The Black Path was so called because it was originally surfaced with cinders. It was a footbridge built in the early 20th century across the railway to help workers living in Rugby reach the British Thomson Houston factory site. It was clearly where photographer Victor Long stood to take his photograph of the BTH factory.
The Black Path today
The bridge still survives today (though rather truncated at the northern end) and I made use of it to take my ‘after’ picture of the BTH site. The path is still black(ish), but surfaced with tarmac now and metal mesh has been added to prevent things falling onto the railway. The Black Path links to the Viaduct Cycle path that makes use of an old railway line that used to lead off (skirting the BTH factory site) to a viaduct across the Leicester Road.
Comments
I recall the redesigning of the black path: the wooden steps on the GEC/Newbold side has slowly worn away so in wet weather it felt very slippery. In order to save money one side of the path was to be done by the council, the other by GEC. The council side was done with a slow ramp – it had wheelchair access. The GEC/Newbold side was done with steps only as they were trying to make the best use of the steps. So the entire thing had ‘half’ wheelchair access.
Alun – thanks for this fascinating memory – a splendid example of the right hand not knowing what the left was doing! What sort of date would this have been? (I think both sides have ramp access now as I saw people on bicycles using it.)
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