We took a trip to see a short (0.5 Km) section of London sewer last evening, it's somewhere that I've been wanting to check out for a good while now. It was never going to be anything ground breaking in the featuresome wonders department, and is a full on nasty as they come sanitary sewer! It was of great interest to us however as it dates from around 1830, making it pre Bazalgette's major sewer works/overhaul.
It's a really fascinating stretch, majorly interesting as far as shape changes go, the main pipe chopping and changing amongst circular, egg, balloon, horseshoe, oval(lozenge) and flat sided arch. Really very cool. I had a dismal night photographically and so don't have as many images as I'd like to illustrate all those changes
The brick work in most places is much less pristine than Bazalgette's Victorian offerings which gives the place something of a forgotten/neglected feel, it really felt different to anything else we've explored under London. Even the broadband cables didn't make the place feel any less neglected/forgotten.
Here's a bit of mappage and a guide to where pics were taken from, click the image to link to the pdf doc of the same map.
We entered the stretch at about its middle point, via a branch sewer which brought us into the main pipe at the point of this picture.
We came in from the right in the above pic. Here another branch sewer joined from the east directly opposite the one we had come in from. They both met the main pipe in a massively tall circular brick chamber, which has a domed ceiling to it. Unfortunately I was never going to get a descent pic of that, but st00p got a shot with his fish eye and so when that's developed it should show it off nicely. From here we first headed upstream, passing various branch sewers which were of walking height but quickly shrunk down to a painful stoop.
The below pic shows a branch joining from the west and the main pipe with a couple of steps up to it's next section.
Next pic shows where another branch sewer at a higher level overflows into the main pipe via a short staircase, a bit too much flash me thinks. Just beyond st00p's position in this pic is the end of our upstream explore, which I'll get to next.
The upstream explore ended for us where a more modern (1870s) pipe continued on at about 3.5 - 4ft in height and so we didn't go any further in that direction. This pic is taken in the main pipe looking toward the smaller upstream pipe, the right hand pipe being yet another branch sewer.
We went a little way down the branch sewer that joined from the east, just around its first corner a small drop shaft entered from above, shinning up the adjacent ladder we saw that it brought in more flow from an even smaller sewer joining from a northern direction. The pic below is taken in the primary branch, looking back in the direction of the main pipe, the drop shaft enters on the right infront of st00p's position. st00p is stood in the niche where the ladder resides that allows access between the two branches.
So halted on our upstream trek we headed back to our entry point. Here's a pic of the main pipe looking downstream, the horizontal bar across the middle of the pipe in the far distance is the same bar of the junction in the second pic of the thread, but pictured here from the opposite side.
We passed our entry point and carried on downstream. As we headed further downstream the water level got significantly higher, although it wasn't especially fast flowing, which turned out not to be such a great thing! It was around about this time that we started to notice that the floor was getting more and more silted up, but the silt also contained bigger debris which caused you to stumble and lunge for the wall to steady yourself.
The main pipe went on for a while like this, getting more and more silted, and then very suddenly the silt stopped and you stepped off its edge into mid thigh deep water. Just up ahead around a 45 degree corner we could hear crashing water, more side pipes no doubt. Rounding the corner we were surprised, yes there were more side pipes, but also the walls were spouting water. My below pic really doesn't do it justice as st00p's position blocks alot of the spouts from view. It appears that a major amount of ground water is forcing its way into the pipe at this point, it was quite an impressive sight.
This point was also another very tall circular brick junction chamber with domed ceiling, but even more impressively at various points around the curved walls, at staggered heights, were 5 or 6 smaller brick arches. You definitely wouldn't want to be in that junction when everything was in full flow.
The whole time we'd been underground we'd been very aware that this was a pretty skanky sanitary sewer. Lots of solid content in the water, lots of cling-ons when you lifted your tripod from the waters. But it was tolerable. That was until what happened next. LOL! We packed up our kit to pass the ground water spouts, the water was getting close to crotch deep as you waded into the spouts and the floor was again very silted. I lead, slowly as it was a bit of a struggle to pull your feet back up out of the sinky silt. From behind me I heard st00p shout "You do not want to see what you have just stirred up", he was right, I didn't want to see it and so I didn't look. But I guess he thought may be I should see and so he hit the big beam torch on the water, I still didn't properly look but saw enough to realise that there wasn't a cm area of the surface of the water that wasn't glowing with golden nuggets and other various trophies! Then the smell hit us, holy goodness gracious me, it was not goodah!!
We VERY quickly decided we'd have to end our downstream explore at this point. st00p is a resilient chap, he isn't put off by much when it comes to exploring. But to hear him describe the incident as "The thing of nightmares" and "The worst thing I have seen in a drain ever " was enough to convince me that it was time to leave. We headed back upstream and quickly out, feeling 100 times more dirty than 3 hours earlier. Having forgotten a change of clothes I had to drive home in a Beastie Boys styley wearing my boiler suit which I had left in the car.
It is a great stretch of sewer, but beware the skank!!!!!
Apologies for grammatical errors, am rushing!
JD
It's a really fascinating stretch, majorly interesting as far as shape changes go, the main pipe chopping and changing amongst circular, egg, balloon, horseshoe, oval(lozenge) and flat sided arch. Really very cool. I had a dismal night photographically and so don't have as many images as I'd like to illustrate all those changes
The brick work in most places is much less pristine than Bazalgette's Victorian offerings which gives the place something of a forgotten/neglected feel, it really felt different to anything else we've explored under London. Even the broadband cables didn't make the place feel any less neglected/forgotten.Here's a bit of mappage and a guide to where pics were taken from, click the image to link to the pdf doc of the same map.
We entered the stretch at about its middle point, via a branch sewer which brought us into the main pipe at the point of this picture.
We came in from the right in the above pic. Here another branch sewer joined from the east directly opposite the one we had come in from. They both met the main pipe in a massively tall circular brick chamber, which has a domed ceiling to it. Unfortunately I was never going to get a descent pic of that, but st00p got a shot with his fish eye and so when that's developed it should show it off nicely. From here we first headed upstream, passing various branch sewers which were of walking height but quickly shrunk down to a painful stoop.
The below pic shows a branch joining from the west and the main pipe with a couple of steps up to it's next section.
Next pic shows where another branch sewer at a higher level overflows into the main pipe via a short staircase, a bit too much flash me thinks.
Just beyond st00p's position in this pic is the end of our upstream explore, which I'll get to next.
The upstream explore ended for us where a more modern (1870s) pipe continued on at about 3.5 - 4ft in height and so we didn't go any further in that direction. This pic is taken in the main pipe looking toward the smaller upstream pipe, the right hand pipe being yet another branch sewer.
We went a little way down the branch sewer that joined from the east, just around its first corner a small drop shaft entered from above, shinning up the adjacent ladder we saw that it brought in more flow from an even smaller sewer joining from a northern direction. The pic below is taken in the primary branch, looking back in the direction of the main pipe, the drop shaft enters on the right infront of st00p's position. st00p is stood in the niche where the ladder resides that allows access between the two branches.
So halted on our upstream trek we headed back to our entry point. Here's a pic of the main pipe looking downstream, the horizontal bar across the middle of the pipe in the far distance is the same bar of the junction in the second pic of the thread, but pictured here from the opposite side.
We passed our entry point and carried on downstream. As we headed further downstream the water level got significantly higher, although it wasn't especially fast flowing, which turned out not to be such a great thing! It was around about this time that we started to notice that the floor was getting more and more silted up, but the silt also contained bigger debris which caused you to stumble and lunge for the wall to steady yourself.
The main pipe went on for a while like this, getting more and more silted, and then very suddenly the silt stopped and you stepped off its edge into mid thigh deep water. Just up ahead around a 45 degree corner we could hear crashing water, more side pipes no doubt. Rounding the corner we were surprised, yes there were more side pipes, but also the walls were spouting water. My below pic really doesn't do it justice as st00p's position blocks alot of the spouts from view. It appears that a major amount of ground water is forcing its way into the pipe at this point, it was quite an impressive sight.
This point was also another very tall circular brick junction chamber with domed ceiling, but even more impressively at various points around the curved walls, at staggered heights, were 5 or 6 smaller brick arches. You definitely wouldn't want to be in that junction when everything was in full flow.
The whole time we'd been underground we'd been very aware that this was a pretty skanky sanitary sewer. Lots of solid content in the water, lots of cling-ons when you lifted your tripod from the waters. But it was tolerable. That was until what happened next. LOL! We packed up our kit to pass the ground water spouts, the water was getting close to crotch deep as you waded into the spouts and the floor was again very silted. I lead, slowly as it was a bit of a struggle to pull your feet back up out of the sinky silt. From behind me I heard st00p shout "You do not want to see what you have just stirred up", he was right, I didn't want to see it and so I didn't look. But I guess he thought may be I should see and so he hit the big beam torch on the water, I still didn't properly look but saw enough to realise that there wasn't a cm area of the surface of the water that wasn't glowing with golden nuggets and other various trophies! Then the smell hit us, holy goodness gracious me, it was not goodah!!
We VERY quickly decided we'd have to end our downstream explore at this point. st00p is a resilient chap, he isn't put off by much when it comes to exploring. But to hear him describe the incident as "The thing of nightmares" and "The worst thing I have seen in a drain ever " was enough to convince me that it was time to leave. We headed back upstream and quickly out, feeling 100 times more dirty than 3 hours earlier. Having forgotten a change of clothes I had to drive home in a Beastie Boys styley wearing my boiler suit which I had left in the car.
It is a great stretch of sewer, but beware the skank!!!!!
Apologies for grammatical errors, am rushing!
JD
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