Built in 1772, as part of the BCN that links Birmingham and Wolverhampton to the Black Country.
The canal was first built as a contour canal, which looped around the hill sides avoiding locks as much as nessessary.
Then in the 1820's the canal was modernised by Thomas Telford, with straight cuttings, canal feeders and an improved water supply (Rotten Park Reservoir).
This accounts for todays strange canal layout. This canal forms part of a loop that once rejoined the BCN at Bloomfield Junction near to Ox Leasows Bridge.
Most of the old loop was lost in the 1960's, and the remains of the loop is very shallow past Glasshouse Bridge now.
For an urban canal, its quiet pleasant as it winds its way through the heart of the West Midlands. Most of the industry and mining is no more the canal to some extent forgotten but not abandoned.
The book The Birmingham Canal Navigations by the Birmingham Branch I.W.A, gives an idear what the canal was like.