WorcesterVista.com

This was a response from Max Sinclair, to a query regarding walking along the Barge Canal.

Canal Walks guide.

According to the previous vicar at Salwarpe the cauldron in the churchyard was “something to do with the canal”. I don’t think it was lead which was used to fix all the lock iron pins,as it would have been unwieldy, most likely just for boiling hot water, porridge making, or washing.It has all the appearance of being made at Ironbridge Dale Foundry who supplied all the iron used on the canal.
Salwarpe
Descend Jacobs Ladder to the mill where the brick structure is the remains of the flash lock used for centuries of navigation by salt trows and at the end by the barges carrying the millions of bricks used in the canal structures.
At the Salwarpe Court and Hill End swing bridges there is in the bed of the canal the large wooden gates 15ft wide by 6ft high built in the 1770’s and well preserved by the salt water. One of Brindleys features, if the big embankment to Ladywood built from the soil dug out of the Salwarpe cutting burst the gates were supposed to rise or be pulled up with chains by the lengthman. Unfortunately the gates were built with the open panels on top and quickly filled with mud making lifting impossible. The swing bridges, or sway bridges to Brindley, turned on Dale (Coalbrookdale) cast turn tables using iron rollers, the first recorded use in the world.
(A word of warning to canal engineers, when Brindley built a soil embankment across fields he didn’t remove the turf, after the spectacular burst on the Bridgewater Canal at Daresbury which blew the embankment away the turf was found rolled up like a carpet.)
The brick old Ombersley road bridge is called Wheelers Bridge after the farming family who lived in the large house which is now the RAFA Club headquarters. The large Chawson basin, at present silted up, was used for overnight mooring of trows and unloading of wheat for the many Salwarpe mills.Just possible some interesting boats may be under here.
The field on the north side of the canal is called Navigation Meadow, used for spreading canal dredgings and is Trust property, the next field north was Lower Wharfe Meadow,where trows on the Salwarpe berthed.
The Armco tube structure replaces the two railway bridges which were condemned after inspection by divers in iron boots and great helmets.Unfortunately British Rail were grudging about the work, they wanted to make a solid embankment, until I persuaded the Council to insist on a navigable structure.Unfortunately they didn’t believe the canal would open and only made it 9ft 6inches wide. Hopefully the brine will corrode the structure and it will have to be replaced.
On the site of the Droitwich Boxing Club by Hampton Road there used to be a boat house containing the steam boat Coronation used for tourist trips, nice to see it back, I have a suitable steam engine and boiler.
For years the canal from Droitwich was used as a linear sewage works called a Passaveer Ditch which filled with reeds was meant to purify the sewage. When it failed with appalling smells the Council gave the canal to the Droitwich Canal Trust to sort out, with the Gas Works site which was a poisonous mess of Arsenic, gas tar and other horrors.
I hope this will help for starters. Max