Location: Canals

The Canals - Warwick Bar

In 1987 Warwick Bar and Digbeth Branch Canals became Birmingham's only canal based conservation area. The area contains many important buildings from Birmingham's canal heritage.

The warehouse with the overhanging canopy, known locally as 'The Banana Warehouse', was occupied by Geest, the fruit importer. Behind this the curved walled Fellows Morton and Clayton building dates to 1935, a late show of confidence in the future of the canals. Beyond this is the Bond, once a bonded warehouse.

The largest building of the Bond complex was an Ice House where mechanical icemakers were used to maintain the low temperatures needed to store perishable goods. The Bond retains its wharf with moorings for residential narrowboats.

Warwick Bar Junction was the terminus of two canals - Digbeth Branch Canal to the north, owned by the Birmingham Canal Navigations Company (BCN), and Warwick and Birmingham Canal (now the Grand Union Canal) to the south, owned by the Warwick and Birmingham Canal Company. Water was key to a canal's success and an intense rivalry existed between these two canals companies and their rights to the water they shared.

The BCN opened the Digbeth Branch in 1799. This linked the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal at Aston Junction to the new Digbeth Basin in Bordesley Street, linking the industrial heart of Digbeth to the rest of the BCN system.

The BCN delayed construction of the Digbeth Branch until it was sure of the crossing point where the Warwick and Birmingham Canal entered Birmingham. The company built a stoplock between the two canals and imposed a heavy toll on traffic crossing the boundary. The rivalry for water was so strong that the BCN built a 24-hour engine room at Asted Locks to pump the water back to their side of the canels.