Tuesday May 22 2012
History Archive
Village History
The mystery of canal bridge 63
Posted on September 19 2010 at 3:40:41 1 comments
If you’ve walked along the Birmingham-Worcester canal towpath from Withybed Green, Alvechurch, to Cooper’s Hill you might have wondered about the numbers on the bridges, writes Mary Green.
The Withybed bridge is 61, and the Cooper’s Hill one is 64. Assuming the railway bridge is 62, what happened to bridge number 63?
This photo shows the missing bridge. It was taken in 1950 by Jim Watts, with his new camera, photographing his friends. He still lives in Withybed Lane, and one of the friends he pictures still lives in Withybed Green.
The bridge went from the farm on the towpath side of the canal over to its land on the other side. It’s really very near the Cooper’s Hill bridge, but was presumably more convenient. The farm became incorporated into the Blythesway estate, and the house is still visible there. It seems likely that this is when the bridge disappeared. However, you can still see a narrow spot on the canal.
Along the canal there are several bridges that no longer lead anywhere, but this is one of the few that has actually been demolished.
Another bridge is to disappear from the canal over the next few weeks. The mainly wooden footbridge over the dead arm at Alvechurch (created when the M42 was built) is now apparently beyond repair.
British Waterways is to remove it and build a causeway across to take the towpath with culverts to enable water to flow in and out of the redundant section of canal.
What Villagers have been saying about this story . . . most recent comments first
Comment posted by Denis Pike
from Blackwell on January 25 2012 at 9:05:30
No quibbles with any of the information posted in your article about Bridge 63 on the Worcester Birmingham canal.
Further to your article I thought readers may just be interested to know that one part of the Bridge still remains in use however.
The bridge plate bearing the number 63 has been mounted in a trophy fashion and is used by the Worcester-Birmingham canal society.
The trophy is awarded each year to the member who is thought to have furthered most the aims of the society.
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