History
The Tame Valley Canal was built as part of a solution to the problem of congestion at Farmers Bridge Locks, where the Birmingham Canal Navigations main line ended and the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal began. The flight of 13 locks at the start of the Birmingham and Fazeley was the main link between the Birmingham system and the route to London via Aston Junction, the Digbeth Branch Canal and the Warwick and Birmingham Canal. The Tame Valley Canal, in conjunction with the Birmingham and Warwick Junction Canal, provided a northern bypass around the congestion. Both were authorised by Acts of Parliament on the same day, and both opened on 14 February 1844. The Tame Valley Canal ran from Tame Valley Junction on the Walsall Canal to Salford Junction on the Birmingham and Fazeley. The Birmingham and Warwick Junction Canal was a short link between Salford Junction and the Warwick and Birmingham Canal at Bordesley Junction. It included the five Garrison Locks, which saved boats from having to ascend the eleven locks of the Aston flight, and descend the six of the Ashted flight on the Digbeth Branch. The route from Salford Junction to Warwick and on to London became part of the Grand Union Canal in 1929.
Following the amalgamation of the Wyrley and Essington Canal and the Birmingham Canal Navigations in 1840, a number of links between the two systems were constructed. A flight of locks at Walsall joined the Walsall Canal to Birchills Junction, and once the Tame Valley Canal was open, work started on the Rushall Canal, to connect it to the southern end of the Daw End Branch of the Wyrley and Essington at Longwood Junction. It was opened in 1847, and included nine locks, a flight of seven near the middle with two more just before the end-on junction at Longwood, which raised the level of the canal by 65 feet (20 m).
Read more about this topic: Rushall Junction
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