Earlier in the year I got a Manchester OS map, I have been marking it with my best guesses as to what lays where in the underground world of Manchester, eventually the day came to put some of the theory to the test. Well the evening didn’t get off to the best start, there were the usual delays, then dropping the back off my head torch down Devsters toilet when opening it to put batteries in it (initially doh, but then oh well I’m off down a drain anyway (but yeah I did wash it )), Headed to Mancester picking up my bro, Smee, on the way, then met up with suburban_pioneer again.
First stop was finding the processor infall this was a fail, well technically it was an infall to processor we found, just not the one I was looking for but a 2 foot tributary. although we clearly found the top of the processor room itself, all locked up tight.
But from then on everything went right, we promptly found processor drains outfall and headed up stream, checking out the various sewer overflows on the way.
Heres the main sewer overflow in a side room, when the sewer gets too full this machine filters the solids out before the sewer overflows into the brook, of course when the sewer gets more full it just flows over the top of the machine:
Most of the Drain is Round Brick pipe, RBP, its old and has great wall formations. some of the drain is concrete, which was actually welcome as it wasn’t as Slippy, but brick is where its at, especially the mad formations.
After reaching the top of processor its gps coordinates were promptly saved and then we headed down stream as we hadn’t taken any photos on the upstream journey.
We then followed the brook down stream to the infall to inhospitable following it down to the works. Man that is one skanky brook, that just gets skankier the further you go. is there a brook with more sewer fresh in it anywhere? The amount of CSO’s into it is one thing, but then the frequency they must be used is another, and then what appeared to just be a small sewer running straight into it on an under ground section was another altogether, skanky skanky skanky, leading to a very slippy evening from the fat residue on just about everything underfoot, and there was indeed a lot of debris underfoot.
Works chamber, noice:
Then we paid a visit to the upstairs:
Naturally we didn’t follow the back & ankle breaking route of Inhospitable but headed out of the Works overflow channel, admittedly thinking twice about that as it looked skanky from above with calcifications been a toxic yellow colour and fat clearly visible floating on the top, but onward we went, down the stairs only to be greeted with the massive stair case, they are serious, the low down angle of the picture doesn’t give the size of them justice:
Then it was down the impressive aged RBP tunnel, past the bricked up junction, and out of the stone lined outfall, into the river, navigation of which was interesting, some how we all made it out dry, then headed back to the car, a class unforgettable night.
First stop was finding the processor infall this was a fail, well technically it was an infall to processor we found, just not the one I was looking for but a 2 foot tributary. although we clearly found the top of the processor room itself, all locked up tight.
But from then on everything went right, we promptly found processor drains outfall and headed up stream, checking out the various sewer overflows on the way.
Heres the main sewer overflow in a side room, when the sewer gets too full this machine filters the solids out before the sewer overflows into the brook, of course when the sewer gets more full it just flows over the top of the machine:
Most of the Drain is Round Brick pipe, RBP, its old and has great wall formations. some of the drain is concrete, which was actually welcome as it wasn’t as Slippy, but brick is where its at, especially the mad formations.
After reaching the top of processor its gps coordinates were promptly saved and then we headed down stream as we hadn’t taken any photos on the upstream journey.
We then followed the brook down stream to the infall to inhospitable following it down to the works. Man that is one skanky brook, that just gets skankier the further you go. is there a brook with more sewer fresh in it anywhere? The amount of CSO’s into it is one thing, but then the frequency they must be used is another, and then what appeared to just be a small sewer running straight into it on an under ground section was another altogether, skanky skanky skanky, leading to a very slippy evening from the fat residue on just about everything underfoot, and there was indeed a lot of debris underfoot.
Works chamber, noice:
Then we paid a visit to the upstairs:
Naturally we didn’t follow the back & ankle breaking route of Inhospitable but headed out of the Works overflow channel, admittedly thinking twice about that as it looked skanky from above with calcifications been a toxic yellow colour and fat clearly visible floating on the top, but onward we went, down the stairs only to be greeted with the massive stair case, they are serious, the low down angle of the picture doesn’t give the size of them justice:
Then it was down the impressive aged RBP tunnel, past the bricked up junction, and out of the stone lined outfall, into the river, navigation of which was interesting, some how we all made it out dry, then headed back to the car, a class unforgettable night.
The pipe that is dumping a constant stream of sewage is actually a faulty sewer overflow where the penstock/flap/thing has slid down. It was presumably originally broken waaaay back when the drain was first found and named by siolo, then got fixed for about a year and a half during which the whole system was "reasonably" clean. Sadly it seems to have started dumping again as of about 3 months ago around the same time the BBC documentary was filmed.
