Seeing the report on No Culvert For Old Men in Blackburn prompted me to have another look around that area of the country, seeing as up till now I had focused most my efforts on Manchester and Yorkshire.
Sure enough a brief search for the two main criteria for guaranteed culvertry (Steep valleys and a good industrial history) threw up a brand new draining town, Accrington! Nestled right at the confluence of 3 main watercourses, there had to be something good, so off I drove with the usual overly optimistic list of 11 culverts to look at.
Upon arriving I was disappointed to find that the outfall of the main drain was still absolutely steaming after the thunderstorm that had occurred during the night. But confident that the water levels would drop I first checked out a culvert further upstream.
Flowrider (yes lame name I can't think of anything else) is a short 400m culverted section of Woodnook Water (that's the name of the stream) on the outskirts of the town. The height difference between infall and outfall is quite dramatic, and the drain contains no steps or waterfalls so the gradient is somewhat insane for a drain. Thankfully the floor is quite grippy, otherwise you'd be saying your sweet goodbyes the moment you step inside.
This is actually on the way out, after the water level had dropped considerably. When I went in it was completely impossible to stand in this spot
The tunnel continues as a steep, mostly stoopy stone/brick arch before finally changing to a more modern concrete box type. Small holes in the ceiling for the entire length of this section let light pour in. It reminded me of an art gallery
By the time I had got out the water levels had dropped quite substantially so I went to check out a bigger culvert on the Accrington Brook/River Hyndburn (depending on which map you look at). The tunnel is pretty decent size, about 9-10ft tall and double that in width, but sadly after only a couple of hundred meters I reached the base of a waterfall where the water was too deep to continue. I didn't bother checking the upstream section as it is almost certainly the same as the rest.
This was pretty much the only other interesting thing in there so I'm just calling it "My Shop"
By now I had wasted loads of time waiting for the water to kindly ^%&* off so it was getting a bit late. I decided to check out a 700m culverted section of the Warmden Brook (Calling it the Warmden Grotto as I'm completely lacking in any sort of name inspiration this weekend). The day wasn't going too badly, but I wanted to find something a bit more interesting and I wasn't disappointed!
The drain starts off as a nice 7ft arch. It really is quite beautiful, with a cobbled floor, stone sides and a perfect circular red brick arch to cap it off. Also of note is that although the floor is made from stone, it is still in perfect condition and not completely torn up unlike other northern drains!
Ahead a loud roaring noise gets louder and louder. The drain drops down a short slide, opening it up by another foot or so before reaching a beautifully crafted 7ft waterfall with a plunge pit at the bottom. This is the sort of stuff dreams are made of...well...my dreams anyway
Defeated by the lack of any ladder, and a pool of unknown depth at the bottom, I headed back to the car for some classic backbreaking sleep.
The following day the sky shone bright blue, success! I had to go see the bottom of the waterfall from the previous night so I headed straight over to the outfall and headed in.
Well, I expected pretty much a standard arched tunnel the whole way, just leading to the base of the falls. How naive, the d/s section is even better! After a short 5ft commitment the drain opens back up again and things start to get interesting. The next 200m or so is made up of an array of waterfalls and miniature slides, some man-made, some just carved out from bare rock.
I then passed a particularly awesome section where the old rocky river bed has simply been capped with the brick arch and no work done on the floor at all. You have to climb over the original rocks that once would have been on the surface. Lots of photo chances there but I didn't get round to taking any. Just a short way on the drain reaches it's max height at about 13ft at the base of yet another small waterfall.
At the top of the waterfall the shape suddenly changes to a nice 9ft RSP. Yes you read that right, round stone pipe! Crazy drain.
This continues for a short way before reaching the base of the falls that I had seen the previous night.
I could easily have spend a few days down there taking photos, it's one of the most photogenic places I've ever been, but there was other things to explore so I headed back downstream to the infall for the main drain beneath the town - Superlative Nomenclature (I haven't been influenced by DDT's silly drain names, honistly)
Well this is the main reason I came to Accrington in the first place, it looked great on the map, 3 rivers merging underground (Woodnook Water, Warmden Brook and Pleck Brook) to form a new watercourse, the Accrington Brook/River Hyndburn (u/s of My Shop). Sadly, in reality the drain isn't as interesting as I'd expected, and a bit of a disappointment after the Warmden Grotto, just a stone/brick arch for most of it's length.
The Pleck Brook, which also joins in from the side turned out to be a 6ft rcp, shrinking to a rather uninspiring 4ft concrete oval. It runs for about 1km according to the map, but I wasn't in the mood for stooping just in case it might open up (no DDT around to push me down silly pipes!)
At this point my torch began to give up, randomly dying without warning. A sharp knock usually got it going again, but it wasn't really my ideal setup so I headed home. (I'm beginning to think fenix's might be a bit overrated? This is the second one I've got through in 6 months, excluding the one I left on a pavement)
Sure enough a brief search for the two main criteria for guaranteed culvertry (Steep valleys and a good industrial history) threw up a brand new draining town, Accrington! Nestled right at the confluence of 3 main watercourses, there had to be something good, so off I drove with the usual overly optimistic list of 11 culverts to look at.
Upon arriving I was disappointed to find that the outfall of the main drain was still absolutely steaming after the thunderstorm that had occurred during the night. But confident that the water levels would drop I first checked out a culvert further upstream.
Flowrider (yes lame name I can't think of anything else) is a short 400m culverted section of Woodnook Water (that's the name of the stream) on the outskirts of the town. The height difference between infall and outfall is quite dramatic, and the drain contains no steps or waterfalls so the gradient is somewhat insane for a drain. Thankfully the floor is quite grippy, otherwise you'd be saying your sweet goodbyes the moment you step inside.
This is actually on the way out, after the water level had dropped considerably. When I went in it was completely impossible to stand in this spot
The tunnel continues as a steep, mostly stoopy stone/brick arch before finally changing to a more modern concrete box type. Small holes in the ceiling for the entire length of this section let light pour in. It reminded me of an art gallery
By the time I had got out the water levels had dropped quite substantially so I went to check out a bigger culvert on the Accrington Brook/River Hyndburn (depending on which map you look at). The tunnel is pretty decent size, about 9-10ft tall and double that in width, but sadly after only a couple of hundred meters I reached the base of a waterfall where the water was too deep to continue. I didn't bother checking the upstream section as it is almost certainly the same as the rest.
This was pretty much the only other interesting thing in there so I'm just calling it "My Shop"
By now I had wasted loads of time waiting for the water to kindly ^%&* off so it was getting a bit late. I decided to check out a 700m culverted section of the Warmden Brook (Calling it the Warmden Grotto as I'm completely lacking in any sort of name inspiration this weekend). The day wasn't going too badly, but I wanted to find something a bit more interesting and I wasn't disappointed!
The drain starts off as a nice 7ft arch. It really is quite beautiful, with a cobbled floor, stone sides and a perfect circular red brick arch to cap it off. Also of note is that although the floor is made from stone, it is still in perfect condition and not completely torn up unlike other northern drains!
Ahead a loud roaring noise gets louder and louder. The drain drops down a short slide, opening it up by another foot or so before reaching a beautifully crafted 7ft waterfall with a plunge pit at the bottom. This is the sort of stuff dreams are made of...well...my dreams anyway
Defeated by the lack of any ladder, and a pool of unknown depth at the bottom, I headed back to the car for some classic backbreaking sleep.
The following day the sky shone bright blue, success! I had to go see the bottom of the waterfall from the previous night so I headed straight over to the outfall and headed in.
Well, I expected pretty much a standard arched tunnel the whole way, just leading to the base of the falls. How naive, the d/s section is even better! After a short 5ft commitment the drain opens back up again and things start to get interesting. The next 200m or so is made up of an array of waterfalls and miniature slides, some man-made, some just carved out from bare rock.
I then passed a particularly awesome section where the old rocky river bed has simply been capped with the brick arch and no work done on the floor at all. You have to climb over the original rocks that once would have been on the surface. Lots of photo chances there but I didn't get round to taking any. Just a short way on the drain reaches it's max height at about 13ft at the base of yet another small waterfall.
At the top of the waterfall the shape suddenly changes to a nice 9ft RSP. Yes you read that right, round stone pipe! Crazy drain.
This continues for a short way before reaching the base of the falls that I had seen the previous night.
I could easily have spend a few days down there taking photos, it's one of the most photogenic places I've ever been, but there was other things to explore so I headed back downstream to the infall for the main drain beneath the town - Superlative Nomenclature (I haven't been influenced by DDT's silly drain names, honistly)
Well this is the main reason I came to Accrington in the first place, it looked great on the map, 3 rivers merging underground (Woodnook Water, Warmden Brook and Pleck Brook) to form a new watercourse, the Accrington Brook/River Hyndburn (u/s of My Shop). Sadly, in reality the drain isn't as interesting as I'd expected, and a bit of a disappointment after the Warmden Grotto, just a stone/brick arch for most of it's length.
The Pleck Brook, which also joins in from the side turned out to be a 6ft rcp, shrinking to a rather uninspiring 4ft concrete oval. It runs for about 1km according to the map, but I wasn't in the mood for stooping just in case it might open up (no DDT around to push me down silly pipes!)
At this point my torch began to give up, randomly dying without warning. A sharp knock usually got it going again, but it wasn't really my ideal setup so I headed home. (I'm beginning to think fenix's might be a bit overrated? This is the second one I've got through in 6 months, excluding the one I left on a pavement)
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