Digbeth Branch Canal

Aston Junction at the start of the Digbeth Branch Canal

Locks on the Digbeth Branch

Proof House Junction

The Warwick Bar stop lock and Banana Warehouse

Bordesley Junction

The Digbeth Branch Canal is a short canal in Birmingham, Warwickshire, which links the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal at Aston Junction to the Grand Union Canal at Digbeth Junction in Digbeth (or historically, at the adjacent Warwick Bar).

Built under the Birmingham Canal Act 1768 and completed in 1799 the Digbeth Branch of the Birmingham Canal Navigations took traffic from the Birmingham and Warwick Junction Canal and the Warwick and Birmingham Canal (now both part of the Grand Union Canal) towards the Worcester and Birmingham Canal at the Worcester Bar (Gas Street Basin).

The 1¼-mile-long canal has six locks leading down from Aston Junction. It passes through a Grade II listed tunnel at the east of Curzon Street railway station (originally carrying the main lines from it) and under the viaduct of today's eastbound railway line from Birmingham New Street Station. It then originally met the Birmingham and Warwick Junction Canal at the Warwick Bar stop lock just to the rear of Birmingham Proof House, at which there is a short branch to the Typhoo Basin. The junction is called Digbeth Junction or Proof House Junction. It has a total fall of 40 feet.

All of the canal between Ashted Lock at Jennens Road (formerly the A47) and Great Barr Street (Bordesley) is within the Warwick Bar Conservation Area.

Features

Point	Coordinates
Aston Junction	52°29’25"N, 1°53’19"W
Ashted Lock	52°29’10"N, 1°53’2"W
Ashted tunnel North portal	52°28’55"N, 1°52’55"W
Ashted tunnel South portal	52°28’51"N, 1°52’59"W
Railway viaduct	52°28’51"N, 1°53’4"W
Proof House Junction	52°28’49"N, 1°53’3"W
Warwick Bar	52°28’47"N, 1°53’0"W
River Rea	52°28’44"N, 1°52’55"W
Great Barr Street	52°28’40"N, 1°52’48"W
Bordesley Junction	52°28’32"N, 1°52’38"W

Outside links

• Birmingham City Council - Map of Warwick Bar Conservation Area (PDF)
• Birmingham City Council - Planning Committee designation of Warwick Bar Conservation Area 1987 (PDF)
• National Heritage List 1075609: Curzon tunnel - grade II

References

• Perrott,David; Mosse,Jonathan (2006). Nicholson Waterways Guide 3 - Birmingham & the Heart of England. Collins. ISBN 978-0-00-721111-1. 
• Priestley, Joseph (1831). Historical Account of the Navigable Rivers, Canals, and Railways, Throughout Great Britain. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green.