The route was restored but the short Two Locks Line nearby was abandoned in 1909 and the Lapal Tunnel suffered the same fate in 1917.

A meeting was held in Stourbridge in February 1775 at which Robert Whitworth was commissioned to survey a route and the whole cost of the project was promised.

A bill was placed before Parliament in the spring but there was opposition from the Birmingham Canal Company and the promoters withdrew it.

Dadford was paid off, Pinkerton had to pay half of his £4,000 bond and work restarted with Isaac Pratt in charge.

He finished the tunnel, built a new junction with the Birmingham Canal at Tipton and a reservoir at Gad's Green.

Clowes died in early 1796 and Underhill managed the whole project for a year after which Robert Whitworth carried out an inspection.

Lord Dudley resigned from the committee at this point, having steered the company through twenty-two year of construction.

There were complaints that the tunnel was often blocked by unattended limestone boats but this problem seems to have been resolved by 1799 although there is no mention of how this was achieved.

The tunnel was also affected by subsidence from local coal mining and was regularly closed to allow repairs to be made.

In 1841, the superintendent of the canal, Thomas Brewin, devised a scheme which used a steam pumping engine and stop locks at either end of the tunnel to create a flow which assisted the movement of the boats.

This proved successful for it continued to be used until 1914 and Brewin was awarded plate worth £50 in recognition of his contribution.

[10] In 1838, a 400-yard (370 m) cut was made at Lodge Farm to divert the canal and make room for a storage reservoir and pumping engine and the short Withymoor branch was built in 1842.

It was found necessary to build an invert through the tunnel because of unstable ground caused by mining below its line and large retaining walls were required at each end.

The short Two Locks Line was built to reduce the distance travelled by boats passing through the Lapal Tunnel and heading for the Stourbridge Canal.

It saw considerable traffic with coal and limestone passing southwards and blast furnace slag making the return journey.

Subsidence affected the canal in 1894 when a section near Blackbrook Junction, including part of the Two Lock Line, fell into mine workings.

The line is now under a late 20th century industrial estate and only the junctions, towpath bridges and a few yards of watered but unnavigable canal remain.

[17] After repeated collapses, Lapal Tunnel was abandoned in June 1917[15] leaving a short stretch navigable between Selly Oak and a brick works at California until 1953, after which it was drained and filled in.

After a period of disuse following nationalisation in 1948, the first suggestions that the canal and others should be restored were made by the newly formed Inland Waterways Protection Society (IWPS) in 1959.

[18] However, the British Transport Commission presented their annual Bill in 1961, in which the Dudley Canal and Tunnel were scheduled to be closed immediately, with no provision to safeguard the route for future restoration.

[23] In December 1970, the Birmingham Canal Navigations Working Party produced a report, which was published in early 1971.

This plan of action had formed part of the Transport Act 1968, and was adopted soon afterwards for the Dudley Tunnel Branch.

[22] In early 1972, Dudley Corporation announced that they would provide half of the cost of restoration, and that the Park Head end of the Tunnel would be landscaped as part of a derelict land regeneration scheme.

The railway had closed in 1967, and the basin had been unused since then, but thirty boats attended the rally, and the Combeswood Canal Trust developed plans for turning it into a marina.

It was suggested, by members of the trust in attendance, that this may have been the first vessel to operate beyond Harborne Lane Wharf, since the brickworks at the Eastern end of the Lapal Tunnel was closed in 1926.

[32] Above the locks, the canal passes Merry Hill Shopping Centre, built on the site of Round Oak Steelworks after its closure in 1983.

2 turns off to the south-east, but the original line continues through three locks to a junction with the remains of the Pensnett Canal and the Grazebrook Arm, and into the southern portal of Dudley Tunnel.

[31] A short arm managed by the Withymoor Island Trust is located on the west bank and is used for moorings.

This was once the main line, but the embanked route which cuts off the loop was built as part of the Netherton Tunnel project.

Another part of the old loop, the Boshboil Arm, turns to the west opposite Windmill End Junction, where to the north lies the southern portal of Netherton Tunnel.