Explored with a Non-Member (Like usual lol)
I actually visited this culvert the day before but the photos I took were quite blurry / over exposed, we were in the area anyway looking at a storm drain nearby (More on that later) so I decided to take better pics of this place too.
This is a culvert for the Bishop's Wood Stream through Tadley, the culvert is around 450m long but less than half of that is traversable as it splits off in two smaller tunnels in a chamber. The whole thing is concrete box which is around 3 - 4ft tall, it does vary mildly but only from precast concrete box to a more older style of tunnel.
The name is pretty self explanatory, the amount of spiders down there was heart-attack inducing but luckily I'm not bothered too much by them. Even had a few climbing around on my camera and hands!
There's not much in the way of history apart from across the road where the culvert outfalls is the stone remains of the old Bowmont's Bridge which used to stand aside of a ford on the brook, both were removed in the late 1900s.
Anyways on with the pics...
Entry was awkward as we had to pass under the grille, luckily the sticks we placed held for the hour and a half we were in there. If that grille falls on you it could easily break your hand or arm. Next to the outfall was the chain and padlock which used to protect the place, I'm not sure who or why anyone else would want to go down here..?
There were some side pipes joining in, you could even see daylight through some of them!
Only about a foot underground for the most part. The day before there was enough daylight from the manhole above to take a picture without torches, but I had to stick my headtorch on the underside of the cover to get this shot.
Switch to more modern precast concrete box. The start of the smaller section of culvert can be made out in the distance.
Here's the chamber. The middle and bricked-off tunnel come from the infall which has a large grille over it about 320m upstream. For whatever reason that tunnel has been bricked up and the flow from it is now taken in the concrete box to the right of the image.
BONUS:
Before we did this culvert we visited a storm drain further downstream. Access was quite unpleasant and painful as we had to climb under a dense bramble bush and lift the grille and prop up the sticks underneath (Although smaller and lighter than the first culvert's grille). Ahead was a 4 - 5ft RCP which twisted and turned before a long dead straight section and changing to a concrete bolted-together section. We followed this for a while before turning back. There was a weird amount of wildlife down there too, frogs, leeches, fish and even a bumblebee?! (Obviously spiders too
). We will revisit this place ASAP probably next weekend but it's all dependent on weather.
It was quite a surprise that such a small town has some good drains, we will defo be back for more of Tadley / Baughurst's drains. After our day of drain exploring we went back to B'stoke and got ourselves a well deserved McDonald's and went home. Thanks for reading
I actually visited this culvert the day before but the photos I took were quite blurry / over exposed, we were in the area anyway looking at a storm drain nearby (More on that later) so I decided to take better pics of this place too.
This is a culvert for the Bishop's Wood Stream through Tadley, the culvert is around 450m long but less than half of that is traversable as it splits off in two smaller tunnels in a chamber. The whole thing is concrete box which is around 3 - 4ft tall, it does vary mildly but only from precast concrete box to a more older style of tunnel.
The name is pretty self explanatory, the amount of spiders down there was heart-attack inducing but luckily I'm not bothered too much by them. Even had a few climbing around on my camera and hands!
There's not much in the way of history apart from across the road where the culvert outfalls is the stone remains of the old Bowmont's Bridge which used to stand aside of a ford on the brook, both were removed in the late 1900s.
Anyways on with the pics...
Entry was awkward as we had to pass under the grille, luckily the sticks we placed held for the hour and a half we were in there. If that grille falls on you it could easily break your hand or arm. Next to the outfall was the chain and padlock which used to protect the place, I'm not sure who or why anyone else would want to go down here..?
There were some side pipes joining in, you could even see daylight through some of them!
Only about a foot underground for the most part. The day before there was enough daylight from the manhole above to take a picture without torches, but I had to stick my headtorch on the underside of the cover to get this shot.
Switch to more modern precast concrete box. The start of the smaller section of culvert can be made out in the distance.
Here's the chamber. The middle and bricked-off tunnel come from the infall which has a large grille over it about 320m upstream. For whatever reason that tunnel has been bricked up and the flow from it is now taken in the concrete box to the right of the image.
BONUS:
Before we did this culvert we visited a storm drain further downstream. Access was quite unpleasant and painful as we had to climb under a dense bramble bush and lift the grille and prop up the sticks underneath (Although smaller and lighter than the first culvert's grille). Ahead was a 4 - 5ft RCP which twisted and turned before a long dead straight section and changing to a concrete bolted-together section. We followed this for a while before turning back. There was a weird amount of wildlife down there too, frogs, leeches, fish and even a bumblebee?! (Obviously spiders too
). We will revisit this place ASAP probably next weekend but it's all dependent on weather.
It was quite a surprise that such a small town has some good drains, we will defo be back for more of Tadley / Baughurst's drains. After our day of drain exploring we went back to B'stoke and got ourselves a well deserved McDonald's and went home. Thanks for reading
