Clayton's Yard, Oldbury

A whole fleet of tarboats are tied up here at the yard of Thomas Clayton (Oldbury) Limited on the Titford Canal. Thes boats carried gasworks bye products such as gas tar and ammonia water to Midland Tar Distillers at Oldbury and from the mid 1950s at Four Ashes on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal. Until the mid 1950s they also brought gas oil from Stanlow on the Manchester Ship Canal. Clayton's canal operations ran down in the 1960s and their yard seen here disappeared under the M5 motorway viaduct after 1966.