Bridges on the Garrison locks GU

[Karma Dreams]

The other day whilst going through these locks I was noting the odd little 'boxy' type openings high up on the bridge span (I dont know how to post a pic of one of these)!

Some of these had been bricked up and some had a wooden door over the square openings!!! Did see one where the door was a tiny bit ajar and could see traffic crossing the bridge.... Anyone got any ideas of what these were used for as not that deep to hold anything... and too high for any boater to reach from the boat.. but really weird... must have been for some purpose when the bridges were built... so over to the experts..... Have any forum members familar with seeing these?

[ditchcrawler]

Fire pump suction pipes

[john6767]

Yes they are for the fire brigade to drop a hose down to the canal, most road bridges on the BCN have them. Often the door is painted red.

[David Mack]

Yes they are for the fire brigade to drop a hose down to the canal, most road bridges on the BCN have them. Often the door is painted red.

I believe they were installed in WWII.

[OldGoat]

As David Mack says - they were installed in WW2.

I understand in London there was a distribution system of hoses and intermediate pumps starting with pump houses on several Thames bridges.

I wonder whether a similar system was installed in Brum. Instead of a fire appliance "just dropping a hose in t'cut", I wonder whether there was a network of hoses built around the city? A bit anorak-ish, but all part of canal history - a lot of which has disappeared / been forgotten.

 

Any ideas?

[Karma Dreams]

Cheers for the replies..... As always you lot always come up trumps.... lol. Yes I can see their use now.. wow another thing I can impress my friends with .. You learn something new every day... I'm really impressed with this bit of history that I would never have known about without asking on here... shame though that this sort of history is going to be 'buried in the past'...

[ditchcrawler]

I passed one, but was to slow to get a photo that had a wooden roller mounted at the bottom of the door to aid lowering and retrieving the hose.Some of the doors looked to be well maintained where as others didn't look as if they had been touched for years. I wonder what the policy is today?

[Peter & Maureen H]

One of my ex bosses who used to work on the rubbish boats in Brum told me the council used to empty the rubbish carts into the boat thru these. Is there any truth in this dual purpose usage?