'They Lie' South Manchester

Turdtastic Draining by Ojay & Thompski.

A modern day Combined Sewer Overflow on the outskirts of Manchester.

The downstream section has physically collapsed and leaking the occasional sewerfresh, it's a reet stinker.

After stooping through the collapsed section we arrived at this large concrete overflow chamber

continuing up the larger RCP for about 10 Yards we were now where the main trunk sewer flows through. It comes in from the right,

flowing through and under the large double processor and into another sewer overflow here

high above was the access shaft for lifting in plant etc

and downstream through another overflow tank, before dissapearing into a smaller pipe at the other side

This is how we do it....

 

In Search of 3 Phase, Manchester

Myself & Thompski went to check this out earlier in the week, It was a no go!

Here is the Outfall.

I went into the left tunnel and started sinking fast, it was deep, so I quickly moved onto the second tunnel on the right.

Hmm, I could see the floor, yeah rite, as soon as I went forward about another 6 ft my waders breached and I sunk into the silt below and was pissed wet through much to the amusement of Thompski.

The only way this is do-able is dinghy, but tbh not worth the effort. The Infall has a big metal grill which isn't passable and is next to a major active Police base. There were around 15 dog training units on-site when we went for a mooch.

I'll be back......

City Of Bradford Flood Alleviation

Visited by Ojay & Thompski.

How do I in drains? The City of Bradford in West Yorkshire is more renowned as the 'Curry Capital' of the UK, and more widely known as the Drain0r Capital of the North.

For those not familiar with Bradford's subterranean world, the city has a confusing system of culverts, sewer overflows and flood relief systems which all interlink. At the heart of this is the Bradford Beck AKA Macro, a flooding prone river which curves underground through the city and occasionally showing it's face above.

Macro is a fearsome challenge and real twisting supercharger of a drain. It is the drain that all others are measured by. And after spending over 8 hours underground I can begin to see why, although I am led to believe there are bigger systems down Sowth?

Over the last Century the City of Bradford has suffered some serious flooding, specifically in the 1940's, 1960's and lastly in the 70's.

In late 1989, Bradford City's Department of Civil Engineering set out on a massive project of flood alleviation for the City in partnership with Johnston Construction . Typically With any ambitious Council plans and Nuff Government funding (Yeah right) it was finally completed in the early 90's.

Infact in 1994 it gained the accolade of [I]"Institute of Civil Engineering Yorkshire Association Award"[/I] for excellence in the concept, design and execution of Civil Engineering Works.

After seeing some quality reports over the last year I decided it was time to go and see what all the fuss was about... It's one Hooj system and after 8 hours of mooching up/down in and out of side pipes, processor rooms, overflows, culverts sewers, shafts and chambers we had only seen about two thirds of it!!

This place is immense and offers a fine selection of Brick, Concrete and Stonework to die for.

The entire system is split into the following 5 sections:

Macro - The Bradford Beck running underneath the City in a giant U shape. There is a hell of a lot of interesting features in here and is rocky as fook.

The Academy - This is the Bowling Beck, now used as a sewer overflow, and along the way the 'Cathedral Chamber' which again sadly we didn't get to see as we had run out of time.

Bypass - This is the main storm relief for the City of Bradford. Constructed of 12ft RCP with massive inspection chambers and approx 1300 yards long cutting through two thirds of Macro, connecting both the upstream and downstream sections.

Pandora's Box - This is West Brook, including another section of storm relief and a CSO (aptly named 'Pandora's Arsehole').

Bombay Mix - This is East Brook. including another CSO. Apparently gases are bad in here, and another section we have yet to explore.

The Journey............

By chance, I had a bit of free time recently and ultimately made it a personal if rather vague mission to “go underground, somewhere up North”. Ojay suggested a trip over to Bradford one Friday afternoon.

“Sounds good to me”

Before long we were heading towards Bradford, armed to the teeth with an arsenal of lighting equipment and a wad of snacks. This was going to be a big trip, packed with as much comedy as we had lighting we managed to get the following photo's on the way, ENJOY.

Entering the Outfall of Macro. Our way in

this culverted section of the Bradford Beck soon passes underneath the City through here

before reaching here

Carrying up-stream, essential skillZ were required to get up this slippy ramp

to get here

To the right is a giant CSO complete with processor to filter out the poop, the smell in here was far worse than anything I have experienced to-date

Inside you are greeted with this Vortex,

which winds round to the Processor on the left

Carrying on up the long concrete section as it twists under the city

we arrived here (Even further Up-stream of Macro)

Looking back up

At this point we stopped for said snacks; with Thompski providing the drain meal. After around 10 minutes we decided to head back down stream for more action.

Arriving here, we now realised that after 2 hours we had not even seen half of this place, so instead of calling it a day we carried on into the unknown

Continuing down stream we ended up being confronted by this giant slide

Ahead was this section of RCP

It wasn't long before we came across this chamber, which had the following split

The RCP to the LEFT took us to 'Pandoras Box'

Looking down

Carrying on upto this culverted section of West Brook

which brought us here

This was right inside the University campus, and I shit you not 2 seccas walked right by as we were taking photos, oblivious to us down below.

The RCP to the RIGHT took us to 'Pandoras Arsehole'. A giant CSO and sewer interceptor which as home to the main trunk of Bradford. This place was built on 3 tiers, it was huge and split into the three sub sections with the sewerfrash flowing below. This place doubled up as the largest processor I have ever seen, with electronically controlled shit filters housed above, including 'Sewer Cam' thats right this place even has it's own TV Channel monitoring the turd stream!

Continuing on from the slide we now reached the start of 'Bypass'. After passing through this large chamber

We had an approx walk of around 1300 yards of 12ft RCP before we came to what I can only describe as the largest chamber I have ever seen, it was around 80ft high with vehicles thundering above

before finally reaching the outfall here

This marked the end of our journey for the time being, there just isn't enough hours in the day to cover this place, hence a return visit is imminent.

Hyde Falls & Myra Culvert

Visited by Ojay, Gone, Rookie, Jimmy Halfway & Nckt.

(Apologies for the POOR QUALITY, As serious camera fail on this one sadly, as moisture and debris had affected my lens and my ability to properly manually focus!!!) - Perfect excuse to re-visit at some point in the future.

ALSO SUBJECT TO SPARKS FLYING HERE

Discovered by Nckt & Dan Helsing a while back, we bumped into Nckt one night last month and it wasn't long before we all headed over to Hyde to check out his recent find.

Split into 2 parts we first headed for the Outfall in the Wilson Brook to check out 'Hyde Falls' which was down a rather steep embankment behind a building site, even getting into the the Brook provided a few grins.

(Piccy borrowed from Gone)

Once into the concrete box section, we headed up one by one, the roar was immense. Just to the left was the first of 3 falls, this was fed from a plughole above, which was impressive in it's own rights.

At the end of the concrete, the flow widened and picked up pace as we got nearer to the thundering sound of what we go on to find. This next stretch was rather rocky and difficult to pass (a real ankle breaker!). As I looked round Gone & Rookie were carrying a scaffold ladder that they managed to 'borrow' from the building site above... A bit later on this would prove very usefull.

After one of the craziest routes I have ever encountered upstream it now opened up into this huge cavernous chamber, with 2 more 'Falls' a smaller one from the left and a GIANT one straight ahead. The noise was immense, we had to shout to be able to hear each other it was that loud. The view was amazing, and I stood still for quite a few minutes taking it all in as Nckt stood grinning whilst I was nodding with approval.

This has to be one of the better drains I have visited recently.

Now then, wheres that ladder? Er, this was pure comedy trying to get up the 'Fall'. Slipping sliding, wader fails and breaches all in the mix as we managed to setup and send Gone up the ladder, quickly followed by myself and then Rookie taking his own FALL in the drink.

(Again, piccy borrowed from Gone)

Anyway after several minutes of dicking around, or more like trying to cross the deep sump to get onto to the ladder which was no mean feat? we were all up.

We then decided to head upstream to check out the rest of the culverted Wilson Brook. Nckt named this next section 'MYRA', after Moors Murderer Myra Hindley, who once lived near to where the culvert is located.

The main chamber looks to be cut into sandstone, and covered with spray crete more recently to give it added strength, eventually it widens into a much more interesting stone tunnel, again fairly rocky and filled with assorted debris.

After around 400 yards it opens up into this much larger stone vaulted section,

with a smaller stone tunnel on the right

which shrinks into spray crete

before leading to 'Fall' No.2

It was very slippy here, and didn't help much with some serious flowage; I had to be careful as it was at least a 20ft drop down from the 'Fall'.

Continuing upstream through this much larger brick tunnel,

which eventually brought us to this dressed stone Infall, near to where Myra Hindley once lived.

The journey through here was real tough, as it was littered with rocky debris, it was much worse in this section than the others.
After stopping for snacks and photos, we then decided to have a little mooch further upstream as it was now getting real late.

This next section was rather industrial AND stoopy to say the least, even bears a resemblance to 'Pipemare' in Halifax at times.

Another 400 yards in and we decided to call it a night and head back to the Outfall and fook off home (3am Eternal).

It's an amazing place and a nice little mooch. Props to Nckt for showing us around ;)