Over and Under in Coseley

Led by Keith Hodgkins, Wednesday 9th July 2025, 6.45pm for a 7.00pm start.

Meet at Coseley Railway Station car park, Gough Road’ Coseley’ WV14 8XP

The centre of Coseley sits on rising ground at 520 feet above sea level. This is barely noticeable in the motor age, but in the 1770s it caused the engineer James Brindley to lay out the Birmingham Canal on a wide sweeping loop which followed the 473-foot contour around the eastern side of the hill. In 1837 the Coseley tunnel was built to bypass the loop as part of Thomas Telford`s improvements to the BCN, which cut the canal mileage between Bloomfield and Deepfields by three miles. Then in 1852 the railway sliced through the hill in a steeply sided deep cutting. The walk will meander over the top of the hill alongside the top of the railway cutting and explore beneath through the 360-yard canal tunnel. The walk length is about two miles with a very steep, stepped descent onto the canal towpath.