Spon Lane Bridge

The New Main Line of the Birmingham Canal Navigations is wide and straight and must have seemed like a motorway to the old boatmen. Built with towpaths along both banks, although only one is maintained today, this allowed boats to pass each other without slowing down at all.

Many of the bridges are high above the canal, at the natural level of the land into which the canal’s cutting was made without the advantage of modern equipment.