Discovering the old canal route into Hereford from the East by Tony Higgins

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Arrive at the large car park in Aylestone park you will see a slipway almost opposite the kiddies play area. Start by facing the water. On your right you’ll see a fenced off area full of reeds, this is a weir, that does not work! It was constructed in 2010 at the time the canal was last dredged but was never finished as the outlet letting the water run out to the stream, on your far right, was not possible because of the gas main Its location indicated by the red and white post, was in the way. The Herefordshire and Gloucestershire Canal Trust (H&GCT) has drawn up plans to complete this outlet, avoiding the gas main but as the water drains ok via the ‘temporary sluice’ at the current end of the canal it has never manged to become the number one priority. 

The Hereford and Gloucester (H&G) canal was started in Gloucester in 1792 but was not completed into Hereford until 1845 so the piece of canal you are standing by was first dug out in around 1843 at which time it was, of course, out in the countryside. To your right the line of the old canal runs northwards to the Roman Road and on to Shelwick where there was an aqueduct over the Lugg, long since removed. To your left the path, tow path perhaps, runs along the side of the canal and in towards the city. On the opposite bank from the park are now the main Land Rover agent and a food processing plant.  The far bank of the canal has become wild since the last dredging and provides a reedy, briery home for the ducks, moorhens and other wild things. 

To commence your walk, turn left and follow the path to the end of the end of the park and beyond keeping the canal on your right. Although it is only slight you are gradually walking uphill, the canal is already looking lower as it enters the cutting which leads to the tunnel under the hill, Aylestone Tunnel.  There are now narrow wild areas to both left and right with housing and industrial buildings beyond respectively. The canal on your right still has a small amount of water in from a number of small local sources / drains but badly needs dredging. 

Speaking to a local resident recently he showed me his phone with the ‘Merlin’ bird call identification app. He said he had recorded, 70 species over the course of a few years including a kingfisher that morning. 

A little further on you will come to a new housing development to your right which is built on the site of the old tile works which later became a somewhat down at heal business park. There is a long tale to tell regarding this housing development about original plans to restore the canal with housing alongside a bridge and even possibly a café. There are some lovely artists impressions. Alas two bankrupt builders and much fuss later the plans are now simply for social housing and a landscaped, filled in, canal line. There exists an S106 agreement to transfer ownership of the land over the canal to the H&GCT though what the Trust can do with it is an open question as the old cutting has long ago been filled in with whatever muck was to hand over the last 100 years and the council planners have decreed that all the land of the old business park, including that under the houses and over the canal, is covered with an impermeable membrane and 300-600 mm of clean soil, for health and safety pollution risk reasons.

As you approach the new development there is a path on your right crossing the line of the canal. Take this cross path and continue up along the new road, Brook Way. Glancing to your right as you cross the line of the canal you may see some concrete works this is the top of a water brake that the builders have installed right in the middle of the line of the canal which is designed to control the flow of storm water from the estate. It should have been over to one side but whomsoever was in charge at the time omitted to notice that it was in the wrong place. At the time of writing the land to your left, the line of the canal, is still being used as an area for temporary storage but will, we are promised, be landscaped before the builders leave, currently December 2026. Turn left up the road (Brook Way) keeping houses to your right and the canal line now on your left. 

Your walk now approaches one of the more exciting moments. As you approach College Road at the end of the new houses there is a fence and another wild area. Looking over the fence, you will see a ‘hole’, at the bottom of which is a portal, not into another dimension unfortunately, but which is the original 1844 entrance to Aylestone tunnel. A 400 meter tunnel under Aylestone hill allowing the canal to continue into the heart of the city of Hereford. Rumour has it that the tunnel is intact and this is born out by the fact that the railway line runs over the top of the tunnel which should be inspected every so often by the railway authorities. The level of the silt/water at the portal is at least a meter higher than it should be were the canal still in use. Inside this tunnel are possibly bats and other things of interest as well as the inevitable tipped rubbish. Although you may not feel you have been walking uphill it is now clear as the level of water at the tunnel entrance shows how far you have climbed. You can appreciate the work that will be required to dig out the cutting, but, from an access point of view, work can start on clearing the tunnel before the excavation of the cutting… that’s the exciting bit.

Having viewed the tunnel bear in mind that it goes straight under the hill as you walk the next section to see the other end.  Cross straight over College road and follow the grass path in front of you which, in around 100 meters meets another road, Old School Lane, where you turn right over the railway. If your sense of direction is strong, you will notice that the railway line curving round to the left is at an angle to the line of the tunnel which continues straight from where you last saw it, thus the rali line crosses over the canal tunnel.

Cross the railway and then, taking care, cross Old School Lane. Around 50 meters on your left, take the footpath between the green fencing. On your right is Wiggin Special Metals. Industry in the heart of Hereford… interesting if not pretty. A short way along the footpath you cross a bridge which goes over what was the access railway for the factory in years gone by.  At the far end of the bridge there is a communications mast, stop just after this and look through the fence to your left. About 300 meters away there are some large trees with a church tower in the background. These mark the western portal of the tunnel. The land here is being developed for ‘grid scale energy storage’ by Terra Firma Energy and is not currently accessible to the public, however this is another interesting string to Hereford city’s bow.

The next bit is just walking on this narrow path beside industrial areas, but don’t worry as it gets more interesting shortly. 

As you come to the end of the path you are on you need to cross the entrance to the industrial area and head straight onto the path in front of you with the new Medical Centre to your right. At the end of this path you come into a more open paved area. Take to the roadway and follow it round to your left and you come out onto Burcott Road. Keep to the left and through the fence on your left you can see the same trees that you saw marking the western portal of the tunnel. You are now standing on the line of the old canal. You are overlooking the Balfour’s steel fabrication yard that now covers the original cutting up to the tunnel portal. It is thought that the white (in 2026!) buildings in front of you are old canal buildings. 

Burcott road is the line of the canal at this point. Keeping to the left, walk down the canal/road and you come to a narrow section where the railway crossed over the canal. The bridge itself is no longer there but the abutments are and next to the right hand one at ground level you can see the old GWR Boundary Post, but I don’t think they own the land anymore! Also on the right the coping stones look very like they could be the original side of the canal though it is very hard to be sure. Think back to Aylestone Park, the level of the ground you are on is exactly the same level as when you started your walk. There were no locks between the park, via the tunnel, into the town basin and water can be guaranteed to stay level, usually.

Walking, with extravagant care, through the bridge hole continue along Burcott Road till you come to the Retail Park (Curry’s etc.) on your right and take the next right onto Farriers Way. Stop on the bridge and look to your right over the car park; it is bordered by a green cutting that looks like it might have a stream at the bottom. When the retail park was built it was built over the line of the canal and with the objective of maintaining a protected route for the canal, the Trust, the Council and the builders agreed to create this alternative route around and to the back of, the retail park.  Unfortuately it does not go round the back as far as the turn in Burcott road…. but it easily could without much disturbance to the industrial units behind. Turning to the other side of the bridge the cutting continues till it disappears into Tudors Builders storage area. This area is again the line of the canal (to the right of where Burcott Road rises to cross the railway.  The line of the canal carries straight on from here under the College Road bridge and on straight towards where the Station Medical Centre now stands. 

Walking up Burcott road past Tudors there is no footpath but a safer way to the College Road bridge is to go straight on along Farriers Way to the roundabout then left along Newtown Road and left at the next roundabout up onto College Road Bridge. Stop on the Bridge and look over the parapet and imagine how it must have looked in the late 1800s with barge traffic moving towards the basin just along the cut to where Jessops builders merchants now stands on the city side of City Link Road. The stones of the parapet of the bridge are original and perhaps still echo the old vibrations of the horses hooves and the shouts of the navvies as they manoeuvred the barges. Sadly the council had forgotten or ignored the canal when they built City Link Road. From the bridge you will see Yazor brook running a straight line through the yard ahead. 

Though difficult there remain options for bringing the canal back to the centre of Hereford. If you walk back down from the College Road bridge and keep left and left you come onto City Link Road and notice there is a bit of wild land to your left as the road rises slightly towards the Medical Centre. This land has been earmarked as an ‘attenuation basin’ as part of the Merton Meadows flood alleviation scheme and a basin is a basin and can have water in it? 

One last item of interest on the walk is to cross over City Link Road and take the first right after the Post Office yard onto Station Approach. Walk along till the road divides and there is a footpath in front of you leading towards the city centre. Go along that path and you come out onto a road, whose name is ‘Canal Road’… I wonder why that might be.