Archive for the ‘Drains’ Category
YouMissed, Manchester
January 2010
After sleeping in most of the day following a night of drinking and telling stories at Nckt’s, we eventually left the flat in the middle of the afternoon. YouMissed was the destination, a sizeable concrete box culvert that goes for a few hundred metres under the city. Compared to normal conditions, the rain of the night before had caused it to shit itself, in drain speak. We stepped into the flow and walked over the weir, carefully navigating our way past the gushing waters which threatened to push us over.
Bunker, Warrington
January 2011
Following a rainy day in North Wales, I met with Jim Gillette and Agour, notorious ne’er-do-wells of the North West. Clutching packets of 3 for £1 tesco sweets and already sopping waders, we bundled down a hill towards a brick outfall that turned out to be a 30 metre pipe to an open brook. Wow. Sticking close to the bank of the river, we moved down towards the real deal, Bunker. Read the rest of this entry »
Blood Creek
January 2011
‘Rivers of Blood’
It’s rude not to stop on a long journey and let a drain take you in. Blood Creek is a culvert through Stoke-on-Trent, named for the iron deposits that colour the water towards the outfall, where I entered. There’s a couple of hundred yards of anonymous pipe before concrete ledges appear, and eventually the pipe turns into solid RCP.
International Drain Meet
January 2011
The International Drain Meet was a celebration of drainors, and a great chance to meet parties from other areas that we haven’t taken the opportunity to acquaint ourselves with yet. Represented were London, Manchester, North East England, Paris, Canada, Brescia Underground and UE Kingz, and it was a pleasure to meet and spend time in The River Westbourne with all present.
Partake Read the rest of this entry »
Captain Birdseye’s Flo Selecta
November 2010
A social event took me to Lincolnshire, a detour took me to a frozen over carpark, where young men in souped up hatchbacks skidded around on the ice, perilously close to my own motor car. Beneath the car park flowed a drain, and as I wandered across to the waterside, I got a few funny looks, which quickly subsided when the reckless teens collided with a bang.
‘Drainor’ Read the rest of this entry »
Crypt – November 2010
Given our lack of ability to find this on the basis that we knew what end of town it was in and that you could hear it roar as you walked over the lid, this was eventually remarkably easy. The Manchester contingent of Nckt, Concrete Jungle and Eotech had arrived earlier in the evening and we started the evening with another pleasant but photoless roam around the middle reaches of the Tyburn.
ArchesHoly Brook – November 2010
‘Gimme Shelter‘
It’s that other thing in Reading we just hadn’t done. Holy Brook has largely been ignored on the assumption that it probably wasn’t much good, it definitely wasn’t very big, it wasn’t a drain, it wasn’t a sewer, it was just a bit of a trickle that got in the way and so was covered at some point. Nevertheless, these things do need looking into.
Just One Pic – November 2010
I went into the Westbourne with Neb. We walked up to the point The Westbourne (aka the Ranelagh Sewer) intersects the Middle Level No 1 Sewer, and then returned and walked through to where it meets the Tyburn. The Egg is the Storm relief for The Westbourne, and as such, the configuration is slightly irregular in order to ensure the water goes where it’s meant to.
Confusion
A relatively sweaty, sticky, misty hike, we stopped just once for a photograph, an opportunity to see the point The Egg and the Westbourne meet briefly so that The Westbourne can overflow into The Egg to store excess storm water. On the left is the point whereby the Westbourne can flow down into The Egg during heavy flow. As that tunnel running perpendicular to the shot continues, it becomes part of the Storm Relief, eventually flowing into the Low Level sewer at the outfall. On the right of the image is the natural course of The Westbourne, leading south to the Tyburn.. Behind the camera is the rest of The Egg. This section of crossover has always confused, me, but I think I’ve got it now.. (If you know better, please correct me!)
Mistaken Identity – October 2010
This trip was sponsored by cans of the good stuff and giant orange sweets. We headed up out of London on the Friday evening, with a couple of culverts to check out in Birmingham. Through a prickly bush and into an open section close to the canal, we entered what was a pair of concrete box culverts with a thin layer of slime on the surface of them. Slipping and sliding along our way, these soon opened out to a junction containing a CSO overflow and the main flow of the culvert.
Parallel pipes Read the rest of this entry »
Labyrinth – October 2010
Mr N was the only one able to participate in tonight’s activities, so the two of us headed down from Reading Town to London, and went promptly to the lid we’d identified at the weekend. After climbing into the bowels of the earth, we had a choice to either walk along the middle level sewer which was flooded with piss, pigs blood, fat from Chinese restaurants, shit, used tamps and johns and various old body parts. OR we could go deeper into the North Kensington Relief sewer, a deliciously slippery 5 foot tall barrel. We chose the latter.
Slippery Slidey Steps of Death (And fetid bloodrags) Read the rest of this entry »