When I stumbled across button hole a few years ago, I said and I quote "This is the best Leicester has in terms of drains" well how wrong I was...
You see, Leicester for the most parts has its fair share of culverted brooks and streams most of the city dumps its storm flow into either those or the sewers. Button hole was just an overflow, not a storm drain per say. How ever during the 70s in the north west of Leicester there was large scale development of an area known as Beaumont Leys. The city was rapidly expanding and a vision of an almost micro city was created. This involved a large shopping center, a number of schools and of course plenty of dwellings and of course industrial enterprise... Crisps anyone?
The problem was that this area of Leicester was uphill from the city and over the lip of the valley, Whilst some of Beaumont Leys' storm flow was happily handled by sending the flow down a small gravity fed brick storm sewer into the soar but this would only be suitable for some parts of Beaumont leys.
This brings me to Trinity...
Trinity comprises of 3 distinct storm drains of which the system stretches to around 3.5KM of theoretically explorable pipeage. All draining into the same area, but from different areas of Beaumont Leys all with seperate outfalls and overflow chambers and I shall start this series of reports with Trinity South.
Trinity South drains the surface water from around Beaumont Leys shopping center. Draining out into a Rothley Brook and also encompassing an overflow chamber which spills out water into a park during times of heavy storm flow.
And on with the report....
So I had decided that I should make a little trip to Leicester to catch up with some friends, in this instance JuJu and Baz. I said that I had seen something mentioned in a small peice of documentation and whilst I didnt think it would be anything, it would at the least make a nice walk... so on we trott.
It was only a few minutes into our walk and we came across the first overflow outfall. Having poked my head in I was greeted by a very nice looking tunnel. But it would seem that access really is not suitable for those with a slightly bigger build (For those that dont know me now... I am much thinner than I used to be). Unfortunatly for Baz and JuJu it was just too tight. So off we trott to have a look for the others, all of which we have found and all of which shall be reported on in due course. At that point I had no clue about the routes and/or manhole access and more interested to find the other outfalls.
Having got home, the thought that an unexplored drain just sat there waiting for me to jump in kept crossing my mind. Having checked the weather forcasts it would seem there was only 1 day soon that it could be done and nobody to go with... so quite simply I thought fuck it, im going in solo.
So on quite a cloudy day, with no rain forcast but still aware that it was possible I jumped in.
So I shall start with the overflow chamber..
As you can see, Big pipe going in, little pipe going out. Designed very specifically to overflow in times of heavy flow out into a storm storage reservoir. You can see the levels that the water can get to in here. Fuck being in here durin a storm.
Of course, I take the bigger of the two pipes here. I really didnt fancy a very tight squeeze, besides it just goes to a small outfall.. so off I set. Still consious of the possibility of rain, so keeping my eye very closely on the water levels and flow.
So I take a walk down the nice inviting RCP and then I notice some wood work... wood work and drains really dont mix very well, at least not like this..
Clearly at some point something has gone wrong here and even now it looks like the wooden platform is going to collapse.
So I continue onward, only to come across something that I wasnt expecting to find "IN" a drain... several manholes.
as I walked in further and further above the noise of traffic that I could hear on the very busy dual carraige way that I must have been under I can hear some slightly rushing water. It took a few minutes of walking until I found out why.
The nice 2.1M RCP has decided to become something a bit less exciting... stoopy time is coming. I could see the next chamber in the distance so I carried on.
So I arrive at the next chamber, excited a little as I could hear some gushing of water and hoping for a nice split... Well there was certainly another pipe, but this was not the source of the sound and nor was it anything quite as exciting..
Only problem was this next pipe was even smaller, getting down to around 4ft. But what the heck once again I could see the next chamber and pushed on.
The question of where I heard the water from had been answered in the next chamber, but once again not so exciting.
The diameter had not changed this time and the next chamber was only a few minutes of stooping away.
And whilst the diameter here had once again not changed, the next chamber looked a long way away.. thing where a bit slippy in the water and weighing up my chances of.. can I get to safety if the shit hits the fan whilst pretty much bent over, with the pain of my feet being at a weird angle to avoid the very slippy under foot water. At this point I figured NO. so i decided to turn around hoping to return again once the weather is more predictable and ideally with a second pair of eyes.
You see, Leicester for the most parts has its fair share of culverted brooks and streams most of the city dumps its storm flow into either those or the sewers. Button hole was just an overflow, not a storm drain per say. How ever during the 70s in the north west of Leicester there was large scale development of an area known as Beaumont Leys. The city was rapidly expanding and a vision of an almost micro city was created. This involved a large shopping center, a number of schools and of course plenty of dwellings and of course industrial enterprise... Crisps anyone?
The problem was that this area of Leicester was uphill from the city and over the lip of the valley, Whilst some of Beaumont Leys' storm flow was happily handled by sending the flow down a small gravity fed brick storm sewer into the soar but this would only be suitable for some parts of Beaumont leys.
This brings me to Trinity...
Trinity comprises of 3 distinct storm drains of which the system stretches to around 3.5KM of theoretically explorable pipeage. All draining into the same area, but from different areas of Beaumont Leys all with seperate outfalls and overflow chambers and I shall start this series of reports with Trinity South.
Trinity South drains the surface water from around Beaumont Leys shopping center. Draining out into a Rothley Brook and also encompassing an overflow chamber which spills out water into a park during times of heavy storm flow.
And on with the report....
So I had decided that I should make a little trip to Leicester to catch up with some friends, in this instance JuJu and Baz. I said that I had seen something mentioned in a small peice of documentation and whilst I didnt think it would be anything, it would at the least make a nice walk... so on we trott.
It was only a few minutes into our walk and we came across the first overflow outfall. Having poked my head in I was greeted by a very nice looking tunnel. But it would seem that access really is not suitable for those with a slightly bigger build (For those that dont know me now... I am much thinner than I used to be). Unfortunatly for Baz and JuJu it was just too tight. So off we trott to have a look for the others, all of which we have found and all of which shall be reported on in due course. At that point I had no clue about the routes and/or manhole access and more interested to find the other outfalls.
Having got home, the thought that an unexplored drain just sat there waiting for me to jump in kept crossing my mind. Having checked the weather forcasts it would seem there was only 1 day soon that it could be done and nobody to go with... so quite simply I thought fuck it, im going in solo.
So on quite a cloudy day, with no rain forcast but still aware that it was possible I jumped in.
So I shall start with the overflow chamber..
As you can see, Big pipe going in, little pipe going out. Designed very specifically to overflow in times of heavy flow out into a storm storage reservoir. You can see the levels that the water can get to in here. Fuck being in here durin a storm.
Of course, I take the bigger of the two pipes here. I really didnt fancy a very tight squeeze, besides it just goes to a small outfall.. so off I set. Still consious of the possibility of rain, so keeping my eye very closely on the water levels and flow.
So I take a walk down the nice inviting RCP and then I notice some wood work... wood work and drains really dont mix very well, at least not like this..
Clearly at some point something has gone wrong here and even now it looks like the wooden platform is going to collapse.
So I continue onward, only to come across something that I wasnt expecting to find "IN" a drain... several manholes.
as I walked in further and further above the noise of traffic that I could hear on the very busy dual carraige way that I must have been under I can hear some slightly rushing water. It took a few minutes of walking until I found out why.
The nice 2.1M RCP has decided to become something a bit less exciting... stoopy time is coming. I could see the next chamber in the distance so I carried on.
So I arrive at the next chamber, excited a little as I could hear some gushing of water and hoping for a nice split... Well there was certainly another pipe, but this was not the source of the sound and nor was it anything quite as exciting..
Only problem was this next pipe was even smaller, getting down to around 4ft. But what the heck once again I could see the next chamber and pushed on.
The question of where I heard the water from had been answered in the next chamber, but once again not so exciting.
The diameter had not changed this time and the next chamber was only a few minutes of stooping away.
And whilst the diameter here had once again not changed, the next chamber looked a long way away.. thing where a bit slippy in the water and weighing up my chances of.. can I get to safety if the shit hits the fan whilst pretty much bent over, with the pain of my feet being at a weird angle to avoid the very slippy under foot water. At this point I figured NO. so i decided to turn around hoping to return again once the weather is more predictable and ideally with a second pair of eyes.
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