Engine House Adjoining Top Lock Of Oldbury Locks, South Of Engine Street Birmingham Canal Titford Branch

The engine house adjoining the top lock of Oldbury Locks, located south of Engine Street on the Birmingham Canal Titford Branch, is a pumping engine house that is now partly used as a warehouse. It was built shortly after the opening of Oldbury Locks in 1837. The structure is made of blue brick and features roofs of slate and corrugated asbestos.

The south wall has twin gables from two parallel ranges, with the right-hand range set slightly forward. Each range has a first-floor window with a segmental head and a ground-floor doorway; the right-hand doorway is partly blocked and has an elliptical head. The left-hand return wall is partly covered by a single-storey lean-to. On the first floor, there are four windows with segmental heads and iron glazing bars. The right-hand return wall consists of four bays, with windows that have segmental heads and iron glazing bars, except for the left-hand window on the first floor. There is a blocked window on the right, with a doorway to a fire escape above it on the first floor.

At the rear, there is a lower range with a truncated chimney projecting from its west wall. The engine house originally housed two beam engines and four boilers that recirculated water from the Wolverhampton level back to the Titford Canal, operating at 11 strokes per minute and lifting five million gallons a day. The beam engines were replaced by a Tangye gas engine around 1930, which has since been replaced by electric pumps that are still used occasionally. The engine house is situated at the junction with Spon Lane Branch, part of the Titford Feeder that was made navigable in the early 1870s.