Banana Warehouse

The canals of Britain used to be the transport arteries of the country and helped facilitate the early industrial revolution. The building of the railways from the 19th century onwards and later on the modern road network helped consign business traffic on the canals to history by the 1970s (though it had largely gone well before that).

Alongside today's rejuvenated and leisure focussed canal network we can still see the relics of the industrial and business transport past. The Banana Warehouse is an example of a former canal side business. The building in Birmingham was built around 1840 and was formerly owned by fruit merchants Geest, it is alongside the Grand Union Canal and has an canopy over the loading area. The building is Grade II listed and there are plans to renovate the building as part of the Warwick Bar Conservation Area plans.

The Warwick Bar itself is the name of the lock that is alongside the warehouse (and can be seen in the photograph below). As the Grand Union and the Digbeth Branch Canals which join here were owned by different companies a stop lock was installed to stop water from being "stolen" from one company to the other.