Copyright © Mark Pedley. All rights reserved.

One of my favorite places to visit when in Birmingham is the canal area near Gas Street Basin and Brindley Place. Located directly in the centre of the city, the canal area has received a massive facelift over the past decade, transforming it into a hip place with modern cafes and bars, fine restaurants, and upmarket canal side accommodation. Despite massive investment, the area retains an atmosphere of tradition dating back to the Industrial Revolution, the time when Birmingham and it's outskirts thrived on heavy industry, and when canals were the major transport route for moving goods into and out of the region.

Copyright © Mark Pedley. All rights reserved.

The canal network also runs directly past Birmingham University and the student campus. When I was a student, I used to paddle in my canoe from the campus to the university every morning, even in winter when the canal was covered in a thin layer of ice. The trip was quiet and peaceful, no vehicles, no people, just faint remnants of the industrial age just visible beneath the bushes and trees that had taken back control of these backwaters. The silence  broke by my paddle breaking the ice.

In a later article, I will present a few images of the stretch of canal I used to paddle along. I walked the stretch back in 2009. It is the same today as it was at the beginning of the eighties when I was studying at Birmingham University.