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| Birmingham Canal, Central Birmingham, August 2017 |
Introduction:
Writing my preceding post, about David Byrne's cycle-based approach to exploring cities, reminded me that I'd been sitting on this post for far too long. It was actually written last August, in the immediate aftermath of one of my own occasional Birmingham canal rides - but delayed under the pretence I was going to edit and include some of the video I shot on the day. That never happened, and is unlikely to do so right now - so let's just dust off the post anyway. It does feel like it's in the spirit of Byrne's 'Bicycle Diaries' [1.], if nothing else. Better late than never, I guess...
Writing my preceding post, about David Byrne's cycle-based approach to exploring cities, reminded me that I'd been sitting on this post for far too long. It was actually written last August, in the immediate aftermath of one of my own occasional Birmingham canal rides - but delayed under the pretence I was going to edit and include some of the video I shot on the day. That never happened, and is unlikely to do so right now - so let's just dust off the post anyway. It does feel like it's in the spirit of Byrne's 'Bicycle Diaries' [1.], if nothing else. Better late than never, I guess...
August 2017:
It’s been quite a while, but I recently got back on the bike to cycle another stretch of Birmingham’s extensive canal system. This time, my companion was my friend and work colleague (Boss, actually), Tim. Our route was one I’d been intending to take for some time - taking us from Broad Street, in the city centre, along the Birmingham Canal - through Smethwick to Dudley Port.
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| Birmingham Canal, Old Line (Soho Loop), August 2017 |
The Black
Country, to the west and north west of Birmingham is famously a cradle of the
Industrial Revolution. Indeed, as the
name implies, coal mining, metalworking, engineering and manufacturing of
various kinds once combined to create the region’s reputation as a reeking,
poisoned hive of industry. As Tim
pointed out, it’s even credited with inspiring Tolkein’s vision of Mordor – that
nexus of sulphurous evil from ‘The Lord
Of The Rings’. The nature of
commerce and industry in Britain has, of course, shifted focus from those core
activities since the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and these days,
the remaining factories and occasional once-grand Victorian edifices rise largely
from a lower-level landscape of lorry parks, transport hubs and trading
estates.
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| Birmingham Canal, Smethwick, August 2017 |
In fact, I was
mildly surprised to discover just how verdant was much of our route. The reality is obviously that, what would
have once constituted a major commercial artery between central Brum and the
towns of the Black Country, long since gave way to the preeminence of rail and
road transport. It has become instead,
both a green corridor and a thread of industrial architecture punctuated by overgrown
colliery workings, disused quays and the occasional canal museum. As our own presence proved, and as I’ve noted
before - the real appeal of canals nowadays is as places in which to dawdle and
reflect, or even as conduits for our dreams.
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| Birmingham Canal, Smethwick, August 2017 |
Whilst some
industrial facilities do still rear up on either bank, two of the most
memorable examples from our ride remain the partially demolished and burned-out
buildings along the Soho Loop (at the Birmingham end), and the large, partially
cleared site, were the canal separates into two parallel branches, at
Smethwick. Elsewhere, we noted how much
new housing and recently landscaped parkland is now lies along our route. The reality, I think, is that one needs to
come back up to street level to fully experience the current
industrial/commercial flavour of the region – something I certainly intend to
do in future visits.
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| Birmingham Canal (South Branch), Smethwick, August 2017 |
The depth to
which we were actually sunk beneath the contemporary surface of the world was
emphasized by the sheer height of the cut’s embankments, particularly along the
Smethwick section, and especially by the parallel tunnels and soaring bridges
through which we passed just there. This
is, of course, largely a consequence of topography (and testament to the
fortitude of the Navvies, who dug it all out originally). Nevertheless, I’m always also struck by that
sense of passing vertically through time, as well as laterally in space
wherever such manmade landscapes stack up multiple layers of infrastructure
(and by implication, technological advance).
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| Birmingham Canal, Central Birmingham, August 2017 |
The most dramatic
and resonant example of this, and one of the major draws of the excursion for
me, is the elevated section of the M5 between West Bromwich and Oldbury. Just as at Spaghetti Junction (to the north
of the city), this provides both vertiginous concrete drama - with huge columns
and supporting piers actually sunk into the canal bed itself; and a
multi-layered environment of road, rail and water (including a splendid
aqueduct, to carry one canal branch over another). Long time readers of this blog will know I’m
a complete sucker for this kind of thing.
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| Beneath M5 Motorway, Oldbury, August 2017 |
They will also
recall that this is the same location from which many of my fellow artist Shaun Morris’ paintings emerged in recent years.
This is indeed, the ‘Edgeland’ landscape of Shaun’s childhood, and the
one to which he turned for his memorable ‘Stolen Car', ‘Black Highway’, and ‘The Lie Of The Land’' cycles of painted
nocturnes. Having waxed lyrical about
that work on so many occasions, it was a delight to find myself finally
sampling, at first hand, the resonance of the place from which they sprang. I also amused myself by trying to spot one or
two specific locations from the paintings as we passed. There can’t be too many piles of wooden
palettes quite that big - can there, Shaun?
I think I spotted the big green transport depot from ‘A Minor Place’ too.
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| Shaun Morris, 'A Minor Place', Oil On Canvas, 2016 |
However, nothing
stays the same for long. Since Shaun
depicted them, many of the motorway’s monumental supports have sprouted an
undecipherably complex tangle of scaffolding in a major process of renovation
of the weathering concrete. This cocoon
of metallic struts and precarious zig-zag ladders has completely transformed
the sensory experience of the place. It
converts an environment of cavernous monumentality and quasi-geology (albeit
man-made), into something closer to a shimmering, silvery forest.
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| Remedial Maintenance Work, M5 Motorway, Oldbury, August 2017 |
As we pedalled back into Brum, Tim and I considered the relative merits of natural and man-made environments (not that all British environments aren't essentially man-made), and our subjective responses to them. Certainly, I'm more than happy to recline in a meadow, or stroll along a beach - when rest and relaxation are in order. But I'm forced to conclude once again (as if there were any doubt), that it's in a hard-edged world of stained concrete, coiled barbed wire, or scribbled graffiti, that my creative sensibilities find greater nourishment.
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| Birmingham Canal, Old Line (Soho Loop), August 2017 |
[1.]: David Byrne, 'Bicycle Diaries', London, Faber & Faber, 2010 (Paperback)
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