Darklands Brook flows west from the high ground above Midway, through the centre of Swadlincote in South Derbyshire, before joining the River Trent near Burton in Staffordshire. Extremely polluted from mine contaminants, road waste, and other noxious goodies, this made for a fun crawl for a couple of hours one Saturday in March. Essentially one long stretch of RCP under several housing estates, entry was found near a nursing home on Darklands Lane - and these certainly are some dark lands...
After wading through a large, thigh deep pool, the culvert has an attractive spillway coming out of the only square section of the drain...
This section is in some disrepair, with the concrete floor being broken in several places. Almost big enough to stand up in, for about the only time...
The remains of a bridge? Beyond this, about 15 metres in, is the first place you're able to stand, below a road manhole cover. It's also the last place you can do that, for about 60m...
Not too wet on this occasion - I'd been in only this far back in January, and this was gushing back then. Not a place to get caught in a flood...
Then there is a lot of this... About 4 feet round, so a mixture of hands and knees crawling and Gollum-style squatting was the order of the day...
Two more manholes were eventually passed, one (very roughly) a hundred metres in from the entrance, and a third another hundred on from that. There was no sign of any relief beyond that, so I turned back, back aching....
Getting back out was certainly easier, with the water keen to help by pushing me along! And lots of spiders wanted to come along for the ride...
I was relieved to see the entrance again, and so were my knees. Just one obstacle remained...
Another wade across the pool, which was by now full of all the crap I'd been crawling over. Fun times. Legged it to Wetherspoons to get changed in the loos and scrub myself hard.
By my best reckoning, this is the route the stream takes, and the blue line shows how far I estimate I got. Need to go and have a look and see if the other end (marked in red as 'out') is accessible, or alternatively someone younger and more flexible can do it instead because blimey that was a workout. Anyway, worth the time - hope you enjoyed!
After wading through a large, thigh deep pool, the culvert has an attractive spillway coming out of the only square section of the drain...
This section is in some disrepair, with the concrete floor being broken in several places. Almost big enough to stand up in, for about the only time...
The remains of a bridge? Beyond this, about 15 metres in, is the first place you're able to stand, below a road manhole cover. It's also the last place you can do that, for about 60m...
Not too wet on this occasion - I'd been in only this far back in January, and this was gushing back then. Not a place to get caught in a flood...
Then there is a lot of this... About 4 feet round, so a mixture of hands and knees crawling and Gollum-style squatting was the order of the day...
Two more manholes were eventually passed, one (very roughly) a hundred metres in from the entrance, and a third another hundred on from that. There was no sign of any relief beyond that, so I turned back, back aching....
Getting back out was certainly easier, with the water keen to help by pushing me along! And lots of spiders wanted to come along for the ride...
I was relieved to see the entrance again, and so were my knees. Just one obstacle remained...
Another wade across the pool, which was by now full of all the crap I'd been crawling over. Fun times. Legged it to Wetherspoons to get changed in the loos and scrub myself hard.
By my best reckoning, this is the route the stream takes, and the blue line shows how far I estimate I got. Need to go and have a look and see if the other end (marked in red as 'out') is accessible, or alternatively someone younger and more flexible can do it instead because blimey that was a workout. Anyway, worth the time - hope you enjoyed!
