Fat of The Land, Bradford

Ojay/Squirrell_911...

(City of Bradford-Shipley Western & Eastern Sewage Systems)

Myself and Squiz have been covered in poo for the last 3 years on this lot.

Some say he's retired, turns out he's a massive drain weapon :)

It's been a labour of love, complete with many frustrating fails & dead ends along the way.

Not to mention adverse weather and a couple of close calls where we have had to abort and promptly GTFO.

The system just kept giving which prompted more reccies, lid lifting and traipsing through scrub land and sewage alike in order to find moar stuff.

In fact it's took us that long, Squiz has managed to go through 4 cars and 3 houses, true story!

Sadly the day's of driving around Bradford popping lids in the trusty Micra will never be the same again, proper wagon that was (RIP) :D

For the rest of it  >>CLICK HERE<<

Lucky Charms, London

Ojay/Adders...

Essentially the Clapham Storm Relief and a CSO which serves the Southern High Level No.1/Putney & Clapham extension & Balham Sewers.

Originally I had set out with Adders to look at something else, but we weren't suitably equipped and the next lid was a fair walk and time was against us.

We opted for a quick look in here instead as we were nearby.

One thing I've noticed, as soon as you mention drains to anyone, even fellow explorers it's an instant gurn.

Once facial features usually return to normal most people just walk away leaving one muttering to ones self.

Whatever opinion you have about them, you can't deny the epic over-engineering by the Board of Works that exists in London.

There is something about Victorian brickwork that is hard to ignore, this place is no exception and simply stunning!


You would be forgiven that dropping into this rather small 8ft x 4ft egg overflow and traipsing about would reveal anything decent..

WRONG... slip & slide upstream and throw down some lumens and you might have a different opinion of sewers.

Of course my pics don't really do the place justice and there are much better examples kicking around, none-the-less it was good to finally drop into this one.

Split

Here the 8ft egg quickly turns to around 12ft ahead of the overflow

Junction

Here the Southern High Level No.1 enters on the far left,

 Putney & Clapham extension on the right, with the Balham sewer in the foreground

Here the Southern High Level exits via a smaller diameter arch as it eventually heads on down to the Southern Outfall Works, (Crossness).

Looking a bit closer upstream you can see one of the original carts/bogey's used during the original construction, since discarded between the converging sewers.

Overflow - Southern High Level

Putney & Clapham extension

A single sided weir/oak dam boards serve as an overflow, passing underneath a now defunct penstock before droppping into a pit of soup beyond which is the Clapham Relief.

Adders mentioned something about a beer garden..

This wasn't it, but a couple of cold ones and a spot of World Cup at the nearby boozer shortly afterwards was a welcome sight.

Mind the Fresh

Thanks for looking.