Dudley Canal

Dudley Canal
The end of the No. 2 Line near Hawne Basin in 1987
Specifications
Locks	12 (originally 14)
Status	part navigable
Navigation authority	Canal and River Trust
History
Original owner	Dudley Canal Company
Date of act	1776
Geography
Connects to	Birmingham Canal Navigations

The Dudley Canal is a canal passing though Dudley in the West Midlands of England. The canal is part of the English and Welsh connected network of navigable inland waterways, and in particular forms part of the popular Stourport Ring narrowboat cruising route.

The first short section, which connected to the Stourbridge Canal, opened in 1779, and this was connected through the Dudley Tunnel to the Birmingham Canal system in 1792. Almost immediately, work started on an extension, called Line No. 2, which ran through another long tunnel at Lapal, to reach the Worcester and Birmingham Canal. This was completed in 1798, but significant trade had to wait until the Worcester and Birmingham was completed in 1802. In 1846, the company amalgamated with the Birmingham Canal Navigations, and various improvements followed, including the Netherton Tunnel, of a similar length to the Dudley Tunnel, but much bigger, with towpaths on both sides and gas lighting. It was the last canal tunnel built in England.

Subsidence from coal mining was a significant problem for much of the life of the canal. The Lapal Tunnel was regularly affected, and a section near Blackbrook Junction fell into mine workings in 1894. The route was restored, but the short Two Locks Line nearby was abandoned in 1909, and the Lapal Tunnel, which has used a pump and stop-locks to create flows to assist the boats in their passage, suffered the same fate in 1917. Most of the canal was abandoned in the 1960s, but a committee was formed, which became the Dudley Canal Trust, and restoration took place, culminating in the reopening of Dudley Tunnel in 1973. Lapal Tunnel remains closed, and although the Lapal Tunnel Trust originally campaigned for it to be reopened, they have modified their plans to include a surface route, following the conclusion of an engineering study.

The first canal connecting Birmingham to the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal (and hence the River Severn, River Trent, and River Mersey) was the Birmingham Canal. This joined the Staffordshire and Worcestershire at Aldersley, near Wolverhampton. The Dudley Canal was seen as part of a scheme to transport coal from coalfields near Dudley to Stourbridge, where it would be used for industry. Limestone and ironstone were other potential cargos. A meeting was held in Stourbridge in February 1775, at which Robert Whitworth was commissioned to survey a route, and the whole cost of the project was promised. The principal promoter was Lord Dudley, and the route ran from Dudley to Stourton on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire. A bill was placed before Parliament in the spring, but there was opposition from the Birmingham Canal Company, and the promoters withdrew it. They then split the canal into two parts, and presented bills for the Stourbridge Canal and the Dudley Canal, both of which became Acts of Parliament on 2 April 1776, despite further opposition from Birmingham.