Page:Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham.djvu/342

330 Row, up the Birchfield Road; 8th, from Six Ways, Birchfield, along the Lozells Road to Villa Cross, and from the Lozells Road along Wheeler Street to Constitution Hill, forming a junction with the original Hockley and Snow Hill line. The system of lines projected by the Western Districts Co., include: 1st, commencing in Edmund Street, near the Great Western Railway Station, along Congreve Street, Summer Row, Parade, Frederick Street, and Vyse Street, to join the Hockley line; 2nd, as before to Parade, along the Sandpits, Spring Hill to borough boundary in Dudley Road, and along Heath Street to Smethwick; 3rd, as before to Spring Hill, thence in one direction along Monument Road to Hagley Road, and in the opposite direction along Icknield Street to Hockley ; 4th, starting from Lower Temple Street, along Hill Street, Hurst Street, Sherlock Street to the borough boundary in Pershore Road, and from Sherlock Street, by way of Gooch Street, to Balsall Heath; 5th, byway of Holloway Head. Bath Row, and Islington to the Five Ways. The whole of the lines now in use and being constructed in the Borough are the property of the Corporation, who lease them to the several Companies, the latter making the lines outside the borough themselves, and keeping them in repair. The average cost of laying down is put at 50s. per yard for single line, or £5 per yard for double lines, the cost of the metal rail itself being about 20s. per yard.

Trees in Streets.—Though a few trees were planted along the Bristol Road in 1853, and a few others later in some of the outskirts, the system cannot be fairly said to have started till the spring of 1876, when about 100 plane trees were planted in Broad Street, 100 limes in Bristol Street, 20 Canadian poplars in St. Martin's church-yard, a score or so of plane trees near Central Station, and a number in Gosta Green and the various playgrounds belonging to Board Schools, a few elms, sycamores, and Ontario poplars being mixed with them. As a matter of historical fact, the first were put in the ground Nov. 29, 1885, in Stephenson Place.

Tunnels.—The tunnel on the Worcester and Birmingham Canal, near King's Norton, is 2,695 yards long, perfectly straight, 17½ft. wide, and 18ft. high. In the centre a basin is excavated sufficiently wide for barges to pass without inconvenience; and in this underground chamber in August, 1795, the Royal Arch Masons held a regular chapter of their order, rather an arch way of celebrating the completion of the undertaking. The other tunnels on this canal are 110, 120, 406, and 524 yards in length. On the old' Birmingham Canal there are two, one being 2,200 yards long and the other l,010 yards. On the Loudon and Birmingham Railway (now London and North Western) the Watford tunnel is 1,830 yards long, the Kisley tunnel 2,423 yards, and Primrose Hill 1,250 yards. On the Great Western line the longest is the Box tunnel, 3,123 yards in length. The deepest tunnel in England pierces the hills between Great Malvern and Herefordshire, being 600ft. from the rails to the surface; it is 1,560 yards in length. The longest tunnels in the country run under the range of hills between Marsden in Yorkshire and Diggle in Lancashire, two being for railway and one canal use. One of the former is 5,434 yards, and the other (Stanedge, on the L. & N. W.) 5,435 yards long, while the canal tunnel is 5,451 yards.

Turnpike Gates.—At one time there were gates or bars on nearly every road out of the town. Even at the bottom of Worcester Street there was a bar across the road in 1818. There was once a gate at the junction of Hang'sman Line (our Great Hampton Row) and Constitution Hill, which, being shifted further on, to about the spot where Green and Cadbury's Works now are, remained till 1839. The gate