Michael Byrne
20 Oct 2014
Meercroft Pool appeared in the late 19th century in waterlogged ground. The Cadbury family later acquired the surrounding land and the Pool is now in the Kings Norton Nature Reserve owned by Birmingham City Council. Its excellent notices explain much local history besides the natural environment. Its water features are the River Rea, a feeder to the Worcester-Birmingham Canal and the Wychall Reservoir. The Kings Norton Tythe Map of 1843 showed these clearly, and the 1901 Ordnance Survey revealed the railways and urbanisation since that time.
Wychall was a reservoir formed from the river for the rolling mill, never for the canal. The latter took its water from the river (a still contentious issue between British Waterways and the City). The canal disgorged stagnant water further down the river and closer to Pershore Road South, where there was a corn mill which continued to work until the 1940s.
Construction of the Stratford-on-Avon Canal began at Kings Norton in 1793 to link with the Worcester Canal; the latter’s continuation to Birmingham was not completed until three years later. The Junction house initially dealt with the tolls for both canals, but after a few years the Stratford company built a separate one. All the canals were wide but, due to a shortage of money, the Stratford canal was narrowed in 1814 when the Guillotine Lock was installed. The Kings Norton Baptist Church stands on the bank and decided in 1925 to use the canal for total immersion baptisms. The stageing erected for the ministers and congregation collapsed into the water, much to the delight of onlookers on the adjacent bridge.
The Kings Norton Brick Company’s kilns were next to the Worcester Canal and provided bricks for the original Masshouse Lane bridge, and also for the Kings Norton Tunnel which is two miles long. Construction started in 1792 with the sinking of shafts along its line, through which the spoil was brought up and scattered over the surrounding ground. This accounts for its undulations. 10 million bricks were used, and the tunnel opened in 1794. Barges were taken through by hand pushing on the dirty roof and the horses taken over the hill by a path, which still exists today surrounded by housing estates. Later steam barges were used which made the canal roof extremely dirty. The north portal is pretentious, in strong contrast to the unadorned south portal. In 1964 two boys in a canoe were overcome by the cold inside the tunnel and died, whilst another tragedy occurred in 1978 when two workmen were killed when a hidden shaft collapsed. The tunnel only reopened in 1981.
The Worcester & Birmingham Canal Company, like many others, was short of money and leased its west bank from Bournville northwards to the railway – a competitor which was soon to destroy its commercial traffic. Cadbury’s had at one time transferred goods from canal boats to its private railway. The Lifford Lift Bridge was damaged in WWII and replaced by its owners, the Great Western Railway, with a fixed bridge which prevented most boats going beneath it. A protest was mounted on 20 May 1947 resulting in a swing bridge being installed. This has now disappeared and the current bridge allows passage of all boats.
In 1927 heavy rains caused the River Rea to rise dramatically. The Wychall Reservoir retaining wall was breached and water flooded the surrounding area. A six yard wide stream became a 200 yard wide torrent. Westhill Road Bridge was washed away and a bus was marooned. Some of its passengers carried the women and children to safety – watched by crowds of onlookers. Major flooding occurred again each year form 1998 to 2000. Middlemore and Station Roads in Northfield were badly inundated. The river could not be deepened due to old legal requirements to provide water for the mills, but much of the flood plain had been built over.Wychall Reservoir is now largely dry and a bird reserve, so is deliberately protected against the worst of the flooding. The old headrace to the former corn mill is now used for flood control, and the river itself is tunnelled south east of the Lifford Reservoir which had been built to feed it.