Birmingham canals

[artleknock]

2 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

Not sure you will be doing much of those. Smelling the scenery on the other hand...

Ah! Coal smoke, soot and hot oil, it will take me back to my youth as a train spotter round the sheds at Wellingborough.

[Grassman]

7 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

Point of order. The Great Western is in Wolverhampton and Batham's is in Brierley Hill. It is actually the city of Birmingham rather than the BCN as a whole that has more canals than Venice. Of course that includes quite few miles on the GU, Worcs & Bham, and Stratford that are not part of the BCN.

The beer though is better in Brum than Venice and if you think a hire boat is expensive try a gondola.

JP

 

Point of order. Venice has more canals than Birmingham but Birmingham has more miles of canal than Venice. 

[RLWP]

1 hour ago, Captain Pegg said:

Or the entire BCN.

Well, that only takes just over 24 hours...

Richard

[haggis]

This thread reminds me of my first canal trip to Birmingham many years ago 

I was not looking forward to it, thinking of city streets and all concrete 

How wrongly I was. I found all these lovely rural areas even near the city centre and it is now one off my favourite places to boat 

Nothing quite like mooring outside the indoor arena sitting on the boat roof with a glass in hand listening to a James Last concert (that dates me :-)) then going for an Indian meal 

We are moored in Stourbridge tonight and will be heading up to Birmingham in the morning 

Haggis 

ps nice to meet Grassman briefly this morning 

Edited October 8, 2017 by haggis

[Victor Vectis]

58 minutes ago, artleknock said:

Ah! Coal smoke, soot and hot oil, it will take me back to my youth as a train spotter round the sheds at Wellingborough.

Or the S&L metre gauge line from the ironstone quarries?

ETA or is it meter?

Edited October 8, 2017 by Victor Vectis

[john6767]

52 minutes ago, Grassman said:

 

Point of order. Venice has more canals than Birmingham but Birmingham has more miles of canal than Venice. 

Really, list them?

Add point of order, Venice does not really have any canals (at least in the central part), it is just buildings that were built in the sea with gaps between them.  

[Grassman]

1 hour ago, john6767 said:

Really, list them?

Add point of order, Venice does not really have any canals (at least in the central part), it is just buildings that were built in the sea with gaps between them.  

It all about interpretation. The canals of Venice are all individually named as if they were streets so each one is classed as a separate canal meaning that with so many of them it has many more canals than Birmingham. However add all their canals together and their total length in miles is less than Birmingham's. 

Hence the misconception that Brum has more canals than Venice. It doesn't, but it does have more miles of canal than Venice. 

 It's just me being pedantic 

[Grassman]

2 hours ago, haggis said:

This thread reminds me of my first canal trip to Birmingham many years ago 

I was not looking forward to it, thinking of city streets and all concrete 

How wrongly I was. I found all these lovely rural areas even near the city centre and it is now one off my favourite places to boat 

Nothing quite like mooring outside the indoor arena sitting on the boat roof with a glass in hand listening to a James Last concert (that dates me :-)) then going for an Indian meal 

We are moored in Stourbridge tonight and will be heading up to Birmingham in the morning 

Haggis 

ps nice to meet Grassman briefly this morning 

Yes, great to meet you today Kelpie.

My first ever canal boating was on the BCN during the drought of 1976 when me and some mates hired from the original Alvechurch Boats. We were aiming for Stratford but due to lack of water we couldn't get past Kingswood Junction so we turned up the GU to Brum and spent and enjoyable few days on the BCN which included having to reverse half a mile back out of the dried up Soho Loop. Not being able to explore very muc was compensated by the fact we were able to consume copious amounts of beer whilst moored outside Bobby Browns and The Longboat pubs .

[Dave_P]

On 08/10/2017 at 11:06, OldGoat said:

There's more to do in the Birmingham area than just eat and drink:-

• The Jewellery quarter and museum in Vyse Street
• Pen museum
• Library
• Black country museum - a bit further out
• the "back to backs"
• and probably a lot more

The Birmingham Musuem and Art Gallery

The IKON gallery

The Coffin Works

The newly opened Ghetto Golf (if you're brave enough)

Cinema, Theatre, Ballet, concerts

Sea Life Centre

Cadbury World

ThinkTank

Aston Hall

Blakesley Hall

Selly Manor

Lots of Tolkien stuff (Moseley Bog, Sarehole Mill, Perrot's Folly etc)

Birmingham Botanical Garden

Winterbourne Botantical Garden

The Barber Institute of Fine Arts

The Lapworth Institute

Soho House Museum (from Hockley Port)

Two Tower Brewery tour

St Phillips Cathedral

Villa Park Stadium tour

Views from the library, the Cube, the top of the Hyatt.

 

I could go on....

 

 

Edited October 9, 2017 by Dave_P