I've managed to finally tick off an explore of St John's Conduit 😊
St John's Conduit was built in 1267 by Carmelite Friars who had a house established on the site where Bristol Beacon is (It's going to take me a while to stop thinking of Bristol Beacon as Colston Hall.); the Conduit brought water down from a Spring on Brandon Hill to the Friars house.
In 1376 a feather branch was built from the Friars house to St John's Church in Nelson Street to supply water to St John's parish and the city.
During the 2nd World, following damage to modern water mains, St John's conduit temporarily became the only source of water in the old city.
I'd purchased a copy of a booklet titled 'An account of St John's Conduit-Bristol's medieval water system' by the Temple Local History Group as part of my research into the Conduit. One handy thing is that the booklet has a map of the conduits course in the inside covers. I used that to roughly follow the course whilst above ground and also get an idea of access points.
Robb, a top guy I know who lives in the Bristol area and is into exploring as well, did a fair bit of leg work and sussed out which manhole covers in Park St were likely access points; he also kindly gave me the heads up when the manhole cover outside 58 Park St showed signs of having recently been lifted.
I owe a lot of thanks and gratitude to Robb for all he did 😊
I caught an evening train up to Bristol one Thursday evening at the beginning of July with the intention of attempting entry at night. I soon discovered there's a nightclub (Antix.) not too far away from the manhole cover and it's in easy sight of the doorstaff; maybe it was me being too soft & worrying about nothing but I didn't fancy attempting it with doorstaff just down the road. I kept envisaging them dobbing me in to the Rozzers. And so it was, that night was a duff. Bit of a killer waiting for the 1st train home lol
Antix nightclub is closed on a Monday & Tuesday night and so last night I drove up to Bristol and parked up in Trenchard St car park.
Park Street was nicely quiet and about 11:30pm ish I pulled up my big boy pants, put a couple of roadwork fencing around the manhole cover and managed to lift it. I was finally in 😁
Here's a pic showing the water conduit under Park Street. The section that goes off under the buildings is now blocked off.
The access point under the manhole cover.
The booklet I have does indicate there's also access to the water conduit via a manhole near 75 Park Street. That cover is currently a bit tarmacked over; plus, the access down into the conduit doesn't look as easy as what it is via the way I went.
I thoroughly enjoyed exploring St John's. All that research & persistence, the payoff was worth it 👍
Some of the tunnels are a crawl job, some are tall enough to walk in. It's Muddy down there so expect to get a bit filthy but it wasn't wet or anything; no wellies or waders were needed for this explore.
Hope you've enjoyed this report. I have done a youtube video if any of you fancy wandering over to my channel and watching it.
HISTORY
St John's Conduit was built in 1267 by Carmelite Friars who had a house established on the site where Bristol Beacon is (It's going to take me a while to stop thinking of Bristol Beacon as Colston Hall.); the Conduit brought water down from a Spring on Brandon Hill to the Friars house.
In 1376 a feather branch was built from the Friars house to St John's Church in Nelson Street to supply water to St John's parish and the city.
During the 2nd World, following damage to modern water mains, St John's conduit temporarily became the only source of water in the old city.
EXPLORE
I'd purchased a copy of a booklet titled 'An account of St John's Conduit-Bristol's medieval water system' by the Temple Local History Group as part of my research into the Conduit. One handy thing is that the booklet has a map of the conduits course in the inside covers. I used that to roughly follow the course whilst above ground and also get an idea of access points.
Robb, a top guy I know who lives in the Bristol area and is into exploring as well, did a fair bit of leg work and sussed out which manhole covers in Park St were likely access points; he also kindly gave me the heads up when the manhole cover outside 58 Park St showed signs of having recently been lifted.
I owe a lot of thanks and gratitude to Robb for all he did 😊
I caught an evening train up to Bristol one Thursday evening at the beginning of July with the intention of attempting entry at night. I soon discovered there's a nightclub (Antix.) not too far away from the manhole cover and it's in easy sight of the doorstaff; maybe it was me being too soft & worrying about nothing but I didn't fancy attempting it with doorstaff just down the road. I kept envisaging them dobbing me in to the Rozzers. And so it was, that night was a duff. Bit of a killer waiting for the 1st train home lol
Antix nightclub is closed on a Monday & Tuesday night and so last night I drove up to Bristol and parked up in Trenchard St car park.
Park Street was nicely quiet and about 11:30pm ish I pulled up my big boy pants, put a couple of roadwork fencing around the manhole cover and managed to lift it. I was finally in 😁
Here's a pic showing the water conduit under Park Street. The section that goes off under the buildings is now blocked off.
The access point under the manhole cover.
The booklet I have does indicate there's also access to the water conduit via a manhole near 75 Park Street. That cover is currently a bit tarmacked over; plus, the access down into the conduit doesn't look as easy as what it is via the way I went.
I thoroughly enjoyed exploring St John's. All that research & persistence, the payoff was worth it 👍
Some of the tunnels are a crawl job, some are tall enough to walk in. It's Muddy down there so expect to get a bit filthy but it wasn't wet or anything; no wellies or waders were needed for this explore.
Hope you've enjoyed this report. I have done a youtube video if any of you fancy wandering over to my channel and watching it.
. Exeter should have similar, I intended to do some research whilst down there for uni but never really got chance, although they certainly do exist and looked similar judging by the small part covered on their underground tunnels tourist attraction tour.
