Explored with @cattos mc budget
I remember seeing this culvert on Google Maps quite some time ago, I didn't expect much as the brook it carries is very small and knowing how the drains are in the area I wasn't expecting anything more than a small RCP really. I visited Fareham to have a look at a couple CSOs in November last year and as this culvert is less than a minute walk from the station I decided to check it out. I think my nan thought I'd seen a dead body when I peered over the wall, I was that surprised about what I saw! I've visited this culvert a few times since then, but this was the first time I brought the proper camera down there.
This is a pretty basic culvert really, it carries the Black Brook for roughly 600m underneath Fareham Station and a housing estate. For some reason I can't find any information or history on this place anywhere, even though there's plenty of graffiti down there. I was honestly expecting this to have been done before on 28DL.
There's a good reason why we went for the name "Suffercate". At some points in this culvert we were short for breath and were struggling to breathe, but both gas detectors read oxygen at acceptable levels. We also genuinely suffered doing this thing as it gets quite small at some points as well as other factors making the going slow and painful.
I met up with @cattos mc budget with my sister and mum in company and we got the train to Fareham. Getting into the culvert was a piece of cake, crossing the dual carriageway to get there seemed to be the most challenging part of the outing.
My mum and sister left us once we got in, they went to have a walk around at the nearby marina / estuary whilst we were exploring.
After a short 20m stretch in two parallel 4ft RCPs underneath said carriageway, it opens out into a small open section before the start of the main culvert. Like usual we started from the outfall as the infall is too small to get in from and is sandwiched behind houses in an awkward to get to area.
This is the little open section where the main culvert begins, behind the camera is the two 4ft RCPs. This part reminds me of the entrance to the Bourne Valley Culvert in a way (Hopefully a report of that should be soon!). Whilst preparing for the explore, a bottlecap fell down from the pathway above before someone shouting "You can't park there mate"! The last time we visited we got told off by this cocky jobsworth whilst "looking for pottery" just a tad bit further downstream, worried that we'd been found and still on high alert from what happened before we quickly scurried into the darkness of the culvert.
Once inside it's a nice 6ft brick arch going straight for about 100m with the rumble of trains going over every so often. Frequently there were small wooden planks bolted on to the wall presumably to hold the brickwork together?
At the end of the straight section the main culvert bends around to the left and straightens out again for about 75m. The smaller culvert on the right carries another branch of the Black Brook which has been completely culverted. We had a look and took some photos in there after we'd done the main culvert, photos of that are later on in the report.
This section has some potholes in the floor in places, they're not very deep but can trip you up if you're not careful.
The brick arch ends in a concrete manhole chamber before changing to boring RCP which makes up the rest of the culvert unfortunately, this section about 5.5ft in diameter. The stream used to run open here but was culverted sometime in the late 1960s when the housing estate above was built. This was quite slippery on previous visits but it wasn't too bad this time.
In the next chamber the manhole cover above has been partially lifted allowing natural light in. I stuck my phone camera through the gaps to see what was above, it looked like we were underneath someone's garden as I could see a hosepipe and plenty of vegetation above.
After another chamber with a lot of graffiti and some twists n' turns later we found ourselves in a larger manhole chamber with a metal pipe crossing, possibly a gas or sewer main. The pipe also changed to about 3.5ft in diameter and this was also where the air quality got worse.
Eventually we got to another manhole chamber, the pipe ahead got slightly bigger. We had a sit down in here for a bit but as we were struggling to breathe big time we couldn't be long...
A little while later the water got deeper briefly where there's a belly in the pipe.
The air quality got a lot better here and there was even a slight draught. No words describe how slippery the pipe was here, on our last visit we were practically forced on all fours to stay steady and at one point I slipped and smashed my torch on the wall which caused it to turn off and do some self checking procedure. Luckily it survived although I broke the lanyard.
Finally we arrive at the first of two sumps, the water about knee deep in this one. You may have noticed in some of the pics there are footprints / marks on the floor, we were guessing these were ours from last time but we were disproven once we reached the sump as they carried on ahead and we'd never been further than the sump before! They look fresh and I'm guessing whoever they belong to probably has been here within the past week or so. I brought thigh waders this time so I could easily get over the sump but @cattos mc budget was wearing wellies, eventually he got over it by standing on some bricks someone had placed in the sump and holding on to the step irons just off-camera to the right.
Shortly upstream was the second sump but this one was a lot easier to cross as it's filled with stones.
This is the final stretch before the infall, the two chains ahead were a pain to get past.
And finally we reach the end, the pit in front is about shin deep. The two pipes to the right lead to a small cascade and the infall above, we could just about see daylight through them when we turned the torches off. The tunnel in the middle is most likely a surface water drain, but whoever explored this thing recently persevered up that tunnel judging by the marks on the floor, props to them!
We turned around, slippin' and sliddin' our way back to the outfall. After a short rest and a change of batteries we went back in to do the other culvert.
This section was quite unpleasant to go through as it's rocky underfoot and is quite low (Majority of it is 4ft or less).
There was quite a lot of old pottery and other odd bits in there as they most likely just built over the original brook bed, it mostly consisted of old bottles and jars as well as some metal parts probably from the train station above. I'm not sure what this is but it looks like some kind of vase?
After about 50m, the tunnel bent around to the left before heading straight for around 80m.
After a while the floor changes to brick and the culvert switches into 2.5ft RCP as we head from underneath the station to under another housing estate. It would have opened up into daylight here but the rest of the brook has been culverted in RCP which has been badly bodged into place when the housing estate above was built. We knew a CSO lay upstream and only motivated to keep going by that, we carried on up the pipe.
After passing some manholes we arrived at a small junction chamber where we had a rest for a while. The left tunnel is a very small unnamed watercourse joining.
I put the camera away here as it was getting annoying to carry whilst crawling, so no more proper photos. We kept on going up the right tunnel, passing more manholes before @cattos mc budget called it quits and stayed behind whilst I carried on. The CSO upstream being the only thing motivating me to keep going at this point.
Sorry about the next couple iPhone pics but eventually I reached what I can only describe as a hallway, at this point I could now hear the CSO in the distance so kept going even though the pipe shrunk more.
After more crawling I eventually found it, the outfall pipe about 6" leading into the culvert. It smelt like Frazzles for some reason and kicked out a lot of heat, I was sweating whilst near this thing! The sewer inside sounded quite loud but unfortunately it's too small to go in, after all it is a CSO for a pumping station so the fact of it being so small does make sense? I'm not sure what the contraption ahead is but I think it's some kind of very small screening mechanism. I carried on up the culvert to the next chamber hoping there was some other way to access the CSO, but it was just a small junction chamber where the culvert finally shrunk to about 1ft tall and I turned back.
After spending about 6 and a half hours underground, we left the culvert with ease and waited for my mum and sister by the train station. We missed the train but another one soon arrived and we eventually got back to Basingstoke (Although very late and we had school the next bloody day!). We dodged the crackheads whilst waiting for a taxi to take us home. Said our farewells to @cattos mc budget who luckily survived the walk back to his house during drug o' clock.
It was a good explore and it's nice to find out what was further than that sump and up the other tunnel, but I was expecting a bit more. Just a shame that CSO was so small because if I knew beforehand I wouldn't have crawled up that tunnel and we would've used that time to go up the small surface water drain in the chamber at the infall. Still a couple other culverts around the area to maybe look at and plenty of other CSOs to choose from.
Thanks for reading!
I remember seeing this culvert on Google Maps quite some time ago, I didn't expect much as the brook it carries is very small and knowing how the drains are in the area I wasn't expecting anything more than a small RCP really. I visited Fareham to have a look at a couple CSOs in November last year and as this culvert is less than a minute walk from the station I decided to check it out. I think my nan thought I'd seen a dead body when I peered over the wall, I was that surprised about what I saw! I've visited this culvert a few times since then, but this was the first time I brought the proper camera down there.
This is a pretty basic culvert really, it carries the Black Brook for roughly 600m underneath Fareham Station and a housing estate. For some reason I can't find any information or history on this place anywhere, even though there's plenty of graffiti down there. I was honestly expecting this to have been done before on 28DL.
There's a good reason why we went for the name "Suffercate". At some points in this culvert we were short for breath and were struggling to breathe, but both gas detectors read oxygen at acceptable levels. We also genuinely suffered doing this thing as it gets quite small at some points as well as other factors making the going slow and painful.
I met up with @cattos mc budget with my sister and mum in company and we got the train to Fareham. Getting into the culvert was a piece of cake, crossing the dual carriageway to get there seemed to be the most challenging part of the outing.
My mum and sister left us once we got in, they went to have a walk around at the nearby marina / estuary whilst we were exploring.After a short 20m stretch in two parallel 4ft RCPs underneath said carriageway, it opens out into a small open section before the start of the main culvert. Like usual we started from the outfall as the infall is too small to get in from and is sandwiched behind houses in an awkward to get to area.
This is the little open section where the main culvert begins, behind the camera is the two 4ft RCPs. This part reminds me of the entrance to the Bourne Valley Culvert in a way (Hopefully a report of that should be soon!). Whilst preparing for the explore, a bottlecap fell down from the pathway above before someone shouting "You can't park there mate"! The last time we visited we got told off by this cocky jobsworth whilst "looking for pottery" just a tad bit further downstream, worried that we'd been found and still on high alert from what happened before we quickly scurried into the darkness of the culvert.
Once inside it's a nice 6ft brick arch going straight for about 100m with the rumble of trains going over every so often. Frequently there were small wooden planks bolted on to the wall presumably to hold the brickwork together?
At the end of the straight section the main culvert bends around to the left and straightens out again for about 75m. The smaller culvert on the right carries another branch of the Black Brook which has been completely culverted. We had a look and took some photos in there after we'd done the main culvert, photos of that are later on in the report.
This section has some potholes in the floor in places, they're not very deep but can trip you up if you're not careful.
The brick arch ends in a concrete manhole chamber before changing to boring RCP which makes up the rest of the culvert unfortunately, this section about 5.5ft in diameter. The stream used to run open here but was culverted sometime in the late 1960s when the housing estate above was built. This was quite slippery on previous visits but it wasn't too bad this time.
In the next chamber the manhole cover above has been partially lifted allowing natural light in. I stuck my phone camera through the gaps to see what was above, it looked like we were underneath someone's garden as I could see a hosepipe and plenty of vegetation above.
After another chamber with a lot of graffiti and some twists n' turns later we found ourselves in a larger manhole chamber with a metal pipe crossing, possibly a gas or sewer main. The pipe also changed to about 3.5ft in diameter and this was also where the air quality got worse.
Eventually we got to another manhole chamber, the pipe ahead got slightly bigger. We had a sit down in here for a bit but as we were struggling to breathe big time we couldn't be long...
A little while later the water got deeper briefly where there's a belly in the pipe.
The air quality got a lot better here and there was even a slight draught. No words describe how slippery the pipe was here, on our last visit we were practically forced on all fours to stay steady and at one point I slipped and smashed my torch on the wall which caused it to turn off and do some self checking procedure. Luckily it survived although I broke the lanyard.
Finally we arrive at the first of two sumps, the water about knee deep in this one. You may have noticed in some of the pics there are footprints / marks on the floor, we were guessing these were ours from last time but we were disproven once we reached the sump as they carried on ahead and we'd never been further than the sump before! They look fresh and I'm guessing whoever they belong to probably has been here within the past week or so. I brought thigh waders this time so I could easily get over the sump but @cattos mc budget was wearing wellies, eventually he got over it by standing on some bricks someone had placed in the sump and holding on to the step irons just off-camera to the right.
Shortly upstream was the second sump but this one was a lot easier to cross as it's filled with stones.
This is the final stretch before the infall, the two chains ahead were a pain to get past.
And finally we reach the end, the pit in front is about shin deep. The two pipes to the right lead to a small cascade and the infall above, we could just about see daylight through them when we turned the torches off. The tunnel in the middle is most likely a surface water drain, but whoever explored this thing recently persevered up that tunnel judging by the marks on the floor, props to them!
We turned around, slippin' and sliddin' our way back to the outfall. After a short rest and a change of batteries we went back in to do the other culvert.
This section was quite unpleasant to go through as it's rocky underfoot and is quite low (Majority of it is 4ft or less).
There was quite a lot of old pottery and other odd bits in there as they most likely just built over the original brook bed, it mostly consisted of old bottles and jars as well as some metal parts probably from the train station above. I'm not sure what this is but it looks like some kind of vase?
After about 50m, the tunnel bent around to the left before heading straight for around 80m.
After a while the floor changes to brick and the culvert switches into 2.5ft RCP as we head from underneath the station to under another housing estate. It would have opened up into daylight here but the rest of the brook has been culverted in RCP which has been badly bodged into place when the housing estate above was built. We knew a CSO lay upstream and only motivated to keep going by that, we carried on up the pipe.
After passing some manholes we arrived at a small junction chamber where we had a rest for a while. The left tunnel is a very small unnamed watercourse joining.
I put the camera away here as it was getting annoying to carry whilst crawling, so no more proper photos. We kept on going up the right tunnel, passing more manholes before @cattos mc budget called it quits and stayed behind whilst I carried on. The CSO upstream being the only thing motivating me to keep going at this point.
Sorry about the next couple iPhone pics but eventually I reached what I can only describe as a hallway, at this point I could now hear the CSO in the distance so kept going even though the pipe shrunk more.
After more crawling I eventually found it, the outfall pipe about 6" leading into the culvert. It smelt like Frazzles for some reason and kicked out a lot of heat, I was sweating whilst near this thing! The sewer inside sounded quite loud but unfortunately it's too small to go in, after all it is a CSO for a pumping station so the fact of it being so small does make sense? I'm not sure what the contraption ahead is but I think it's some kind of very small screening mechanism. I carried on up the culvert to the next chamber hoping there was some other way to access the CSO, but it was just a small junction chamber where the culvert finally shrunk to about 1ft tall and I turned back.
After spending about 6 and a half hours underground, we left the culvert with ease and waited for my mum and sister by the train station. We missed the train but another one soon arrived and we eventually got back to Basingstoke (Although very late and we had school the next bloody day!). We dodged the crackheads whilst waiting for a taxi to take us home. Said our farewells to @cattos mc budget who luckily survived the walk back to his house during drug o' clock.
It was a good explore and it's nice to find out what was further than that sump and up the other tunnel, but I was expecting a bit more. Just a shame that CSO was so small because if I knew beforehand I wouldn't have crawled up that tunnel and we would've used that time to go up the small surface water drain in the chamber at the infall. Still a couple other culverts around the area to maybe look at and plenty of other CSOs to choose from.
Thanks for reading!
