Double Drop, Bolton
Whilst working in the area recently I decided to take advantage of the good weather and go check some long forgotten side pipes out
All the good stuff in Bolton seems to be stoopy as hell, and it wasn't long inside that I realised this place looked a tad familiar
He isn't called ConcreteJungle for nothing and it appeared to be another one of his previous st00pfests
A grille covers barely a 5ft RCP, which you can smell long before you can see it
Although primarily a small watercourse and surface run off for the nearby carriageway, it also acts as an overflow from the pumping station which sits above it
(You can hear the machinery chelping away from behind a small side pipe and a brick shaft beyond)
Sadly the smell of fresh soon disappears and it's back to good old H2o for around 320m before you arrive at some feeder pipes in a small brick chamber
'Getting in' is a bit of a faff but once inside like I say it's about 4½ ft RCP all the way :mad
The first real feature is this 3x2m penstock chamber around 50m up
Having later lifted a lid above ground I could see it serves a similar sized sewer (4½ft RCP) which appeared to be rather fast flowing so I decided against going down alone
Pressing on another 20m or so I could here what sounded like a small weir getting closer
Sure enough, the next feature is a 5m brick drop shaft which funnels the watercourse down behind the brick wall
Once > up > across > down, it's more backbreaking RCP once again..
Infact 80m nearly until you can stretch out in this small brick chamber before it takes a left turn heading upstream
After around 20m I could hear what sounded like another weir, sure enough another brick drop shaft (this time a bit smaller)
..and up top, the funnel which carries the watercourse down behind the brick wall
Once again it's back to st00py concrete, thankfully it was only a short distance before one could have another back stretch
Here also a couple of side pipes trickled into the small brick chamber
The last stretch of the drain, which was silted up with debris and reduced the entire lot to around 4ft, this made for some hard trundling for a good 130m
Finally a small brick chamber which marks the end for anyone over 2ft