Spaghetti Junction

Today’s the day ........................... for a city break

We spent a thankfully uneventful night moored up at Star City – an area of Birmingham where there are several huge casinos and nightclubs. 

At Salford Junction, we turned a very sharp right off the Grand Union on to the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal and found ourselves sandwiched between the backs of factories and the M6 motorway.  It is for good reason that this part of the M6 is called Spaghetti Junction – a writhing mass of exit roads and carriageways that make you wonder how it was ever designed and built in the first place.  And how reassuring to pass quietly beneath the whole lot of it.

The route passes a major electricity high voltage distribution centre before reaching Erdington Hall, where a factory has been built right over the canal, almost forming a tunnel.  Close by was Fort Dunlop, where the Dunlop Rubber Co made pneumatic tyres, employing 10,000 workers at the peak of production in the 1950s .....................