Peter's Waterways Blog Black Sabbath We need the Canal and River Trust to protect our waterways heritage.

We moored in the centre of Birmingham outside the SeaLife Centre and walked towards Gas Street Basin, passing under Broad Street Tunnel, and were surprised to fnd a new, blue, Canal and River Trust sign about the renaming of the Broad Street Bridge as "Black Sabbath Bridge"

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"Black Sabbath Bridge. Formally known as Broad Street Bridge, this bridge was renamed in 2019 in recognition of Birmingham's famous rock band, Black Sabbath "Formed in 1968, the band is often credited as being the pioneer of heavy metal and is one of the city's most famous exports. Black Sabbath is not the only link Birmingham has to metal - the connection goes all the way back to medieval times. "During the Industrial Revolution, Birmingham and its jewellry quarter had a reputation as the 'workshop of the world' thanks to its use of casting metal. Hot liquid metal was poured into sand casts leading to the city becoming famous for items including buckles, belts, snuff boxes and jewellery."

This all seemed, in journalistic terms, poor copy. It tries to link unconnected items relating to 'metal', and Black Sabbath had, according to their Wikipaedia entry, no liknk to the canal system, nor to any historic pouring of metal in Birmingham. So as guardians of our canalling heritage, Canal and River Trust seem to be jumping on an unconnected bandwagon, giving away an historic name for no advantage.

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On the way down Farmers' Bridge locks, there were a group of cyclists hurtling as they do, down the locks and they stopped to ask whether they had passed the new Black Sabbath Bridge, which they had. The wanted some photographs of them with the new bridge sign, which they could now achieve on their return journey. So we have recruited some new canal adherents, however unconnected to canal heritage.

Whether Broad Street bridge was the best bridge to rename may be debatable. At least this bridge on the Daw End Branch has the 'Black' already and could more easily be renamed. As you do.

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Peter Scott @peterjohnscott