Toll Islands of the BCN Mainline Canal
7 Aug 2025
Movement along the BCN New Mainline Canal is punctuated with narrows, which always seem to accumulate sediment and slow passage to a crawl. The challenge for most boaters is deciding which of the two channels, only a few inches wider than their boat, to go through. Whichever route you chose you can expect progress to be glacial.
If you are new to the region's canals these navigational obstacles may some as something of a mystery, but "back in the day" they served a vital role. These were the toll collection points and can be found adjacent to most junctions.
In its trading days the BCN operated a "pay as you go" system where boats passing along the canal would may the BCN a fee per ton and per mile carried. The challenge was to know how much was being carried and this was achieved by each boat being gauged, which is to say put in a specialist dock and have weights added to it and watching how much it settles in the water. There would be several gauging points along the length of the boat and the average freeboard showing would inform the toll collector of the weight of cargo being carried.
Each boat was unique and so each toll house had a register of all boats approved to use the local canal network, and to help identify individual boats which could look very similar, each had a unique gauging plate attached to it.
On the smaller canals there would be just one "narrows" but given the traffic volumes on the New Main Line two narrows were created and the toll keeper occupied a building constructed on the island in the middle of the canal, reached by a small swinging footbridge.
Today all the mid canal toll houses have gone, their rubble thrown into the canal, but the islands survive. These structures are very distinctive and this page is devoted to those which existed on the Mainline between Birmingham and Tipton.
Whilst the original toll offices have gone, a replica exists at the top of the Smethwick Locks near the Engine Arm Aqueduct.
