lasted for several years. The dispute even led to bloodshed with one of the village leaders Roger Ketel and Alice Edrich, the wife of another prominent Halesowen critic of the Abbey, being murdered by thugs hired by the Abbot.    

Halesowen Abbey was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1538, indicating that it was a large establishment by the 16th Century, grown rich on the revenues from coal and other produce produced on its lands. A small section of the Abbey’s ruins, the outline of its fishponds and a sturdy barn (still intact) remain on the southern fringe of Halesowen in the shadow of the Clent Hills to this day. Not much but enough to get a sense of how grand it was prior to the dissolution.

After the dissolution and now in secular hands, the lands around Halesowen continued to be extensively exploited to extract coal. In common with the other parts of the Black Country coal field to the north the industry boomed throughout the 18th and 19th Century. There being around 130 individual pits (many of them in practice rather small and not employing many people) in the Halesowen area at the peak of production in 1919.

After that however, the industry in Halesowen like elsewhere in the Black Country began to go into decline. By the post-Second World War period the coal industry in Halesowen had largely vanished. During this period many of the town’s residents commuted along the short railway line from Halesowen to Longbridge across the Dowery Dell Viaduct to work at the Austin Rover Factory.

During the post-war era Halesowen began taking on its modern character as a key part of the Black Country’s leafy, fairly affluent, fringe. The town’s modernist, vaguely Germanic seeming, town centre dates from this era. It is clustered around the Cornbow Shopping Centre and has a distinctive car park arranged like a minimalist, modernist, potentially brutalist crown.

These days Halesowen sits at the base of the Dudley No. 2 Canal, however, historically the waterway continued through the doomed, now much mythologised Lapal Tunnel to Selly Oak. While a charitable trust promotes schemes to fully restore the canal, the tunnel which at more than two miles long was once amongst the lengthiest in the UK, closed in 1917 and is believed to have been completely obliterated in the 1960s when the M5 was constructed in the green gap between Quinton and Halesowen.  

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 central Birmingham to Halesowen in the Black Country begins from New Street Station’s Stephenson Street exit opposite the West Midlands Metro stop.

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

Walk along Stephenson Street heading for the A38 and the Mailbox shopping centre. This is near where Cadbury’s first city centre factory was prior to their move south to Bournville in 1879.

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.

Upon reaching the base of the ramp of the bridge turn right, and double back upon yourself walking along the towpath to opposite the basin where the Cube and the back of the Mailbox stands.

The foundations and frame of what is now the Mailbox was constructed as Birmingham’s central Royal Mail sorting office in the early 1970s. The facility was operational for less than 30 years, shutting in 1998 to be transformed into the complex of flats, shops, restaurants, bars, hotels and offices which stands to this day. Prior to the Royal Mail sorting office being constructed the site was a railway goods station on the edge of the city centre which was intermodal, long before that was a term, with the canal network. Indeed – as Worcester Wharf – the depot had originally been constructed solely to serve the canal network. Canals ran deep into the city centre during the 19th Century. Today only the basin around which the back of the Mailbox sits is the sole remnant of this era of the site’s history.

Once opposite the Cube and the basin turn right. Begin walking along the canal towpath heading south towards Bournville. You stay on the canal pretty much all the way.

The stretch of the Worcester and Birmingham Canal heading south from Gas Street Basin in the city centre where the waterway begins and intersects with the Birmingham Canal Navigation heading north, was the first bit to be constructed in the 1790s.

You follow the waterway running close to the Cross-City Line south out through Five Ways. Then out into leafy Edgbaston.

Approaching the edge of the University of Birmingham’s extensive grounds which are bounded to the west by the canal you pass through the Edgbaston Tunnel which is pretty short, just 96 metres long.

Initial work to turn the towpath into a walking and cycling route linking south Birmingham with the city centre was conducted in the early 1990s around the time of the . The route was then steadily upgraded and eventually completely hard surfaced in the 2010s. It was then that the previously narrow, uneven footway through the tunnel was extensively widened.

A little way beyond the Edgbaston Tunnel you pass a canal winding hole just after a footbridge adjacent to the Vale site, where the majority of the University of Birmingham’s own student halls are located.

Now walking adjacent to the University’s Edgbaston campus you walk through a twisting wooded section of canal.

Before passing underneath a bridge on to a long straight section very close to the Cross-City Railway Line.

Beyond a further bridge you pass the campus of the University of Birmingham approaching the recently remodelled University Station which also serves the University Hospitals Birmingham complex on top of Metchley Ridge to your right.

Passing University Station you approach the edge of the University of Birmingham’s land heading for Selly Oak.

Soon you cross the Ariel Aqueduct (named for a historic bike manufacturer based in Bournbrook) which was constructed in 2011 for the new section of the A38 (called the Aston Webb Boulevard after the architect of the University of Birmingham’s bizarre byzantine looking early 20th Century hilltop precinct) entering Selly Oak.

Historically the Bourn Brook which runs through a culvert beneath the canal embankment was the boundary between Warwickshire and Worcestershire. Putting Selly Oak and every south of it that is now Birmingham, in a different county from the city’s historic core where you began the walk.

You approach the recently built retail park with a large Sainsbury’s and a towering, rather bleak stack of student bedrooms, which was until the late 1980s the site of the notorious Birmingham Battery works. It was from the wharf, recently re-cut by the redoubtable Lapal Canal Trust, that the ill fated southern section of the Dudley No. 2 Canal headed north and west towards the Black Country. A route now long lost, and unnavigable in its entirety since 1917 when the troublesome Lapal Tunnel beneath what is now Woodgate Valley Park closed for good.

On your right just after the student tower block you 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.

You approach the end of Leasowes Park, now nearing 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.

Upon reaching the end of the canal near the edge of Leasowes Park, head up a path onto the side of the busy Mucklow Hill road running between Halesowen and Quinton.

Once on Mucklow Hill turn left and begin walking downhill.

Presently you approach a roundabout on Halesowen’s inner-ring road. 

Here cross over the road and continue on the other side passing a retail park with a branch of KFC underneath a Travelodge in a recently constructed building, adjacent to an Aldi supermarket.

Soon you cross a couple of side streets then begin walking downhill.

At the bottom of the hill now immediately adjacent to the very centre of Halesowen turn left onto a road called Rumbow.

Continue down Rumbow until you are more or less level with an Indian restaurant inside a grand Victorian building, possibly once a chapel. Here turn right onto Birmingham Road.

At the bottom of Birmingham Road you come out in the heart of Halesowen’s 1960s vintage shopping centre.

This is where the walk ends.

Getting Back

Apart from stations at Old Hill and Rowley Regis (on the Birmingham to Kidderminster line) which are several miles from the centre of Halesowen, there are no rail links to the town. Halesowen does have good bus connections, including very frequent services throughout the day and the week towards Birmingham and Stourbridge, as well as services to Dudley, Merry Hill and other parts of the Black Country. There are services out into Worcestershire to Bromsgrove and Kidderminster.