Cockshute Pool

A High Speed Train is about to pass over the level crossing at Dunhampstead with a southbound service. The leading power car is No 43100.

The northern end of Trench Wood, near the road/level crossing, Dunhampstead.

The Worcester and Birmingham Canal was built in stages between 1791 and 1815 to connect the River Severn in Worcester to the Birmingham Canal System using a quicker route than the earlier Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal. Opposition from other canal companies meant that for twenty years there was no direct connection in Birmingham, the last two and a bit metres of canal there being left uncompleted in 1795. Link This lunacy was eventually resolved by an Act of Parliament in 1815 and a stop-lock constructed. Grain, timber and agricultural produce were carried to the Midlands. Industrial goods and coal were carried down towards Worcester, often for onward transport to Bristol. Later, salt carrying was added as a regular cargo. Pairs of donkeys were often used in preference to horses, maybe because they could easily be put onto the boats which had to be legged (or pulled by tug) through the tunnels. The canal has five tunnels. The longest at Kings Norton is just under two miles long. Steam tugs were used from the 1870s to haul strings of narrowboats through Wasts Hill, Shortwood and Tardebigge tunnels. The Worcester and Birmingham Canal has locks, 58 of them, climbing 428 feet (130 metres) from the level of the River Severn in Worcester up to Birmingham. In the twenty-first century the ring now formed by the two canals and the river makes a popular two weeks holiday route, albeit partly a strenuous one, lockwise, but there are plenty of pubs, though some are now merely restaurants with a bar. The Worcester and Birmingham Canal travels through some very pleasant countryside, climbing from the Severn through rolling fields and wooded cuttings and slicing through a hilly ridge south of Birmingham. Link

The M5 runs 163 miles from a junction with the M6 at West Bromwich near Birmingham to Exeter in Devon. Constructed between 1962 & 1977. It links the North and Midlands with the South west. Link

Horses graze in the field between the canal to the right and the railway in a cutting to the left.

Looking northwards with the Dunhampstead basin just beyond.

Narrowboat moorings on the Worcester & Birmingham Canal. Visitors moor at this end and have easy access to the pub. A number of more permanent residents live beyond.

A profusion of signs here, including that of the excellent Fir Tree Inn, with its car park on the left.

Boats moored south of Dunhampstead Bridge.

The approach to Trench Lane level crossing, where the road is crossed by the main line Bristol & Gloucester to Birmingham railway.

A heavily locked canal, which connects to the River Severn at Worcester. Here photographed from Dunhampstead Bridge.

There are good moorings here, and an interesting public house near Dunhampstead Bridge (No 30). Quite apart from the ales and the superb menus, not many pubs have a sign to compare with, "welcome to the Fir Tree Inn and Murderer's bar." Want to know more? SO9160 : Fir Tree Inn, Trench Lane, Dunhampstead

The Worcester & Birmingham at Dunhampstead. It was about -4 C out.

I remember when there was a manned signal box here. I also remember sitting on the road just before this crossing discussing with my driving instructor what to do if you broke down on a level crossing. One of his tips was to use the starter motor to pull it off the lines - no good in an automatic though.

In the garden of Three Wells, Hadzor.