Lapal Canal - Leasowes

Lapal Canal
Leasowes
July 2015

Tracking down the western portal of the Lapal Tunnel is very tricky All trace has been covered but the maps suggest it exited just west of Lapal Lane South, close to the fishponds of St Marys Abbey. 

Map of western end of Lapal Canal - courtesy of Waterways Routes

Fishpond dams with manhole cover

There is a footpath from Lapal Lane to the fishponds which offers a great view of the remains of St Mary's. There appears to be a vent / manhole cover in one pf the fishpond dams which clearly is not medieval and may be a tunnel vent inserted after closure.

Canal at Mucklow Hill

The canal swung north at this point and crossed what is now the A456 just below the  Black Horse Pub, an old boatman's pub.

From here the canal track becomes obvious heading north just to the west of Cloister Drive with the towpath turned into a cinder footpath. The canal bed is full of weed cut clearly visible as it contours round the hill eventually reaching a narrows which was reconstructed in the 1990's. 

Then suddenly the canal is in water as it crosses Leasowes Park on one of the biggest embankments have ever seen. I had been wondering where all the tunnel spoil went and I guess the embankment offers a likely solution to its absence from the fields around the western end.

The canal is largely empty over the embankment with just a foot or so of rainwater offering a canal like appearance but it offers a great circular walk right up to Mucklow Hill and then back again on the other side, the path flanked by the remains of a minature railway track with amazing views over the trees surrounding Breaches Pool in Leasowes Park. A spectacular sight even in the pouring rain!

Lapal Canal - Selly Oak to the Lapal Tunnel

Lapal Canal

Selly Oak Park to the Lapal Tunnel

July 2015

It has to be said that the exploration of the BCN's lost canals can often lead me to the dark and dingy back end of the Black Country but this walk turns out to be quite a delight, jumping from public park yo open space and linked by  a nearly continous thread of an long lost canal. If ever there is a route worth walking its this one.

Footpath on the Lapal Canal Route

You dont need fancy maps apart from something to help you find the locations of the two tunnel portals which are not immediately apparent.

Lapal Canal western end - courtesy of Waterways Routes

The route out of Selly Oak Park is clear with the canal infilled but its bed remains as a path which proceeds in a straight line alongside Reservoir Road as far as Bourn Brook and then alongside Swinford Road to the now buried portal at California.

Somery Lane Bridge

Along the way the track runs under a tunnel of trees. Mostly its a pleasant walk but here and there it lapses into a tip with burnt matresses and abandoned motorcycles in the verges. 

At the California end the lad starts to rise and the canal used to run in a deep cutting. Today Somery Lane Bridge remains the cutting filled to the brim and the line beyond built on by an industrial site.

Beyond Somery Lane

At  the very end, where the tunnel dug under the hill, the portal was buried long ago. Today the entrance area is public open ground, built on a landfill site with just the stubs of old ventilation pipes to show its boundaries. There is just one telltale built fragment remaining - a wall which was a bridge parapet over the tunnel portal which isn't recognisable as such unless you know what to look for.

Bridge parapet over tunnel entrance

1. Same place in the 1950's