Explored with @cattos mc budget
Finally may I present you with SYPHONATOR. This took us about 3 weeks to complete, visiting every weekend to take more photos and to go further. We were originally going to go with a name like "Zoo Drain" because of how much wildlife was down there, frogs and fish making up the majority of that but also leeches, worms, snails, weird little crustacean things and even a bumblebee on a previous visit.
Essentially this thing is a flow interceptor for the Bishop's Wood Stream in Tadley, it takes half the flow off the brook at Swains Road and outfalls back into the brook about a kilometre downstream just as the brook enters Pamber Forest. It also takes flows from various small surface water drains and small watercourses around Tadley. The drain itself is about 1.25km long and the bulk of that is about 4.5ft - 5.5ft tall.
We set off at 11AM and caught the bus to Tadley (I got the wrong bus ticket FFS!
). Once we got there we started the walk to the drain, it was only about 18°C but it felt way hotter! After, it was a short walk down the brook towards the outfall of the drain. The outfall is hidden away behind dense brambles which gave me a few nasty splinters on previous visits. It was slow and painful to get there, especially when trying to stay as quiet as you can because the homeowner of the posh house literally next to the outfall was out in the garden enjoying the rays. The outfall has a grille over it which is similar to the one on the outfall of the Arachnophobe's Nightmare which is just further upstream on the brook. We propped up the grille with the same sticks we used to prop up the grille on Arachnophobe's Nightmare and headed in.
The outfall grille is just behind the camera, it starts about ankle deep but soon shallows out the further you go. About 4.5ft tall.
After a short distance the tunnel turns underneath a road.
After another corner, the pipe straightens out for a while. A small surface water drain joined about halfway through this section.
The RCP changes to a 5.5ft tall segmented concrete pipe at a manhole chamber.
The segmented pipe goes for a bit before another manhole chamber. For some reason none of the manholes had ladders to the first grated floor, but luckily we found a ladder buried in silt and rubble at the outfall and we brought it in to climb up to some of the chambers.
On the 2nd floor of the manhole chamber. Every so often cars would drive over the manhole above, the echo from the cars sounded much louder down in the tunnel compare to being directly below it! There was enough daylight seeping in through the holes in the cover above that I could take a photo without any artificial light.
Once back down in the tunnel, it went straight for a while before another manhole and changing back to RCP. This went on for a while and was quite slippery too.
We followed the RCP for a fair distance, passing a couple frogs and a small junction chamber before we got to this. Somehow one of the metal grids from a manhole chamber upstream ended up here. This gave us a short period of respite as the floor behind it in the deeper water wasn't slippery at all.
Eventually we met another small junction chamber and the boring 4.5ft RCP changed yet again to a 4ft segmented concrete pipe. We could see daylight through the little pipe and warm air from the surface was billowing out of it, this caused the section of RCP behind to be quite foggy also.
The gaps in the pipe has allowed minerals and groundwater to seep in, creating some pretty nice looking formations and colouring.
This was a definitely my favourite section of the whole drain.
Soon it changed back to RCP with some pretty pronounced watermarks.
After a while there was another manhole chamber which had quite a bit of water ingress, for some reason it had a load of rubbish on the grate above? We pulled some out and found a Bobby's Squeeze Pop from 2006 and a Bobby's Salt & Vinegar Potato Spirals from 1999.
Finally after a while of stooping we found a large junction chamber. The left tunnel about 2.5ft tall and right about 3ft. The manhole chamber above was full of metal work and wood planks, there was some graffiti scraped into some iron staining by the manhole rungs which read "Terry Hoile, 1988". It said something else below it beginning with 5 but I couldn't make it out. We were going to call it a day here and turn round but we decided to keep going through the left tunnel.
After a couple manhole chambers we turned around as the tunnel went on seemingly forever. Probably just a small surface water drain or small watercourse. We arrived back at the junction chamber and decided to have a quick look up the right tunnel. We went for AGES and we soon were debating to keep going or not but the loud sound of water in the distance intrigued us so we pressed on.
We were expecting something bigger at the end as the sound of water got quite loud, but like usual the reverb makes a tiny flow of water sound much louder than it actually is. We were disappointed yet glad about what we found, the dual plastic pipes go a short distance to the infall on the brook. When we turned the torches off we could just about see a glimmer of light in them. The main tunnel kept going for about 20m before meeting the syphon chamber.
We finally reached the syphon chamber which has been advertised for quite some time by signs in some of the manhole chambers. The two little slots go a short distance before dropping underwater into the brook.
We tried lifting the manhole from below but we just couldn't muster the strength to at that point and just accepted our fate of having to crawl / stoop the whole 1.25km back.
These are some crappy iPhone pics of the the inflows on the brook.
1 > Inflow to syphon chamber.
2 > Syphon manifolds in chamber.
3 > Grille over intercepting pipes.
4 > Intercepting pipes.
Once out it was back to Basingstoke for a Maccy D's. Literally missed our bus as soon as we got to the stop but eventually home for a nice bath to get the "Egyptian Tomb" smell of the drain off me (That's what my mum likened it to anyway)
It's finally good to know what this entire thing is for, at first I just thought it was a storm drain but it's only until you actually get down under and explore them that you learn what some of these drains are really for.
Was well worth the effort and revisits to finish this place, was a fun explore but it took its toll on our backs n' legs.
Thanks for reading!
Finally may I present you with SYPHONATOR. This took us about 3 weeks to complete, visiting every weekend to take more photos and to go further. We were originally going to go with a name like "Zoo Drain" because of how much wildlife was down there, frogs and fish making up the majority of that but also leeches, worms, snails, weird little crustacean things and even a bumblebee on a previous visit.
Essentially this thing is a flow interceptor for the Bishop's Wood Stream in Tadley, it takes half the flow off the brook at Swains Road and outfalls back into the brook about a kilometre downstream just as the brook enters Pamber Forest. It also takes flows from various small surface water drains and small watercourses around Tadley. The drain itself is about 1.25km long and the bulk of that is about 4.5ft - 5.5ft tall.
We set off at 11AM and caught the bus to Tadley (I got the wrong bus ticket FFS!
). Once we got there we started the walk to the drain, it was only about 18°C but it felt way hotter! After, it was a short walk down the brook towards the outfall of the drain. The outfall is hidden away behind dense brambles which gave me a few nasty splinters on previous visits. It was slow and painful to get there, especially when trying to stay as quiet as you can because the homeowner of the posh house literally next to the outfall was out in the garden enjoying the rays. The outfall has a grille over it which is similar to the one on the outfall of the Arachnophobe's Nightmare which is just further upstream on the brook. We propped up the grille with the same sticks we used to prop up the grille on Arachnophobe's Nightmare and headed in.
The outfall grille is just behind the camera, it starts about ankle deep but soon shallows out the further you go. About 4.5ft tall.
After a short distance the tunnel turns underneath a road.
After another corner, the pipe straightens out for a while. A small surface water drain joined about halfway through this section.
The RCP changes to a 5.5ft tall segmented concrete pipe at a manhole chamber.
The segmented pipe goes for a bit before another manhole chamber. For some reason none of the manholes had ladders to the first grated floor, but luckily we found a ladder buried in silt and rubble at the outfall and we brought it in to climb up to some of the chambers.
On the 2nd floor of the manhole chamber. Every so often cars would drive over the manhole above, the echo from the cars sounded much louder down in the tunnel compare to being directly below it! There was enough daylight seeping in through the holes in the cover above that I could take a photo without any artificial light.
Once back down in the tunnel, it went straight for a while before another manhole and changing back to RCP. This went on for a while and was quite slippery too.
We followed the RCP for a fair distance, passing a couple frogs and a small junction chamber before we got to this. Somehow one of the metal grids from a manhole chamber upstream ended up here. This gave us a short period of respite as the floor behind it in the deeper water wasn't slippery at all.
Eventually we met another small junction chamber and the boring 4.5ft RCP changed yet again to a 4ft segmented concrete pipe. We could see daylight through the little pipe and warm air from the surface was billowing out of it, this caused the section of RCP behind to be quite foggy also.
The gaps in the pipe has allowed minerals and groundwater to seep in, creating some pretty nice looking formations and colouring.
This was a definitely my favourite section of the whole drain.
Soon it changed back to RCP with some pretty pronounced watermarks.
After a while there was another manhole chamber which had quite a bit of water ingress, for some reason it had a load of rubbish on the grate above? We pulled some out and found a Bobby's Squeeze Pop from 2006 and a Bobby's Salt & Vinegar Potato Spirals from 1999.
Finally after a while of stooping we found a large junction chamber. The left tunnel about 2.5ft tall and right about 3ft. The manhole chamber above was full of metal work and wood planks, there was some graffiti scraped into some iron staining by the manhole rungs which read "Terry Hoile, 1988". It said something else below it beginning with 5 but I couldn't make it out. We were going to call it a day here and turn round but we decided to keep going through the left tunnel.
After a couple manhole chambers we turned around as the tunnel went on seemingly forever. Probably just a small surface water drain or small watercourse. We arrived back at the junction chamber and decided to have a quick look up the right tunnel. We went for AGES and we soon were debating to keep going or not but the loud sound of water in the distance intrigued us so we pressed on.
We were expecting something bigger at the end as the sound of water got quite loud, but like usual the reverb makes a tiny flow of water sound much louder than it actually is. We were disappointed yet glad about what we found, the dual plastic pipes go a short distance to the infall on the brook. When we turned the torches off we could just about see a glimmer of light in them. The main tunnel kept going for about 20m before meeting the syphon chamber.
We finally reached the syphon chamber which has been advertised for quite some time by signs in some of the manhole chambers. The two little slots go a short distance before dropping underwater into the brook.
We tried lifting the manhole from below but we just couldn't muster the strength to at that point and just accepted our fate of having to crawl / stoop the whole 1.25km back.
These are some crappy iPhone pics of the the inflows on the brook.
1 > Inflow to syphon chamber.
2 > Syphon manifolds in chamber.
3 > Grille over intercepting pipes.
4 > Intercepting pipes.
Once out it was back to Basingstoke for a Maccy D's. Literally missed our bus as soon as we got to the stop but eventually home for a nice bath to get the "Egyptian Tomb" smell of the drain off me (That's what my mum likened it to anyway)
It's finally good to know what this entire thing is for, at first I just thought it was a storm drain but it's only until you actually get down under and explore them that you learn what some of these drains are really for.
Was well worth the effort and revisits to finish this place, was a fun explore but it took its toll on our backs n' legs.
Thanks for reading!
