Distance: 6.4 miles
Difficulty of the terrain: easy
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
Walk from central Birmingham to the historic suburb of Kings Norton, whose village green was the site of the Battle of Kings Norton in October 1642. Walk is mostly along the Worcester and Birmingham Canal.
The Story
The Walk
Getting Back
Blood on Kings Norton Green
During the 17th Century Civil Wars the frontline between the opposing Parliamentary and Royalist sides, after Charles I declared war on Parliament in August 1642, was often found in the Midlands.
Like the vast majority of Warwickshire, including the Midlands’ then largest city Coventry, and Birmingham, an important metalworking centre, was staunchly supportive of the Parliamentary cause during the civil wars.
By contrast only a few miles to the south and west of Birmingham Worcestershire was if anything more firmly pro-Royalist than Warwickshire was in favour of Parliament. This included the large village of Kings Norton noted for its tall spired church atop a prominent hill, little grammar school and the Saracen’s Head public house, old even in the 17th Century.
The proximity of these two region’s diametrically opposed views meant flashpoints between the two sides became inevitable. Skirmishing between raiding parties between the divided counties of Warwickshire and Worcestershire began pretty much as soon as the formal outbreak of war.
Due to the region’s deep fault lines, and being between the King’s main powerbase in the western parts of the country, and Parliament’s strongholds to the east, it is unsurprising that many of the key battles and a lot of the skirmishing of the Civil War took place in the Midlands. It is often thought that the first and last shots of the conflict were fired at Powick Bridge just south of Worcester, while Coleshill also has a claim to be where the first action of the war took place.
Initially, not least because while the country had been involved in some land battles overseas, it had been one hundred and fifty years since there was significant fighting in the Midlands, Wales and south of the country, it was actually quite hard for the two conflicting sides to figure out how to construct armies, then come together and fight, so as to press forward and try and control parts of the other’s territory.
Kings Norton, then a substantial village quite far from Birmingham in the north Worcestershire countryside, was frequently visited by armies who camped in the area which is now the suburb’s substantial cluster of parks. A fact still reflected in local road names, notably camp hill. The largest encampment to take place in Kings Norton during the period was when Charles I’s Queen, Henrietta Maria, who had raised a new five thousand five hundred strong Royalist army in Yorkshire, camped in what’s now Kings Norton Park while marching south. It is thought that Henrietta Maria stayed in the Saracens Head during the night that the northern army was encamped next to the village.
There was even a small-scale, albeit vicious, Battle of King’s Norton early in the war in October 1642 only four days prior to the conflict’s first full scale battle at Edgehill in Warwickshire on the northern easternmost edge of the Cotswolds.
This fight saw three hundred Royalist soldiers who were camping in what they considered friendly territory, on Kings Norton Green in the heart of the village, being surprised by a smaller group of Parliamentary soldiers who were attempting to creep through hostile Worcestershire. It is thought that at least fifty Royalist soldiers were killed during the battle in and around the village of Kings Norton, with twenty members of the defeated company being captured. The Parliamentary force was not without casualties seeing twenty of their number killed.
The Royalist troops were commanded by Prince Rupert of the Rhine, perhaps their side’s most prominent commander after the King himself. A few months later in April 1643, Prince Rupert would eventually prevail in marching his army through the Parliamentary redoubt of Birmingham, setting fire to its south eastern suburbs after the Battle of Camp Hill.
By contrast the Battle of Edgehill to the southwest was inconclusive, but probably gave the Royalists a slight advantage, enabling Charles I to continue propagating the civil war for a further four years, even after the Parliamentary victory at Naseby in June 1645 ended any realistic prospect of the king’s side prevailing.
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 Kings Norton, primarily along the Worcester and Birmingham Canal, 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.
Passing the retail park, you walk underneath the road carrying the old A38 through Selly Oak. Then continue along a long straight section approaching Bournville.
Along the way you pass beneath several bridges, eventually approaching a grey brick bridge in a deep cutting with red fire doors in it. Having passed beneath this bridge you are into Bournville.
Continue along the towpath passing beneath another bridge. This bridge is the former railway bridge which used to carry the Cadbury factory’s internal railway across the Worcester and Birmingham Canal. To your left on the far side of the canal is a modern housing estate constructed on the site of the former Cadbury Wharf where goods were transhipped by water into the 20th Century.
Passing this housing estate you are near the factory and Bournville Railway Station.
Soon you reach Bournville Railway Station. Here continue along the towpath approaching the bridge at the southern end of the platforms.
Continue along the towpath beneath this bridge to the south of the station.
Then along a stretch lined on both sides with industrial and warehouse units between the suburbs of Cotteridge and Stirchley.
Presently you pass beneath a bridge carrying the Pershore Road over the waterway.
On the far side of the bridge there are steps off to the right. Climb up the steps and then cross a battered old concrete footpath over the canal.
Once over the canal turn right and head down a ramp back onto the towpath on the far side of the waterway.
Continue along the towpath passing beneath the viaduct which carries the Camp Hill Line into Kings Norton Railway Station.
Beyond the viaduct you carry on along the towpath approaching the tall metal tower of the Lifford Lane Speciality Minerals factory.
Soon you approach a wooded section of the cut where a bridge crosses the road.
Just beyond the bridge there are steps and a ramp off to the left and up to the level of a road.
Once on the pavement turn right left and cross the bridge over the canal.
On the far side of the waterway turn left down a ramp back onto the towpath.
Back on the towpath, continue walking straight ahead. You can see the prominent spire of Kings Norton’s St. Nicholas church ahead of you.
Soon you cross the wooded dell which the River Rea, Birmingham’s principal river runs through.
Continue further along the towpath on the far side.
Presently you reach the junction where the Stratford Canal joins the Worcester and Birmingham.
Walk straight ahead past this junction and the old toll house adjacent to it.
Past the old toll house, now level with the centre of Kings Norton, walk a little further along the towpath.
Soon on the right adjacent to a road bridge there is a ramp off the towpath up onto Wharf Road. Turn right and walk up it to the level of the pavement.
Once on Wharf Road turn right, walking up towards Kings Norton Green where the Battle of Kings Norton occurred in the autumn of 1642. Enroute you pass a little white painted Baptist Chapel and the large Wetherspoon pub The Navigation.
Reaching the Pershore Road at a major junction turn right, walking past Kings Norton’s terracotta coloured primary school.
Here there is a set of traffic lights which you can use to cross the road.
On the far side of the road turn right. Soon, now adjacent to St. Nicholas’ churchyard and the old grammar school, turn left up a narrow road behind the shops on the green called Back Lane.
At the top of Back Lane you emerge onto Kings Norton Green, site of the Battle of Kings Norton in October 1642, and opposite the Saracens Head pub where Charles I’s Queen Henrietta Maria is supposed to have stayed during the conflict.
This is where the walk ends.
Getting Back
Kings Norton Green is near a bus stop of the Pershore Road at the time of writing in October 2024 was served several buses including the 18 which runs throughout the day from Yardley Wood to Bartley Green via Cotteridge and Northfield, the frequent 45 from Longbridge to Birmingham city centre and the 49 which is half hourly for much of the day between Solihull and Rubery. All of these buses go through Cotteridge which is a short walk up the hill from Kings Norton towards Bournville and the city centre. The number 11 Outer Circle which is supposed to have a less than 10 minute frequency throughout the day goes through Cotteridge. Kings Norton Railway Station on the Cross City Line which has trains running to and from Birmingham city centre and the north of the city is also in Cotteridge.