A Rough History of Hawne Basin, our neighbours and our Canal
Researched and presented by Roy Kenn
As
part of the process of creating an Archive for our Trust, I realised that a
large amount of historical information was being collected. All of the
information is available in one form or another but no-one, as far as I know,
has collated it into an easily-followed format.
So I found myself doing something
which was completely unplanned, but which I believe to be of interest. I will
do it in the old-fashioned (but better!) way and leave it to others to ‘electronify’
it if they so choose.
April 1798
The
Earl of Dudley’s second canal was opened. It
linked
with his original canal at Parkhead and
joined
a newly-opened section of the Worcester
and
Birmingham Canal at Selly Oak. It passes
through
Halesowen between Gosty Hill and Lapal
tunnels
and its main cargoes were coal and lime. It
became
known as the Dudley No. 2 Canal.
1834
Hawn
Colliery was opened. The colliery was
situated
on the western side of the River Stour and
access
to the Dudley No. 2 was by means of a
horse-drawn
tramway. A basin was built to allow
the
coal to be loaded on the boats, and the basin
was
known as Hawn Colliery Basin. At various
times
the basin was known as Coombeswood
Basin,
Heywood Basin and, by the railway,
Halesowen
Basin. Around the turn of the century
an
‘e’ was added to the original ‘Hawn’. The basin
has
been extended once, possibly twice, since it
was
originally built and has evolved into the
Hawne
Basin we have today.
1841
A scoop
wheel was installed on the western side of
Lapal Tunnel. It was driven by a steam engine removed
from Coombeswood, and this assisted passage through the tunnel. This engine operated until 1883 when it was replaced by a new engine which, in turn, operated until 1912
1846
Dudley
No. 2 Canal amalgamated with the Birmingham
Canal Navigations.
1839
A trial
took place using a steam-driven tug in order
to tow
boats through Gosty tunnel. The experiment
failed.
Later, in 1913, a paraffin-fuelled Bolinder-
driven
tug was trialled, this time successfully, and
this
operated until the late 1930s. The tug was
named
George and, unusually, it had two
bows
and no
stern thus eliminating the need to wind
after
each trip through the tunnel. The remains of
the
Tug House can still be seen at the northern
end of
the tunnel.
1860
The
arrival of Industry. Abraham Barnsley opened
the
first ironworks. Two years later Coombeswood
was
bought by Noah Hingley from Lord Lyttleton,
and
the land was used to extend the Ironworks
and
the Rolling Mills. A series of amalgamations
ended
in 1903 with the company becoming known
as
Stewarts and Lloyds. In 1967 S & L was
nationalised
and became the British Steel
Corporation,
which was privatised again in 1988
and
closed in 1996.
1864
Haywood
Forge opened. It was taken over in 1866
by
Walter Somers. At first forgings were
transported
by canal but they eventually became
too big
for the boats and transferred to rail. The
anchor
shank for Titanic was forged by
Somers. In
April
1990 the Company were involved in the
infamous
episode of Saddam Hussein’s
“supergun”,
in which Company Directors were
arrested
and wrongfully charged with breaking UN
sanctions.
It took until November 1990 for the
Government
of the time to admit their
responsibility.
11.04.1864
New
Hawn Colliery opened
1878
The
first railway arrived in Halesowen.
1897
Old
Hawn Colliery closed down.
1902
Our
Basin was bought by the Great Western Railway
Company and the Halesowen Basin (Hawne)
branch railway line was opened. Note the GWR
boundary post just inside our entrance gates.
This was when our basin became an Interchange
Basin.
1876
A triple murder took place at a cottage in
Coombeswood A man killed his wife and two young daughters with an axe. Luckily for
him, or perhaps
not, he was found Not Guilty due to
insanity, and spent the rest of his life in a
lunatic asylum.
1917
Lapal Tunnel closed due to roof
fall. At least one more major roof fall has occurred since
then and parts of
the> tunnel were infilled
when the M5 was built.
March 1929 A disaster occurred at Coombeswood Colliery in which eight men were killed. They
were Edward
Barnsley, Joseph Chance, Harry Edwards, John
Hargreaves, James Harris, Edward Jukes, George
Parkes
and John Westward. Just eight men out of the
tensof thousands who died in this
country digging for
coal, the coal which created our
canal and then our
Basin. May they all rest in peace.
1944
The original Coombs Bridge was demolished,
allegedly due to the threat of
invasion by German
troops. I find this theory hard to
accept because, by
1944, the threat of invasion had been overcome. So, what was
the real reason?
1963
Lapal section of the Dudley No. 2
Canal was formally
abandoned
.
1964 Dudley No. 2 Canal from Hawne
Basin to Windmill
End, designated a water supply channel only i.e.
giving the potential to infill or
to pipe sections of the canal.
1965
Canal infilled west of Lapal Tunnel when Manor Way
was upgraded.
