There hasn't been a report on this for a fair few years, but all of the old reports make it look more than worthy of a visit. So on a cold February afternoon, me and @Esoteric Eric cranked up the drain splore bus and headed in the direction of Halifax. Pipemare is a culverted section of the Hebble Brook. It ends with a load of messed up utility pipes tangled up at the end in a right old pipemare.
The first potential ‘mare of the day greeted us as we pulled up to find that the inflow entry point has changed quite a lot from older reports, by way of this substantial new metal grid.
Fortunately where there’s a will (and a bit of breathing in) there’s a way and we soon found a way down and in.
The first section is a large spraycreted tunnel...
Followed by some nice brick...
The sound of rushing water gets louder as you approach these falls...
Into here...
Not far in were these side pipes. One led to this overflow...
Whilst another was a shaft with ladders up to the manhole high above. At this point you can see just how far beneath the ground we were.
Strangely this shaft also featured a treasure chest. Minus any treasure, unfortunately (just imagine the clickbait titles you could get out of that...)
Not far down was another shaft and overflow, and then my favourite bits...
Approaching more daylight I had been worried that the nice metal staircase I’d seen in earlier reports might also have gone, when they renovated he inflow metalwork - but was pleased to see this bit remains in all its rusty glory.
Onwards. Not sure if anyone's noticed before, but it’s a bloody pipemare in here.
Plans to continue onwards from here were aborted due to the ominous stench of death, so we climbed out, slightly alarming a couple of locals in the process who (all credit to them) acted as if two people dragging themselves out from the river was a standard occurrence.
