History of the Wyrley & Essington Canal

The Wyrley & Essington Canal was built in the 1790s following an Act authorising a canal from Wolverhampton to the collieries at Wyrley Bank and Essington. The canal company later secured a further Act that enabled them to extend the line to Brownhills and then descend through 30 locks to Huddlesford on the Coventry Canal, plus the Daw End Branch to the Hay Head Limeworks and a short branch to Lord Hay's quarries.

It currently extends from Horseley Fields Junction to Ogley Junction on the Birmingham Canal Navigations. The line via Ogley Locks to Huddlesford has lain derelict for decades but is now being restored. The Cannock Extension Canal runs northwards from Pelsall Common and is truncated by the A5; the section beyond here connecting with the Staffs & Worcs Canal is also being restored. The Anglesey Branch continues to Chasewater Reservoir.

Nicknamed the 'Curly Wyrley' due to its twisting course it skirts the northern BCN passing through what is now the rural Pelsall Common, once the site of Pelsall Iron Works. Major traffic on the Wyrley & Essington was coal from the Cannock pits. Boats were gauged for toll purposes at a number of narrows formed by islands in the canal, several of which had characteristic octagonal toll offices.

Although built as a contour canal, in which the line followed the contours of the land, the Wyrley & Essington has been badly affected by subsidence occurring in the mines it was built to serve and continual repairs have led to some sections now running on high embankments. Water supply was also a perennial problem.

The Bentley Canal linked the Wyrley & Essington with the Walsall Canal via the Anson Branch. One of the last major branches of the BCN to be lost, it was abandoned by the 1960s. Its junction with the Wyrley & Essington is now denoted by a modern pub and retail development.