Drayton Brick Bridge (Birmingham & Fazeley Canal) – Sunday 12th August

After hunkering down last night for a dreadful Sunday it never really happened!  There was some rain during the night but not a lot and again this morning but nothing to worry about.  Richard follows a rainfall radar and there had been rain around us but not on us!

  

I had a very lazy morning watching three episodes of Location, Location, Location but then I needed to make my brain work!  As we have spent three days going down locks (25) I realised that Birmingham must be on some sort of hill or plateau.  This is what I found.

  

The Midlands Plateau is a plateau covering approximately 1235 square miles and is bounded by the Rivers Severn, Avon and Trent.  The plateau is made up of three subdivisions - the Birmingham Plateau which forms the central core, the East Warwickshire Plateau to the east and by the Mid-Severn Plateau to the west.

The Birmingham plateau ranges between 500 and 1,100 feet above sea level.  At the northern end of the plateau Cannock Chase is an area of higher ground rising to over 800 feet above sea level; at the southern end of the plateau the Clent-Lickey ridge rises to 1050 feet; while roughly in the middle Barr Beacon, a few miles north of Birmingham City Centre, stands at 700 feet.  We are now close to Tamworth which is just 240 feet above sea level. 

 

Someone has tried hard here but the dry weather has been against them – can you see the bus stop?

A line drawn through the following towns would roughly encircle the Birmingham Plateau: clockwise from the north - Stafford, Rugeley, Lichfield, Tamworth, Atherstone, Nuneaton, Coventry, Stratford, Redditch, Bromsgrove, Stourbridge, Tettenhall, Penkridge, Stafford.

This sectional graph, taken from our Heron map, gives you some idea of how high Birmingham is. 

  

While doing my research I found out about the city's nickname of "Brum", which originates from the city's old name, Brummagem, which in turn is thought to have derived from "Bromwich-ham".

Strange things happen.  I was sitting, minding my own business - well writing this blog post, when a boat came passed with a bench on its tug deck.  I know a boat who has one of those I thought and, lo and behold, it was Brian Holt on NB Harnser!!  But the strangest thing is that I was only reading Brian’s blog last night when I saw the said bench in a photo!!  Brian is the Cutweb Membership Secretary and, oh I might not have said this, but I am now the Cutweb Secretary!  Then to add to that we had a knock on the boat and it was Mike Parry from NB Shottermill – he had moored up in front of us and was reading my blog!  He commented on Facebook “It's a bit weird when you're reading a blog and realise that you happen to have moored in front of the blogger. Nice to put a face to a name, Linda.”  Nice to meet you too, Mike.

  

Today’s photos are all from Friday and Saturday.