Catshill Junction - Location

Location

Most of the Wyrley and Essington Canal, including Catshill Junction, was built on the 473-foot (144 m) contour, known as the Wolverhampton Level. From Catshill Junction, the Wyrley and Essington Canal heads initially eastwards and then to the north. It reaches Anglesey Basin, on the edge of Chasewater Reservoir, after 2.4 miles (3.9 km), passing Ogley Junction, where the locks to Huddlesford began, after 0.9 miles (1.4 km). The locks were abandoned in 1954, but are the subject of a restoration campaign, and that section of the Wyrley and Essington is now known as the Lichfield Canal.

To the west, the canal is level to its junction with BCN Main Line at Horseley Fields Junction, a distance of 15.3 miles (24.6 km), and the BCN Main Line continues on the same level in both directions. At the junction, the towpath is on the south bank of the Wyrley and Essington, and is carried over the Daw End Branch by a towpath bridge. The branch heads south from the junction, and is level for 5.3 miles (8.5 km) to Longwood Junction, where it joins the Rushall Canal end-on. The descent through the nine locks of the Rushall Canal begins just after the junction.

The area to the west of the junction was once heathland and rough pasture which was part of the Royal Forest of Cannock. Most of it was destroyed by tipping colliery waste on it, and then using it as a rubbish dump in the 1950s, but parts have since been reclaimed. The section immediately west of the junction is all that remains of Clayhanger Common, but it consists of marshy acidic grassland, which has enabled willow and birch trees as well as heather to colonise it. The Common is now a designated Site of Importance for Nature Conservation.