More Canals Than Venice

Connecting Birmingham, Wolverhampton and the Black Country is a network of canals known as the Birmingham Canal Navigations (BCN). These once extended to about 160 miles, of which circa 100 miles remain navigable. 

Birmingham Canal, now known as the BCN Main Line, was the first to be built, 1768-1772, by James Brindley, linking the edge of the city, near to Gas Street Basin, with Aldersley, Wolverhampton, where there is a junction with the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal. 

Next came, in 1764, the Birmingham and Fazely Canal, linking the city to Tamworth. The companies that owned these two canals were immediately merged, and in 1794 the single company was renamed Birmingham Canal Navigations. 

Depending on which are counted, about 20 canals go to make up the BCN as it exists today. The area around the canals that link up near to Gas Street Basin has seen much improvement work in recent years. Thankfully, it has not been entirely gentrified.

Just visible from the canals is the new Library of Birmingham, under construction in Century Square. In 2013 this will replace the hideous concrete Central Library of 1974. It remains to be seen whether the striking design by Francine Houben, of the Dutch architectural practice Mecanoo, will be more durable.

Royal Leamington Spa III

Developed as it was within a concentrated period of half a century or so - YMGW passim - Royal Leamington Spa's architecture generally has a consistent, quality, look and feel. Many of the largely cream-painted Georgian buildings are ornamented with ironwork railings and porches. Even later constructions, such as Mill Bridge, constructed in 1903, are mostly in keeping.

Stoneleigh Abbey Riverside

Stoneleigh Abbey, Warwickshire, is built close to the River Avon. When ownership passed in 1996 to a charitable trust, funding was secured from English Heritage and other bodies to undertake various restoration works, including of bridges, locks and weirs.

Beside the river is a pump house, circa 1813, and, next to this, a brick-built well-head. The former is in Gothic Revival style, expensively built in ashlar, with moulded rain hoods above the windows, and houses its original waterwheel and a three-throw pump, likely used to drive water up to the house. This too can hopefully be restored.

In the nearby woods is a small pet cemetery, in which is a monument that is surely the product of a guilty conscience. The inscription reads: "Monarch. A favourite setter. Who was shot by accident September XXV. Anno Domini MDCCCXXXIX [1839]."

The Full Monty

What is now known as the Montgomery Canal runs for 35 miles from its junction with the Llangollen Canal at Welsh Frankton, to Newtown in Powys. The canal was originally planned to run between Llanymynech and Newtown - it has never gone to Montgomery - and to be joined at the former with the Llanymynech Branch of the Ellesmere Canal. The 16 miles of the Eastern Branch of the Monty, between Llanymynech and Garthmyl, seven miles out of Newtown, were constructed by 1797.

The Western Branch, the last seven miles to Newtown, was built by a separate company, and completed in 1821. The Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company bought the Eastern Branch in 1847, and the western three years later, to form part of the Shropshire Union network. Accordingly, bridge numbers on what is now considered as the Montgomery Canal start at 71, with the bridges of the Llangollen Canal being split into two number sequences, east and west of Frankton Junction.

The canal, used primarily to transport lime, prospered by virtue of the fact that railways came late to the rural area through which it passes, but became increasingly run-down during the 1920s. It was disused from 1936, after a breach near the junction with the Llangollen Canal, and abandoned in 1944. It is very slowly being restored, through the efforts of volunteers who refuse to be awed by either the scale of the task or the sloth and blindness of local councils.

Magic Voice

The Sonora Chime Company started out in New York City in 1908, making chiming bells for clocks. The company moved into phonographs, retaining its slogan "Clear as a Bell", and was reincorporated in 1913 as the Sonora Phonograph Company.

The subsidiary of Sonora SA France was started in 1932, in Puteaux, west of Paris. The VM1, the first Sonora known as La Voix Magique, was introduced in 1937. The black Bakelite cabinet of this example is in excellent condition, and the speaker cloth is original.

Sequined Selfridges

Birmingham's Bullring shopping centre of 2003 is one more unimaginative retail development. But it's home to a stunning piece of landmark architecture, the Selfridges Building, designed by Czech architect Jan Kaplický, of Future Systems.

































Construction commenced in 1999, and the building was completed in 2003, at a cost of £60 million. A steel framework supports a sinuously curved façade of sprayed concrete. Six storeys high, the building is dramatic without being overbearing. The treatment of the exterior was inspired by Paco Rabanne's sequined dresses.
















On a background of International Klein Blue are mounted over 15,000 discs of spun aluminium, polished and anodised. Set out in horizontal rows of 282, each row with its own equalised spacing, the 24 inch discs emphasise the curves of the building, as does a wavelike plinth of stainless steel and glass.

































There are few openings. One receives at the third storey the 120 foot-long and curved pedestrian bridge that joins the building to a multi-storey car park. The bridge is of steel box girder construction, supported by cable stays. The polycarbonate canopy rather lets the building down, as it's already discolouring.

Ekco Festival

The Ekco A147 Festival was developed specifically for the Festival of Britain of 1951. Accordingly, its design was determinedly modern - sleek and pared-down. The cabinet is of glorious walnut, with a four-part urea formaldehyde speaker grille, emphasising that the radio provided for a quartet of pre-set stations. It was not otherwise tunable.

In 1951 the set cost 20 guineas, including tax, as advertised in The Trader. The cabinet of this example has been nicely refinished, although the EKCO lettering isn't, unfortunately, of the correct font or kerning. As can be seen from the twin lamp illumination, there's also some work to be done to align the tuning and the station indicator lamps.

Stoneleigh, Warwickshire

About five miles north of Leamington Spa is the village of Stoneleigh, on the confluence of the River Avon and one of its tributaries, the Sowe. It could stand as the epitome of the English village - beautiful houses, some under thatch, and cared-for streets and greens.














There is, though, no village pub. Lord Leigh, of Stoneleigh Abbey, exercising his powers over his estate village, closed the local hostelry in the late nineteenth century, after one of his daughters was whistled by drunken cyclists.

St Nazaire U-Boat Pens

One of five such facilities built in occupied France by the Third Reich, the submarine base at St Nazaire was constructed by the Organisation Todt, within the existing harbour, to provide protected repair and supply facilities for Germany's U-boats.












The base, 984 feet long, 426 feet wide, and 59 feet high, was developed in four phases. Pens 6, 7 and 8 were built between February and June 1941; pens 9 to 14 between July 1941 and January 1942; and pens 1 to 5 between February and June 1942. A fortified lock was built between late 1943 and early 1944, to provide protected access from the Loire.

 
The 14 pens could house up to 20 U-boats. These were protected by a roof 28 feet thick, a layer cake of reinforced concrete, granite and steel beams. A 'Frangrost' layer towards the top provided voids into which the blast from bombs was dissipated.

































Within the fortified lock lies the French submarine Espadon (Swordfish). Built at Le Havre in 1958, the Espadon is not dissimilar to a WWII German U-boat. Home to a crew of over 60, sharing two bunks between three, it remained in service until the early 1980s.

Berrington Hall - Upstairs, Downstairs

Neo-classical Berrington Hall, near Leominster, was designed by Henry Holland in 1778-81, and completed in 1783. It sits amidst a grand park, Lancelot 'Capability' Brown's final piece of landscaping. The house has a gloriously austere exterior, and a lavishly outrageous interior.

Upstairs, a fine cantilevered staircase gives onto a gallery landing graced with scagliola columns. But it is the below-stairs servants' quarters that are most interesting - the butler's pantry is rather reminiscent of Van Gogh's The Bedroom.

Bosky Boscobel

Built as a farmhouse in the 16th century on lands that had, prior to the Dissolution, belonged to White Ladies Priory, Boscobel was converted into a hunting lodge, in around 1632, by John Giffard, who gave the house its name. This is believed to derive from bosco bello, the Italian for "amidst fair woods", and the root of the word "bosky." 

The Giffards were recusant left-footers, and it has been suggested that Boscobel was intended to hide persecuted Catholics. It thus boasted at least one priest-hole, but the two described as such at the property would have been too easily found to be considered genuine.

































A priest-hole at Boscobel hid the future King Charles II, the night following a day he had spent hiding in the nearby branches of what became known as The Royal Oak. Charles was on the run after the Battle of Worcester, of 3 September 1651, and later escaped to France.

The surrounding woodland has gone, and the original tree fell victim to souvenir hunters in the 17th and 18th centuries. But a scion of Charles's oak remains, although badly damaged by a storm in 2000. Ten years later it was strapped to prevent splitting of the main trunk.

The three phases of building are very distinct - the 16th-century farm at left in the photograph at top, the large 19th-century additions, in painted brick, to the right, and Giffard's hunting lodge to the rear (second photograph). There are extensive cow byres and stables. Unusually, the farm had its own blacksmith, the forge and bellows still in full working order.

White Ladies Priory

A few miles north-west of Wolverhampton are the sandstone ruins of White Ladies Priory, the name derived from the white habits of the half dozen or so Augustinian canonesses who lived here prior to dissolution in 1538.

































The church, of the twelfth century, was dedicated to St Leonard of Noblac, associated with the liberation of prisoners. Quite fitting thus that the future King Charles II hid here before moving on to Boscobel House, just a mile away.

Bird's Nest Scoop

A nest from last year that dropped out of a tree whilst the latter was being pruned. Eat your heart out Ai Weiwei - nature does it better!

Barmouth

Barmouth, on the north-west coast of Wales, may be tacky, full as it is of shops selling seaside tat, faux hippy emporia, and tattoo parlours, but the light there can be spectacular, and one can soon leave behind those who don't like to get too far away from a burger joint.

The name of the boat at top, Buey 2, is pronounced the way American English (and modern French) pronounces the buoy in the foreground, and that in the second photograph. The word is of Old French or Middle Dutch origin.

The Ampthill Mob

Ampthill is a pleasant Bedfordshire town, boasting numerous Georgian houses, and even more houses of an earlier age to which Georgian fronts were attached. The name has Anglo-Saxon roots, and means ‘ant-heap.’ There was a fifteenth century castle here, of which there are only fragmentary remains. This was famous for housing Catherine of Aragon between 1531, when Anne Boleyn became Henry VIII’s favourite, and 1533, when ‘The Great Whore’ was elevated to queen and Catherine was moved to Kimbolton in Cambridgeshire.

Royal Leamington Spa I

Erstwhile Newbold Gardens, which run alongside the River Leam, were originated in 1831. They opened free of charge between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m., after which time they were restricted to patrons of the nearby spa bath-house, although a sunken right of way, which still exists, was provided to enable transit by the hoi polloi.















A lake was excavated in 1843, and the gardens were renamed, three years later, after Dr Henry Jephson, a promoter of the town's spa waters (which taste rather like St Yorre). A statue of Jephson sits within a Corinthian temple, before which stands the Czech Memorial Fountain, unveiled in 1968 in memory of the Czech Free Army that, during WWII, was quartered in the town.

Another philanthropist, Dr Hitchen, is memorialised by a fountain of 1869 (top). Once in the hands of the local council the gardens declined after WWII, but lottery money won in 1999 was used to successfully return them to full glory. A new sub-tropical glasshouse and restaurant was added to the gardens as part of the upgrade, a fine piece of modern architecture.

Royal Leamington Spa II

In 1800, Leamington Priors was a village of just 300 people. By 1850 exploitation of the local springs had given birth to Royal Leamington Spa, with a population of 15,000. The Royal Pump Room and Baths were built in 1813 by Charles Smith. It was significantly extended in the early 1860s, to include hot, tepid, cold, douche, plunge, shower, swimming and Turkish baths.

The Turkish baths consisted of apodyterium, labrum, calderium, tepidarium, and frigidarium - changing, washing, hot, tepid, and cold rooms. A larger swimming pool was added in 1889. The Turkish baths closed in about 1977 and the remainder of the complex in 1989. Thankfully, the building has been saved to home a museum, gallery and library. Just around the corner is the Art Deco Bath Assembly Hall of 1926, now a music venue.

Bala Lake Railway

Running four-and-a-half miles between Llanuwchllyn ("the village above the lake") and Bala, the Bala Lake Railway operates on two foot narrow gauge track laid on the bed of the original standard gauge GWR railway that ran between Ruabon and Barmouth. The Llangollen Railway utilises another section of the GWR trackbed.

Passenger services ceased in 1965, and the line closed in 1968, but the lake railway was operating just four years later. All of the locomotives are ex-quarry engines, all bar one from the Lanberis slate quarry. Four, including Holy War, were built by the Hunslet Engine Company of Leeds. The signal box at Llanuwchllyn is of 1896.

Warwickshire's Beautiful Waste

Immediately adjoining the parish of Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire, is that of Beaudesert. The de Montfort family held the manor here subsequent to the Norman conquest: Thurstan de Montfort built a castle in the twelfth century. Unfortunately, nothing remains of this other than the motte, now known as The Mount.

At the foot of The Mount, and of the same period, circa 1170, is the church of St Nicholas, likely built on the site of an earlier edifice. This boasts gorgeous Norman arches and, on the north side of the chancel, stone rope-work that could just be Saxon. The stained glass is of a quality commensurate with a much larger church.