Brief History
Optimus Prime is a large culvert that takes the River Irk underground for it's final stretch before the outfall into the Irwell.
There are a few nice features, one being an old wooden bridge that is rumoured to be a Victorian cattle Bridge from the early 19th century.
This was a tricky place trying to navigate a fast moving river into a weir on slipper moss covered rocks and after a few confused looks from passers by we made it in.
Going across the outfall is what remains of the Hunts Bank sewer crossing. This bridge used to convey a 3' 6"ft egg shaped sewer across the Irk's mouth and had an open top to allow it to act as an overflow. A storm in September 1896 saw the river level rise substantially higher then the crown of the sewer and allowed water to flood in. After this the open section was closed off and made watertight.
The Explore
Explored this place with a friend of mine who isn't on the forum a few weeks back, pretty easy place to find and get to.
we decided not to enter over the wall where people we walking around a lot (probably because it was 5pm on a Monday),we headed further up stream to a better access point this just meant we got to see another tunnel along the way.
we found from our first culvert explore that walking sticks are very handy when in deep water, there was a few bits getting there that did get close to the top of our waders but with dozens of old tyres lying at the bottom of the river we managed to get thru.
The only tricky bit was getting over the small waterfall as we didn't want to just drop in as we didn't know the depth of the water, there was a thin line to help guide yourself down but as we knew what was coming we decided to bring a small handline which proved very useful.
it was at this point a few different groups of people noticed us and got there phones out but luckily it seemed they were just taking pictures of us and not calling the police.
after we got down and into the culvert it was interesting to see that there are what seems like emergency lighting presumably for maintenance purposes, we soon got to the so called 'cattle bridge' which I've found out isn't a cattle bridge.
we we got as far as we could until the water got to deep for waders so decided to explore and get some photographs but left after an hour due to the sheer amount of midges.
photos are a mix of camera and phone.
Optimus Prime is a large culvert that takes the River Irk underground for it's final stretch before the outfall into the Irwell.
There are a few nice features, one being an old wooden bridge that is rumoured to be a Victorian cattle Bridge from the early 19th century.
This was a tricky place trying to navigate a fast moving river into a weir on slipper moss covered rocks and after a few confused looks from passers by we made it in.
Going across the outfall is what remains of the Hunts Bank sewer crossing. This bridge used to convey a 3' 6"ft egg shaped sewer across the Irk's mouth and had an open top to allow it to act as an overflow. A storm in September 1896 saw the river level rise substantially higher then the crown of the sewer and allowed water to flood in. After this the open section was closed off and made watertight.
The Explore
Explored this place with a friend of mine who isn't on the forum a few weeks back, pretty easy place to find and get to.
we decided not to enter over the wall where people we walking around a lot (probably because it was 5pm on a Monday),we headed further up stream to a better access point this just meant we got to see another tunnel along the way.
we found from our first culvert explore that walking sticks are very handy when in deep water, there was a few bits getting there that did get close to the top of our waders but with dozens of old tyres lying at the bottom of the river we managed to get thru.
The only tricky bit was getting over the small waterfall as we didn't want to just drop in as we didn't know the depth of the water, there was a thin line to help guide yourself down but as we knew what was coming we decided to bring a small handline which proved very useful.
it was at this point a few different groups of people noticed us and got there phones out but luckily it seemed they were just taking pictures of us and not calling the police.
after we got down and into the culvert it was interesting to see that there are what seems like emergency lighting presumably for maintenance purposes, we soon got to the so called 'cattle bridge' which I've found out isn't a cattle bridge.
we we got as far as we could until the water got to deep for waders so decided to explore and get some photographs but left after an hour due to the sheer amount of midges.
photos are a mix of camera and phone.
: It really irks me to see so much rubbish, ie tyres just left there.
