Explored with @EOA as a nice relaxed Sunday afternoon explore... the best type of explores. He mentioned he was planning to explore these culverts a few days beforehand and invited me along, and how can I resist the offer of drains?
Once again I've abandoned my best kit in favour of a humble 28mm f/3.5 prime from the early 80s... because who needs this modern plastic autofocus crap?
Some History
The Majestic Culverts are a series of 3 culverts along the infant River Medlock, running from the Strinesdale reservoirs, under the site of the former Orb Mill, now a school, and finally under the Majestic Mill - hence the name.
First off we started with the top-most culvert. After completely dismissing entry via the infall, we headed off to find the outfall. Finding it wasn't hard, but the size of it was clearly a bit of an issue.... look at it.... it's tiny
So @EOA gets stuck in while I'm sort of half in the outfall, wondering if I can be bothered actually going in. If I was on my own I probably would've written this one off, but with somebody already further inside you don't have a choice, you are carrying on. Thankfully this increadibly stoopy section only lasted 10 or so metres, before opening up.
Now on to the second Culvert. A little deep on the way in but still no breaches yet.
Mmmmmmm, spraycrete
...and to finish of the second culvert, a nice 12ft brick pipe. Just behind the camera here it gets rather deep, I did well to avoid a dunking, but didn't escape completely dry.
Upon leaving the second culvert and walking downstream, a nice little footbridge appears, and beyond that the Majestic Mill itself.
For the final culvert we entered at the outfall, because I didn't fancy a 10ft drop or tackling the slide of death, and EOA agreed.
Here a small CSO seems to flow in from the right, easily given away by the distinctive smell of fresh and prescence of wetwipes.
And finally we reach the end of the third culvert, complete with shopping trolley.
Once again I've abandoned my best kit in favour of a humble 28mm f/3.5 prime from the early 80s... because who needs this modern plastic autofocus crap?
Some History
The Majestic Culverts are a series of 3 culverts along the infant River Medlock, running from the Strinesdale reservoirs, under the site of the former Orb Mill, now a school, and finally under the Majestic Mill - hence the name.
First off we started with the top-most culvert. After completely dismissing entry via the infall, we headed off to find the outfall. Finding it wasn't hard, but the size of it was clearly a bit of an issue.... look at it.... it's tiny
So @EOA gets stuck in while I'm sort of half in the outfall, wondering if I can be bothered actually going in. If I was on my own I probably would've written this one off, but with somebody already further inside you don't have a choice, you are carrying on. Thankfully this increadibly stoopy section only lasted 10 or so metres, before opening up.
Now on to the second Culvert. A little deep on the way in but still no breaches yet.
Mmmmmmm, spraycrete
...and to finish of the second culvert, a nice 12ft brick pipe. Just behind the camera here it gets rather deep, I did well to avoid a dunking, but didn't escape completely dry.
Upon leaving the second culvert and walking downstream, a nice little footbridge appears, and beyond that the Majestic Mill itself.
For the final culvert we entered at the outfall, because I didn't fancy a 10ft drop or tackling the slide of death, and EOA agreed.
Here a small CSO seems to flow in from the right, easily given away by the distinctive smell of fresh and prescence of wetwipes.
And finally we reach the end of the third culvert, complete with shopping trolley.
