Report content as inappropriate
Original Text (Annotation: EAW002078 / 540313)
'
Wednesbury Old Canal, Balls Hill Branch.
The Wednesbury Canal was part of the first phase of the Birmingham Canal (the first around the Black Country or Birmingham). It was authorised in the 1768 Birmingham Canal Act as a major branch of the Birmingham Canal and was completed and delivering coal to Birmingham on 6 November 1769.
The Balls Hill branch of the Birmingham Canal,built, like the main canal, under an Act of 1768,was opened from Spon Lane to 'Wednesbury Hollow-way' in 1769, three years before the completion of the main canal. It provided the pits of the Wednesbury area with an immediate outlet to Birmingham. The terminus was west of the main road at Hill Top near Golds Green, where coal was being raised at that time. It was described c. 1830 as of little use because a part of it had collapsed as a result of mining subsidence. Much of the canal was abandoned in stages between 1954 and 1960 and filled in.
From: 'West Bromwich: Communications', A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 17: Offlow hundred (part) (1976), pp. 11-14. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=36158 '
