Underground Bolton - Croal Culverts

Visited by Ojay, Gone, Rookie & Urban Soldier.

After another last minute.com plan, (Destination the River Croal) I raced down to Manchester to pick up Gone and Rookie to meet up with Urban Soldier in Bolton Late one Monday Night and wadered up once again.

The River Croal is culverted at three seperate points through Bolton town centre, running under Knowsley Street; the Market Place and Bridge Street. Prior to 1836 the River Croal formed the boundary between the townships of Great and Little Bolton.

Access was one of the Outfalls on the other side of town where we walked firstly downstream then back Up-Stream towards Bridge St, passing under Bradshaw Gate and the Gates Shopping Centre. On the way, there was some very interesting features, in all we spent 4 hours and it was nowhere near long enough!

The night wasn't complete without it's comedy moments: 

• Me and Gone both falling into some huge hole in the middle of the river bed
• Gone getting attacked by killer budgies LOL,
• Rookie getting pissed wet through because he only had wellies.

Anyway some photos of the River as it passes through under the Town Centre.

Infall into the downstream section, mainly concrete

Looking back out

After a long walk down we came across the roaring weir at these 'Falls'

Eventually we could see daylight

Just further downstream

Looking back upstream

Eventually we came to another infall even further downstream

Whilst at this point we spotted this curious CSO

And this

Urban Soldier had no sooner pointed this out, that before I could grab my camera Gone was in like a ratup a drainpipe. Seconds later he came flying out like a crazy mutha, he was being attacked by 'Killer Budgies' I managed to Grab a few shots before Gone & Rookie jumped back in and headed up the overflow.

If you look hard enough you can see 'Killer Budgies' just inside....

Heading back upstream from the section we first started at

Fucking soaked after dropping down some big ass hole just infront

Passing through a mixture of concrete and stone 'Arches'

It was here we noticed some massive metal door, inside we were now deep under the foundations of what looked like to be part of the Gates Shopping Centre

We eventually arrived here

This was by far the most interesting section even though we didn't make it onto the bridge still managed to get some decent shots