| AdminHistory | Also called Lord Ward's Branch (another Lord Ward's branch runs from the north end of Dudley Tunnel to the Birmingham Canal Navigations' main line). The canal was a 1.25 mile level canal from Park Head basin on the Dudley Canal to the Earl of Dudley's Round Oak Ironworks. The canal was built between 1839 and 1840, and was closed to traffic over one hundred years later in 1950. Today the Pensnett Canal leaves Parkhead in a southerly direction, almost parallel to the main line but hidden from view behind buildings.After passing under the railway viaduct its course has been filled in beside a works. Beyond here its path can be seen but it is not accessible. At Blackbrook Road the canal's course can be followed heading south west but this only via a narrow path between high walls. The canal itself has been built on. Pedmore Road (A4036) now crosses the canal on an embankment but beyond it the canal is in water for a short stretch - used as a works cooling pond. The next stretch varies from very narrow to built on to fairly wide and weedy. Brierley Hill Iron Works are on the south eastern bank while the wharf of the former Hartshill Iron Works is on the opposite bank. This was where the last traffic to use the canal was based. The abutments of an old tramline bridge can be seen nearby. |
| The earliest mention of Hartshill Ironworks is in a mortgage for the ironworks, engine house, lathe house, furnaces, warehouses and machinery by William Jeffries to Benjamin Morris of Dudley is on 5 March 1853, but earlier documents refer to mortgages and conveyances for land at Hartshill next to the canal, to William Jeffries in 1846, 1847 and 1848. The ironworks were finally sold to William Jeffries in 1859. In 1861 notice was given for the sale of Hartshill ironworks because of the bankruptcy of Jeffries and others. The deeds were put up by George Wood of Lye as part of the purchase price of the "New and Old Harts Hill Ironworks" on 31 Dec 1862. In 1866 there is a conveyance of the ironworks to Samuel Hingley and William Robinson Smith. Various mortgages and conveyances show the ironworks in the hands of the Hingley Group of companies when they were taken over by F. H. Lloyd Ltd in 1966. Hartshill Ironworks must have been closed around 1970 as no mention can be found after that year. |