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Nine Locks - The Delph  
O.S. Ref   919.866

The last remaining old lock from the original flight of nine, built in 1779, linking the Stourbridge canal at Black Delph with the Dudley canal and Parkhead. During the 1800's the flight began to slip and subside as a result of local mining activities, and in 1858 a new flight was opened, with only eight locks.

In 1869 the adjacent Nine Locks Colliery, also known as The Earl of Dudley's No 29 pit, suffered a disaster and 13 colliers were trapped when the mine flooded. It took five and a half days for rescuers to lower the floodwater sufficiently and reach the men by raft. Only one man had died, he had lost his reason, torn off his clothes and disappeared into the working.

The Delph was an area of clay, ironstone and coal mines, which supplied raw materials to the glass works in Wordsley.