17-05-2025
I visited Midland home with rare garden 'tower' you won't find anywhere else
Take a trip down several streets in the Black Country, and you'll find homes with unique design features.
In fact, you'll likely find them nowhere else in the country.
That's because these features are linked to canals, and the Black Country has many miles of them.
READ MORE: I journeyed into forgotten Midlands Victorian tunnel and spent 41 minutes in eerie darkness
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But you have to head to one corner of the region in particular to spot them - across the Dudley and Sandwell border.
Known as 'pepper pots', these are small brick towers with dome-shaped metal grills on top.
They are actually air vents for the Netherton Canal Tunnel that lies in the depths of the ground below.
There are a total of eight shafts running along the length of 1.7-mile tunnel spanning between Netherton and Tividale.
Because the tunnel was built long before many homes in the area, back in 1858, its vents have ended up in people's gardens which came later on.
That includes an air vent situated in the front garden of a home in Packwood Road, Tividale.
Although it appears an odd feature of the street, the homeowner has planted pink flowers around the base of it to make it look 'nice and tidy'.
The resident, a 90-year-old woman who wished to remain anonymous, explained how ivy used to grow up the side of it too but this was removed by the water board.
Although the woman, who has lived there since 1987, owns the land, she says the water board owns the shaft and she's not allowed to touch it.
Revealing how she hear sounds from the tunnel below, the woman said: "Sometimes, you can hear children playing down there and canal boats chugging along."
Asked if the air vent was a draw factor for purchasing the house, she said: "We had it looked at. The solicitor didn't want us to buy it.
"The house isn't under the tunnel. We have never had any issues with it."
She added: "These (air vents) go all the way to Netherton. There is one on Regent Road nearby."
Meanwhile, a resident on Regent Road, whose backgarden features an air vent, declined to comment but said they weren't aware of what the air vent was beforehand.
And a third air vent is located right around the corner on Aston Road, however that one exists as a small roundabout in the middle of the street, with its dome cut off.
However, a separate air vent is located around two miles away on Station Road, in Old Hill, which acts as the sole airshaft for the 0.3-mile-long Gorsty Hill Tunnel, a separate canal tunnel in the Black Country.
For the Netherton Canal Tunnel, a total of 17 shafts were built into the crowd but the other nine were filled in, leaving the remaining eight air vents.
The tunnel remains open today and takes around 40 minutes to walk.
