Bell-End, Manchester

Ojay, Nickindroy...

Essentially 2 culverted watercourses and a combined sewer overflow located in Droylsden.

This one had been on the to-do list a few years now.

Two small streams, which probably had their origins on Ashton Moss, originally flowed down two cloughs, Pinch Clough and Lumb Clough, joining together in Bell Clough, and thence into the Medlock.
These streams were culverted where they passed under the canal at the time it was built, after that point they reverted to nature, and both cloughs were in an uncultivated state.

A 2.2m brick egg outfalls onto the edge of Bell Clough

After a comedy attempt at accessing the outfall and narrowly avoiding a right soaking I decided we'd go in search of manholes instead.

Turned out to be a right bag of fail, as we beat about the bush looking for lids.

Eventually I spotted the first manhole submerged within another stream after Nick almost getting stuck in some bog.

One thing was certain this wasn't going to be our way in.

We piss-balled about for another hour looking for lids, ripped by brambles and stung by nettles we gave it up as light began to fade.

Our only option now was to head back to the outfall and traverse around the collapsing brick structure without ending up in the drink...

(It's pretty deep)

The surface water culvert heads upstream for around 50m through a distorted 2m egg as the earths pressure and boggy land above has taken it's toll over the years.

As shown  earlier ^^ the stream above ground cascades down the first manhole shaft, as the lid complete with frame has somehow managed to drop through and wash up around 100 yards downstream.

The frame is bigger than the aperture for the manhole, so we figured Murphy had lobbed it down before installing the biscuit thus avoiding cementing it in place, in favour of the boozer one Friday afternoon.

And a close up of the manhole taken by Nick

Beyond the shaft, brick quickly turns to concrete and the watercourse now runs through a 4.5ft RCP.

Those famous last words of "No more stooping" came back to haunt me as Nick pissed about grabbing a few shots..

We decided to plod on, muggins here went first with the meter and scraped the ceiling clear of spiders and cobwebs for the next 80m.

Thankfully another manhole presented itself, so at least I could stretch the old spine whilst waiting for Nick to play catch up.

The triangle shaped lid above was seized solid with probably 2 decades worth of rust, on the left a disused side pipe for what looked to be a surface water drain.

Having shone my torch up, it appeared to have collapsed around 5ft further in.

After spending a few minutes grabbing a couple of pics, we spent the next 10 mins debating whether to carry on.

The only thing keeping me motivated was the sound of water tumbling somewhere upstream, so I volunteered to head up and see if it was worth the effort.

60m of further stooping I arrived at a small junction.

On the left, a small watercourse drops in from above, stifled by familiar debris that often results in natural backfill at these ill-maintained infalls..

I shouted down to Nick to head on up as it was worth a couple of pics for our efforts.

We were now somewhere beneath Lumb Clough.

Ahead, the pipe shrunk to just under 4ft, the prospect of carrying on appeared grim but I was curious despite having an idea where this was heading.

The upstream section of RCP also serves as an overflow from a screened CSO that was installed circa 2008 a good 300m from this point.

I left Nick at the junction as it shrinks again, and again to way below 4ft.

100m later I declared bollocks to this!.. bent double, and pouring with sweat in a stinky shit pipe a tad over 3ft isn't my idea of fun on a school night.

Time to GTFO and head out for some cans.

Getting out was just as much a faff as Nick nearly had my eye out as he swung a scaff pole in order to aid our traverse across the lagoon of unknown depth beyond the outfall.