Old Main Line to Tipton

Last night we attended the Explorer Cruise kick-off meeting.  There was a firkin of cask beer from Ma Pardoes, a local brewery, and a talk about a particular mother and daughter who operated a canal boat during the 2nd world war delivering assorted cargoes all over the country, with particular reference to the area where we are now moored - Tipton.  It was interesting to see the old photographs which showed a stark heavily industrialised landscape with chimneys billowing smoke and little evidence of any plant life.  Now there are trees everywhere, the old heavy industry has been replaced by light industry and warehouses and many of the large old factory sites have been replaced by modern housing.

The Explorers moored at Tipton

We set off in a gap in the rain at 9:30 and were helped back down the Titford locks by members of the Birmingham Canal Navigations Society who had organised the trip.  The rain never really returned and our boating wet weather gear protected us from the few occasional quick showers as we travelled west on the tree-lined old Main Line to the Black Country Museum where pumpout and water facilities were available.  Soon after leaving the museum we moored at Tipton at around midday.  By mid afternoon all 17 narrowboats had arrived some of which have had to moor alongside other boats.

A lock on the Tipton Canal

During the afternoon we walked to Tipton town centre, a somewhat sad place with many boarded up shops and on to the nearby New Main Line canal.  On our way back we took the footpath along the filled-in Tipton Canal which closed in the 1960s.  Sadly over a third of the Birmingham canals have disappeared, many of these being branches to now closed mines and  factories. Others such as the Tipton Canal were major links in the system.  The only remains of the Tipton Canal one can see here is where the footpath passes through an old lock chanber that rises a few feet above ground level.

Prresident steams by

Soon after we returned to the mooring there was a shout of "President", and that famous steam driven ex-working narrowboat pulling it's butty Kildare came around the corner.  Fortunately I had my camera to hand and was able to get a couple of photographs.