The Winchester

‘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.

I met up with Gorbotch, we kitted up in our waders, outside my house. That was wierd. We then walked the 10 minutes or so to the point we made entry, which was as simple as lowering ourselves in.

The upstream end looked like there was more cover, downstream clearly opened out again after no more than 20 metres, so we splashed our way up the tunnel, with the waters splashing around our knees.

The tunnel was about 2 metres tall, arched, stock-brick and most likely built at some point in the 1800s. It wasn’t hugely elegant; it didn’t have the style of London’s Victorian brickwork. [No Bazalgette in ‘Ding].

We walked through some modern box culvert sections, as well as vaulted brick. The surface was full of bricks and waste, including several cans of Special Brew. After a short while the tunnel opened up again, running past the backyard of a local Indian.

‘Landlords’

The light shining slightly upstream of this pic is the skylight into a lingerie shop that we dubbed ‘The Gloryhole’ mainly because it’s views into a shop full of underwear.

‘Gloryhole‘

After this unusual feature, the height dropped to a mere 4 foot, but eventually it opened out to a section we referred to as the air raid shelter, a section of corrugated metal that resembled an Anderson Shelter. This was hard to walk on, and due to the circular nature of the base of the tunnel, it was deeper too. My waders were breached. This section felt familiar, quite a lot in common with some of Dover’s deep shelters.

The Air Raid Shelter

This opened out after a short while to an old brick section, which led to the tallest section of the culvert and the eventual opening out again in the rear of the Oracle shopping centre.

‘Exit’

We walked back and agreed to see the other end of the culvert by The Blade, which was just an open section and a concrete box culvert, eventually feeding back into the Kennet and Avon Canal.

‘Boxes’

We both enjoyed Holy Brook; there’s a lot of different types of culvert there and for such a short stretch (half a mile), there’s no repetitive boring sections.