History:
I'd been busting to get up onto the roof at Park Hill flats for a long time and at the current stage of renovation, thought it was probably do-able.
Me, mstarmatt and aem had a good snoop around one night and couldn't suss any obvious access so the idea was shelved temporarily.
Fast forward a few months and a PM drops into my inbox from *********** mentioning service tunnels under the flats
I mentioned that we'd already been planning another look at the roof so we decided to give it another go, and after a daytime reccee, me and *********** had sussed out some access.
We returned a few days later with aem (unfortunatley mstarmatt couldn't make it) to give it a go, and after some comedy access and Spiderman impressions from ***********, we were up on the roof of one of the derelict blocks with the intention of taking some shots then trying for the roof of the block currently under renovation. But before we knew it, *********** had drawn our attention to the 40m vertical ladder heading down a narrow shaft in front of us: our access to the service tunnels at basement level.
My first thought, on looking down the shaft into the abyss below was "what the fuck am I doing??" but the thought of what cool shit might lie below pushed me on.
After a claustrophobic descent in a space barely big enough for a grown man, let alone a sketchy ladder, and a grown man with camera bag and tripod, we emerged in the fully lit service tunnels!
We headed off with the intention of trying to get into the tunnels below the renovated block and searching for roof access there. We were soon confronted with the first of several stoops (for stoop, read crawling on hands and knees through puddles of shitty water and piles of crumbling rust, wedged between heating ducts and HV power cables).
If you're claustrophobic, stay away...
Fuck knows how long we walked/stooped/crawled but we passed several sheet metal doors, only one of which was locked, and met several dead ends, a big steam/hot water leak that turned the tunnel into a fucking sauna, and after every turn the tunnels just began to look the same.
After a massive (100m + ?) stoop, the likes of which I don't want to tackle again in a hurry, we came to a familiar piece of graf...
"Hang on, we've gone in a big circle!"
FFS!
So, taking a different route this time (after another complete motherfucker of a crawl) we stuck our heads out of a door and found ourselves back out in the works compound with the renovated building directly infront of us.
After a quick bit of contortion we were into the service tunnel with aem leading the way. Suddenly the lights came on and we feared the worst - the whole length of the tunnel was rigged with movement sensors! After waiting around for a minute to see if secca showed up, it seemed we'd be free to carry on, so on we carried.
(excuse the odd blurry shot, the decent amount of light meant I just whacked it onto HIGHSO and took some handheld shots)
It got louder and louder the further we progressed and before we knew it we were in the boiler house.
I'd rattled off a couple of shots and was about to head upstairs when aem and *********** appeared looking worried: "we've just tripped a PIR, best get the fuck out of here."
So off we set again back down the tunnel, coming across a dome cam that we hadn't noticed on the way in! Fully expecting our night to be over and a reception party to be waiting at our exit point we carried on, but since nothing out of the ordinary happened we headed up into the block itself to try and find the illusive roof access but came to a dead end - that one will have to wait for another day.
So it was back into the first tunnels then up onto the roof there for some final shots before dragging our weary selves back out and home!
Cheers for looking
Me, mstarmatt and aem had a good snoop around one night and couldn't suss any obvious access so the idea was shelved temporarily.
Fast forward a few months and a PM drops into my inbox from *********** mentioning service tunnels under the flats
I mentioned that we'd already been planning another look at the roof so we decided to give it another go, and after a daytime reccee, me and *********** had sussed out some access.
We returned a few days later with aem (unfortunatley mstarmatt couldn't make it) to give it a go, and after some comedy access and Spiderman impressions from ***********, we were up on the roof of one of the derelict blocks with the intention of taking some shots then trying for the roof of the block currently under renovation. But before we knew it, *********** had drawn our attention to the 40m vertical ladder heading down a narrow shaft in front of us: our access to the service tunnels at basement level.
My first thought, on looking down the shaft into the abyss below was "what the fuck am I doing??" but the thought of what cool shit might lie below pushed me on.
After a claustrophobic descent in a space barely big enough for a grown man, let alone a sketchy ladder, and a grown man with camera bag and tripod, we emerged in the fully lit service tunnels!
We headed off with the intention of trying to get into the tunnels below the renovated block and searching for roof access there. We were soon confronted with the first of several stoops (for stoop, read crawling on hands and knees through puddles of shitty water and piles of crumbling rust, wedged between heating ducts and HV power cables).
If you're claustrophobic, stay away...
Fuck knows how long we walked/stooped/crawled but we passed several sheet metal doors, only one of which was locked, and met several dead ends, a big steam/hot water leak that turned the tunnel into a fucking sauna, and after every turn the tunnels just began to look the same.
After a massive (100m + ?) stoop, the likes of which I don't want to tackle again in a hurry, we came to a familiar piece of graf...
"Hang on, we've gone in a big circle!"
FFS!
So, taking a different route this time (after another complete motherfucker of a crawl) we stuck our heads out of a door and found ourselves back out in the works compound with the renovated building directly infront of us.
After a quick bit of contortion we were into the service tunnel with aem leading the way. Suddenly the lights came on and we feared the worst - the whole length of the tunnel was rigged with movement sensors! After waiting around for a minute to see if secca showed up, it seemed we'd be free to carry on, so on we carried.
(excuse the odd blurry shot, the decent amount of light meant I just whacked it onto HIGHSO and took some handheld shots)
It got louder and louder the further we progressed and before we knew it we were in the boiler house.
I'd rattled off a couple of shots and was about to head upstairs when aem and *********** appeared looking worried: "we've just tripped a PIR, best get the fuck out of here."
So off we set again back down the tunnel, coming across a dome cam that we hadn't noticed on the way in! Fully expecting our night to be over and a reception party to be waiting at our exit point we carried on, but since nothing out of the ordinary happened we headed up into the block itself to try and find the illusive roof access but came to a dead end - that one will have to wait for another day.
So it was back into the first tunnels then up onto the roof there for some final shots before dragging our weary selves back out and home!
Cheers for looking
