The underground world of River culverts

so [Music] hello my name is martin and welcome back to another video this that i'm studying is the gore brook it's one of manchester's lost waterways the reason it's a lost waterway is because for much of its length it's culverted it does run open at times but like i say there's a lot of culverts on this brook and today in this video we're going to go into one of the more interesting culverts so come with me further upstream and and we'll drop into one of the gorbrock's culverts all right so just before we uh venture down into the uh darkness there i'm going to take a look at the tool here it's quite a unique place this because we've got a tunnel over a culvert so this is a brick arch cool but as you can see we're going to walk along the top of the culvert that we're eventually going to drop down into and then walk along it in the water so let's just go and see where how far this tunnel goes here yeah unless you want to come now so you can see we're walking actually above the culvert here like i say i don't know if this exists anywhere else where you're in a tunnel within a tunnel stupid here a bit proper stupid i don't think it goes that far oh it does it goes further than what i thought it's good job this doesn't go through all eyes i'll be down plunging down into the water below me not sure you know if this roof isn't coming in lower it goes quite fast are we getting to the end here possibly possibly at the end yeah so we're completely filled in there now yeah so filled in there now journey's end oh so [Music] [Music] foreign so so um [Music] okay okay use the rope rather [Music] [Music] [Music] uh [Music] um so the slide of death why have i called it the slide of death well i'm not being dramatic because i want to show you now where that tube comes out just take a look at this you can probably hear it now already look at that not all fountains are in city squares this is a beautiful piece of victorian engineering let's go and take a closer look at it [Music] oh it's wonderful but from inside the culvert as you've seen the slide of death is deadly at the moment it's quite tame i'm going to show you some footage when it's in full flow you've seen the side there where the tube comes in imagine the pressure there to be able to force the water up and that's where you don't want to fault go sliding down that tube because it's incredibly dangerous and there's no getting out so why did they build it well i've agonized over it and i'm not i think these are my theories it's a bit of a choke on the brook so the brook comes rushing down the culvert and just just further upstream the brook has to drop down a level so you've got this massive drop as you'll see later and i think it just puts the brake on the brook a little bit and probably a flood defense also if you can see the pipe at the side the brook's course has been altered slightly i think and it comes in from that way and if it was left to run open it would hit the side of the bank there and he rode the field there possibly someone's land so they put this choke on it it comes up and it flows back along its natural course that's my theory anyway from this beautiful piece of victorian engineering let's drop back into the other piece of victorian engineering let's go back into the culvert use that one [Music] [Music] [Music] one [Music] thank you fighters okay thank you hmm not used for the camera yet so now the big dinette google is put it pull the away away [Music] uh [Music] isn't it [Music] so this culvert why is it so long and why is the brook buried down here for such a long distance and where does this culvert go well it's to do with the building of the gorton reservoirs the gauntlet reservoirs replaced some of manchester's earlier drinking water supplies and when they built the galton reservoirs there was a bit of a conflict with the brook i'll try and explain so this is the garten reservoirs constructed in the 1820s now the fascinating thing is i've got a map from the 1790s and it shows the original reservoirs that supplied manchester city center there was one in piccadilly would you believe it near where the old infirmary was there was one at shude hill and there was one at holt town so there you go 1753 and this is an early map of shoot hill it's more like a sketch to be honest with you but at the top there you see it says water pit that was the shoed hill pits here they are again on the later map and probably greater uh more expanded this is at the bottom of oldham road in manchester uh sort of the northern quarter area the shude hill pits and i strongly suspect that those pits were fed by the river tib but i can't be definitely sure here we are in what was later to be known as piccadilly square and you'll see there it says um infirmary pond now that later became the gardens piccadilla gardens if you know that and then here we go a much later map mid-1800s this is the whole town reservoir which we've come across before in the medlock series medlock number four and it had a link to the river medlock all these early water supplies are now long since come they became entirely inadequate and so 1820s these things were constructed but there was a problem the goal brook ran very near here and as the industrial revolution progressed it became absolutely filthy one of the most polluted rivers or brooks in manchester according to the book by uh jeff ashworth the lost rivers of manchester now of course this wasn't always the case if we go to jeff ashraf's book the lost rivers of manchester we can see here page 39 in 1790 mr higgson writes at this time otters were to be met within the gore brook it is also abounding with trout eels and minnows twelve years later plenty of eels and trout in gore brook trees with bushes growing on its margin were also the resort of kingfishers it sounds wonderful but then a hundred years later things had changed incredibly um we read um a late report in the manchester courier tells of sewage matter in the river chemical pollution from a pipe near hyde road station and the effluent from gorton sewage works the goldbrook is now changed beyond recognition it is contaminated and poses a problem to the reservoirs so you've got an issue you've got this filthy brook and you've got a drinking water supply so they needed to keep the brook out of the water supply and they went to massive massive lengths to do that frederick bateman between 1876 and 1879 was charged with the task of culverton the gore brook and what a job he did he built aqueducts he built this really really long culvert so shortly i'm going to show you the extent of frederick bateman's work here around the gorton reservoirs but for the moment let's crack on with this journey we've still got to make our way along this very very long culvert and we've got some root infiltration here okay [Music] okay [Music] oh enjoy yourself [Music] this okay is this normal brilliant is this all right do you is a bit narrower [Music] right there [Music] [Music] [Music] so oh so good foreign maybe not so okay so what is that tunnel on the left there well that is another brook that joins us uh it's the dodge leech brook again one of manchester's lost waterways because i think this thing is spends much of its time in culverts uh so the dodge leach brooks joins us now um and my only regret is that i wanted to have a bit of a look up there to be honest with you um and i just regret i didn't get much footage up there but it is pretty wild in here and time was of the essence we needed to get to where we wanted to get to get the footage and get out many many years ago when these brooks ran open i don't doubt that they uh they were in fields and they they met with each other and it was all quite idyllic but there's a little bit of text there that you can read that explains that the dodge leech brook will be taken by pipes and will join the gore brook in that way [Applause] okay so like i say this was the first time it actually got smelly now before i talk about that watercourse to the right in the smaller tunnel just take a look at the ceiling uh this this chamber is amazing it's quite wide and if you look at the brickwork on the ceiling there it really is fantastic the way it all comes together a bit of craftsmanship there anyway that smaller um outfall to the right there that's a combined sewer overflow so it is coming from a sewer but it's also a brook that's the dick lane brook and that joins the gore brook at this point this piece of text from the lost rivers of manchester mentions the dick lane brook here it also describes how it spends most of its time underneath manchester road underneath the canal so it sounds like this thing rarely surfaces as well now you will notice the walls are about to change from brick to concrete and this marks the spot where we enter one of the aqueducts now what on earth am i talking about allow me to explain we'll just have to go outside for a moment this is where we are in one of the aqueducts and these things are they they span the perimeters i will show you of the garden reservoirs and they carry the brook you can see what those resourceful victorians did they built aqueducts around the reservoir to keep the gore brook out of the drinking water absolutely fantastic this was built between 1876 and 1879. i always imagine these things like early 1900s but what we've been in today is much much earlier stunning victorian engineering so here's the garden reservoirs from the google earth view and as you can see here there's one of the aqueducts there if you look at the cursor there the root of the culvert then goes underneath the golf course out into another aqueduct there where the cursor is and that's where i was just walking along proceeds again under all the way underneath the golf course there all the way again another acquittal there and then the final aqueduct at the top end of the reservoirs there so you can see one hell of a long culvert i've not even shown you the entire route but you can see just by what i've shown you how long the culvert is the work involves the aqueducts and the length to which they went to keep that dirty gorbrook away from the drinking water and it's now at that last aqueduct there that we must turn around and make the journey back we have a feeling that it's raining outside so time is of the essence okay so this is as far as we're going to come so you've seen the main features now you've seen the waterfalls are now absolutely fantastic and spectacular they are we've come quite a long way we need to head back now to the safety of the the exit on the way back i want to show you the approach to the waterfalls from above because approaching from this way is quite a fantastic and uh quite a sight to behold you can see here just how near we are to the surface it's not until we start dropping down the waterfalls that we go deeper underground all right is it [Music] [Music] uh well that was amazing if not very dangerous i enjoyed it used to be a lot ugh so there you go one of the most interesting culverts i've ever been in and i've been in quite a few i'd like to thank nick and roy for bringing us down here and getting us in and out safely i'd like to thank you for watching so from the go brook take care and i shall see in the next video bye for now [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Martin Zero

Views: 110,455

Keywords: River Culvert, underground river, underground river culvert, Underground Manchester tunnels, Victorian civil engineering, Victorian engineering, Victorian sewers, Lost rivers, Lost rivers of Manchester, Underground waterfall, Gore Brook Manchester, Gorton Falls, Martin Zero, Urbex, Urban exploration

Id: uQ2sgR6b6zo

Length: 42min 44sec (2564 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 28 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/SnooPickles990]

Look at 10:30 to see the “slide of death” and what it comes out of. Shiver.