Underground Manchester. The search for Lost waterways

[Music] [Music] hello welcome back to another video well I'm just in a place called Newton Heath just off all the road in Manchester and this I think is the site of a place called da Blaine Church I mean completely under growth area at the side of a McDonald's just over here behind me and here around da Blaine apparently deep below me there is a spring and it gives rise to one of Manchester's lost and legendary waterways and that waterway is shooter's Brooke so it might not be the exact spot what somewhere around here shooters Brooke is born and it runs down all the road meanders around the streets at the side of all the road it runs through miles plotting around Butler Street under great-uncle Street and as we've explored in a previous video down store Street in Manchester and it's that journey in the city center that were concerned with it concerned with in this video now shooters book is a tributary of the river Medlock and obviously it used to run open in the city center and joined the river Medlock what that rent now raises questions these days as to where it joins the Medlock so allow me to explain imagine manchester city center as it was 200 years ago maybe even more it was semi rural and there was fields and little rows of cottages and shooter's brook ran open babbling its way towards the river Medlock and people would walk down its banks admire the hazelnut trees and walk past Aurora place and fish pond Street and walk towards Garrett Hall that stood near where that shooter's brook entered the river Medlock well the inevitable happened the Industrial Revolution and so the onslaught of pandemonium began and shooters broke now finds itself into what was going to become Manchester City Center and this was going to be industry everywhere and it was used to power mills but at the same time it was bridged over built over call veted and over the years he send it up lost lost and deep underground and they don't think anyone's seen it for 150 years plus it's one of those little blocks just like the river tip but let me introduce you to a second waterway or a tunnel and for me to show you this we need to go back down to wit with Street in Manchester [Music] so just off wit with Street and I'm going to show you the entrance to our second most mysterious water weight and I've shown it before in my videos and it's called dukes tool and it's old it's very very old and it fascinates me and scares me and when I do my Medlock journey I need to walk past it mmm will they ever be able to see inside it and what's it like inside this most ancient of tunnels and when I say ancient I'll put the dates down below when it was constructed I saw the entrance now and then I'll tell you a little bit more about it now for a while the River Medlock was navigable around this area and boats loaded with coal used to come from the mines at Worsley sail up the Bridgewater canal into the river Medlock to here so the entrance to our Dukes Hall now it was constructed between April 1787 and April 1789 that makes it two hundred and twenty-nine years old it's 649 yards long it's eight foot six inches high and six feet wide of course not anymore as I will explain now it goes towards where we know the bottom of Piccadilly station approach which was at the time called Bank top and a horse powered winch took the coal upper shaft to Nolan's sons coal yard now apparently by 1800 the level of the river Medlock had risen by 8 feet due to silting now I've read that also that that silting was probably people and industry dumping cinders into the Medlock from the fires coal fires and it basically just got washed along its length and that the the level of the river just basically rose and that's why you see the tunnel as it is today most of it is now covered now here's a little bit of extra information I've learned about that the entrance that tunnel I'm reading this now the entrance at the river Medlock is heavily skewed in fact plans show that the line of the tunnel would have met the river almost at a tangent but it was given a short kink at the junction to provide the Masons with a manageable degree of skew well I'm fascinated with that tunnel and I'm looking forward to walking past it on my river medlocke journey but looking at it from here I look at it and I think to myself what's it like in there is he still a complete tunnel is it lying with stone when you get inside it is there any evidence of the old coal barges that used to go along there to bank top will they ever find out I don't know but what's it got to do with shooters Brooke well apparently so it's documented by some sources shooters Brooke doesn't actually real now open into the Medlock it runs firstly into that tunnel or does it can we find out let's carry on with the story so if you'll just allow me to explain at the moment this video the video is more about the investigations and searching for answers rather than actually finding ounces so at the end of the video we may be faced with a question mark we might not get all the answers we require so please don't expect some great big reveal at the end it's the the story is more about looking for answers to these two wonderful lost waterways and so that said I'm going to show you a map now okay so this map shows the area of Manchester City Center that this video is dealing with you'll see there the purple arrow shows the entrance to Dukes tunnel just off the curve there of the river Medlocke and the b6 469 that road that you see that is Whitworth Street if you know Manchester City Center looking to the top of the picture you'll see a green arrow and later when we start to investigate the route of shooters Brook we'll start there at the green arrow where it says car park we'll go on an underground journey to where it says Sackville Gardens where the yellow arrow is and then we'll go on a further underground journey back towards the purple arrow where it says Dukes tunnel so that is the area and that's the context of the area that we're looking at okay so this is the underground hidden Manchester map and you'll see there the river medlocke in grey and you'll see the arrangement of Dukes tunnel and shooters brought written in green with the red arrows now it shows them quite far apart but a lot of other sources say that they were much closer together than that and indeed shooters Brooke Prosser possibly runs into Dukes tunnel as may become apparent later in this story now when you click on the links there because it says read more it's actually - a little piece of writing and I shall read that for you judging by the narrow width and lack of towpath the bolts used must have been starvation as the type of compartment bolt used inside the Worsley mines at the coalface the coal they carried was loaded into wooden containers which fitted in between the exposed ribs inside the bolts hence the name starvation errs the bolts were legs through the tunnel and the coal delivered to the end at Bank top close to the approach to Piccadilly station once at the end of the tunnel near the junction of London Road and juicy Street the wooden coal containers were winched up to the surface by a horse gin the horse powered hoist for delivery to the adjacent Knoll and Sons coal yard okay so let's recap we've got two waterways we've got shooters Brook and we've got juice tunnel a very old cult all as we know right the hidden Manchester map shows shooters brought quite away from duty tall but evidence suggests that shooters brought runs very near - if not into Jukes tunnel okay let me quote from you oh let me give you a quote from the Bible all right Jeffrey Ashworth's lost rivers of Manchester now this book is as elusive as the rivers that it talks about okay very difficult but to get old off I was very lucky right I say it's the Bible because I really report from United Utilities about some of the old rivers and the old Brooks and indeed in that report that was written quite recently they quote this book and they use this book as for some of the evidence of be for thee where these lost waterways run let me give you a quote and you'll have heard this quote before if you watch my videos but let me give you a quote the brook and the tunnel were very close together on the ground now covered by Sir Joseph Whitworth's works now wit with street there was a we're on the brook about there and boys when bathing were accustomed to pass by an underwater opening from the brook into the tunnel and bring out coal from a sunken Bowl at that time lying in the tunnel right so that suggests I don't know when when that quote or where that quote was from it's just a quote in Jeffrey's book he's obviously talking about a time when shooters broke man open and kids went paddling and bathing in there so possibly 200 years ago they duck through into Dukes tunnel and Nick Cole off a barge right maybe it was earlier than 200 years because I'm thinking if there was a sunken barge in there the tunnel may have been been disused who knows right so we've got the two waterways we know the very very close together we've got that quote from Geoffrey's book so now let me tell you about another thing that happened and all there's a lot of information in this video but honestly I've had to get my head round it I'm putting this video together it's been a bit of a complicated thing to do anyway I made a video called River Matlock episode 5 and in that we talked about shooters Brooke in that video I got a comment from a gentleman named Andy and he said to me I've got some information about shooters broke in fact my company did some work with it would you like the information of course steam came out my head and I went yes of course want the information now Andy was from a company called Murphy surveys now Murphy surveys are a geospatial specialist consultancy within the architecture and engineering construction industries and Andy just happens to be the subsurface mapping manager so he deals with everything all the surveys that are done underground now a construction company wanted to do some work around the Whitworth Street area of Manchester obviously these foundations for some of these buildings run very very deep so they consulted Murphy surveys who would carry out an extensive subterranean survey of shooters broke the roots of shooters Brooke the root of Jukes tunnel and possibly uncover anything else that may impede any construction word that was going to go ahead and saw the work and the extensive investigations began now imagine trying to map the route of these two very very old waterways some of the records were full of gaps and indeed some of the records didn't even exist so they had a massive undertaking on their hands and Murphy surveys out to carry out extensive Reece which involved going into the library's looking through the archives and going to the university to try and uncover evidence and to try to find out where to search and where to begin the mapping of these two very very old waterways they even did CCTV drainage surveys to see where the drains ran and see if they could find access to these old waterways and the search took them out as far as Mayfield station if you know where that is in Manchester now all that extensive research paid off because it led Murphy surveys to a car park just off London Road so the search for shooters brought began here in this rather mundane car parked just off London Road near Piccadilly in manchester city centre who'da thought such an ordinary place would hold such secrets now the search for Duke's total are an entrance into the Dukes tunnel proved to be very very difficult now in spite of all this extensive research carried out by Murphy surveys trying to find access to Duke's tunnel was going to be very very difficult indeed the search led them to the car parks underneath India house they tried lifting manhole covers to see from these manhole covers could possibly lead into the tunnel but alas they were unsuccessful and the search also took them into the the undercroft of Piccadilly station which is now a carpark and again searching for a possible entrance to Duke's tunnel again this proved unsuccessful however there is a place on London Road that lines up directly with the route of Dukes tunnel and I'm going to take you to it now London Road Manchester and I've always thought that this big grid that I'm going to show you the minute was a clue to Jukes tunnel indeed the team at Murphy surveys did as well but it kind of created more mysteries than it actually solved [Music] [Music] so Murphy surveys were very interested in that circular grid manhole cover that sort of domed thing on London Road it's got some routed around the edge and he the writing suggests that it was a time capsule so they contacted the University they knew nothing about it we don't know nothing about it sorry they contacted the council Manchester City Council it would have been the Works Department wasn't it and they said we don't know nothing about it we don't know what that is for they went into the library central library and again the search for information proved fruitless now there is some writing along the outside of our quote the writing to you this is your passage through time paths and paces expressionless faces framed in time confused by directions subject to regulations each choose your line but there's no pressing obligation observe your inclination toward whatever destination a rumor has it that there was a time capsule in it but this was never found because they lifted the lid to look into it and when they're lifted the top glass lid underneath was what he described as a plastic tray and then beneath that solid just solid concrete so who knows what that is it lines up directly above Jukes tunnel but unfortunately it doesn't provide access so the mystery of duke's tunnel continues [Music] so let's just jump back now to that carpark of London Road and Murphy surveys are in there lifting manhole covers now the information they had must have been very good information because bingo they lifted a my roll cover and there it was there it was a flaw of fresh running water this was shooters Brooke so if you've seen me and Connor do an arrow of an exploring perhaps in the Med lock with broomsticks and hats on and bits of torches and testing the depth in our waders Murphy Service sort of show you how urban exploring is done by the professionals now as you can imagine there's a lot of planning that goes into these surveys and each site is discussed in detail and things are absolutely nailed down so the team know exactly what the doing and the research is meticulous obviously there's a big concern given to health and safety and they try to avoid sending a man down into the confined space into the chamber at all costs but on this occasion all the planning was taken into account Health and Safety was taken into account and it was found that they could actually lower a man down into the brook so this manhole cover the plan was to firstly send down what I can only describe as a robot with a camera on the front and that would follow the route from London Road towards what is what will be Sackville Gardens okay so going further into Manchester now okay so they send the robot down and along it goes to check out what he's like down there the bigger plan is to send a man down there and the man that they sent down there was our man Andy he actually went down there so I spoke to someone who actually walks in shooters Brook which was I give them a bit of kudos for that so don't forget Andy's showing me all this footage now from the robot and so nobody else has ever seen this before apart from the people from Murphy surveys but we are going to go down there in the car park off London Road and we're going to go now along shooter's Brook and I'm gonna describe to you what we're seeing now one of the things I need to tell you about it what we're going to see is a laser picture I think that's correct Andy a laser picture a laser built up picture of the tunnel right hold it right there Martin because I'm not sure now what I'm talking about what I'm going to do is I'm going to get Andy from Murphy surveys to come in and voiceover the technology that they're using to investigate the tunnel now it does get quite complicated I'm not going to dumb it down for you because it's a fascinating insight into what Murphy surveys do in the subterranean surveys so the image you can see at the moment is what we refer to as a dense point cloud the data to formulate a point cloud is captured by a high definition laser scanner the laser scanner fires out hundreds of thousands of lasers per minute per second and it's the reflection of an object that those lasers hits that is formulated into the imagery that you see on the screen each one of those laser hits and can be geo-referenced so we can give you an accurate position within a couple of millimeters as to where that is underground and there's a lot more work involved in regards to link in the two ends to the satellites in the sky so with the laser survey we have to be able to have two points of access to get the better accuracy on the screen you can see the yellow triangles or the the cheese as my refers to them as those yellow triangles are the locations of where we set up the tripod and started the lasers firing in the bottom of the screen you can see two cylindrical disks they're actually black or white targets due to the cylindrical nature of the tunnel and it's deemed as unfavorable for laser scan surveys so we have to incorporate foreign objects to break up the lines so laser scanning works off edges and reference itself back to another known fixed point and being cylindrical there is no previous fixed point so the black and white targets or the disks that we incorporate into the tunnel and they give that broken line so they allow us to stitch the images together so as you can see some of the triangles and numbered so we can tell which gun was done where or when and then once we're back in the office and we're processing through the point cloud and registering the data we can put them in a sequence so by putting them in a sequence it's allowing them to just stitch themselves together and formulate the 3d imagery so the the whole process took about four hours so above-ground surveys had to be carried out so we completed full topographical surveys full Ordnance Survey control so every point that was recorded is referenced to a satellite above ground by referencing it to the satellites above ground or in the sky it allows us to position it accurately within the city centre of Manchester to plus or minus ten millimetres so we're now gonna drop down down the manhole cover and we're going to go into shooters brach okay so let me show you this footage okay so there's the routes cap at basement two Sackville gallons and it's not entirely straight as you can see let's get into the tunnel as you can see this is a concrete shaft from the carpark basement and down we go now this is me filming a computer screen so it might not be perfect to apologize that way goes towards London Road and out of town you can see the two chaps are in there and that that's way there goes towards Sackville Gardens that's heading in towards town okay so we're now in shooters Brook so we need to look along that tunnel and see where it goes okay so we're now just inside that tunnel now and you'll see at the side there something drains into the brook don't know what that is but these places are full of things like that and brick line tunnel what it is about ankle-deep we don't know how old this tunnel is this tunnel could be anything up to maybe 200 years old I'm just touching the screen there okay so this is looking backwards now yeah I'm sorry it gets confusing but we're looking behind us now back towards the London Road carpark the tunnel now is two meters in height and it's egg-shaped okay now the the robot will now turn round towards the direction in which we're traveling okay so we're looking backwards of coming from the carpark a London Road now robot turn round okay and you'll see as it turns round there's a wall now this is remember in a tunnel 2 metres high and there is a wall all right as I say I'm filming the screen so you'll see my hand coming in but that wall or some kind of dam that that was behind that wall was full of water and we don't know what it is we don't know what that is or where it goes to whether it's some kind of overflow some kind of holding tank it was very old because it was stone I talk as he found down there but I'm getting this off a conversation I had with the people that were down there but it was a total mystery depth behind that wall depth unknown full of water and we don't no its function at all so there's the first mystery now the wall is only about knee-high it was full of clear water and when Andy looked into it he said he'd tapered downwards to a point but they can't see where that point was or where that point went to now whether that is some kind of side tank that something overflows into or whether it's a overflow for when the brook gets full we don't know and other some people that watch my videos that have got extensive knowledge about drains maybe you could throw some light onto it but we're not quite sure what this is knee height full of clear water behind it so any suggestions okay so now the robot will turn and we'll carry on the journey and the tunnel now drops down to 800 millimeters which is under a meter and they are now crawling towards Sackville Gardens [Music] [Music] so a short journey over ground can be a long journey underground and I should know 190 meters in total from the carpark basement so the manhole in Sackville Gardens well this is where they came up from that car pack they followed the tunnel along and the next man Hall along that they could exit from was here in Sackville Gardens in Manchester and this lowly manhole cover 9 meters beneath it is shooters Brook so that's all part of the mystery that routed it and it investigated it the next step was to see where shooters Brooke went on from there so let's just go back so what of Jukes tunnel what he became of that mystery well unfortunately I'm afraid he kind of ends there apart from this little piece of information of God for you Murphy surveys never did find access to Jukes tunnel but they were in contact with another company that had actually locked into Dukes tunnel now they this other company drilled down I don't know where along the length of Jude solid at it but they drill down and actually penetrated due to tall and they lowered a camera in apparently the conditions were pretty bad and all they could say was that it was 85 to 90 percent filled in with what we don't know what is filled in with we don't know um but that was the answer 85 to 90% in filled now whether that's a long its total length I don't know whether that camera went in at a point you know near a mound and it just saw the mound and thought it was filled in we don't know maybe there are sections that are still open maybe it's all filled in but there's so much so many buildings now on top of Dukes tunnel it's almost impossible to to find an access point and look into it Andy from Murphy surveys does actually think he may have an answer and we think somewhere underneath Piccadilly station in the car parks those car parks underneath Piccadilly there may be access that leads to do tunnel but again we don't know where so if you pat your car in those car packs underneath Piccadilly maybe your pack and on top of Jukes tunnel who can tell so unfortunately as far as Dukes Tunnel is it is is concerned that's the end of it in this story we think okay so we stood in the manhole chamber underneath Sackville Gardens that's where we've come from and you'll see the camera turns round there is the road ahead that tunnel there that is six hundred mill it's a serious crawl it's a seriously long tunnel we need to send an unmanned vehicle other technologies that we used were along the lines of robots or CCTV crawler cameras and there were great asset for us to carry out the work and complete the task safely it's an unmanned unit and with four wheels that just crawls down the tunnel with a camera on the front and it was initially sent down just to do a condition survey so looking for any infiltration or water coming in from the sides any loose brick work or any deformation within the culvert itself just to determine whether or not it was safer us to enter and we also used it to locate and further access points or emergency exit points during the Traverse and we had two cameras one was following us behind and one was in front so as we got a point of no return for the camera behind us the camera in front would be utilized and it would reverse away from us and it provided the relevant task lighting and also helps us with communication with a surface being so deep radio communication didn't work and once we got about twenty thirty meters into the the culvert and verbal communication just it failed the rescue teams at manhole in the carpark couldn't eras and the rescue teams sat for gardens in front of us could Hera's either and so it greatly assisted in the monitoring of what was going on in the tunnel at the time during the course of the work regular gas readings were taken to ensure there was no combustible gases down there and we could all breathe safely now ideally what we want to do is find where shooters Brooke meets the river Medlocke that will be the ultimate outcome of this investigation I'm going to show you now because the manhole is here just beneath me and there's the MU that's Whitworth street and behind that those buildings there is the river Medlock so shooters brought guns on somewhere along here and goes towards the river Medlock well where does he join that's what we're trying to find out and can we send a man that obviously that the guys had come along from the tunnel from the carpark to hearing sacral gardens what can we now send a man further onwards for further investigations the answer is no because the toll goes smaller this tunnel that we're talking about now is only 600 millimeters in height which is just over half a meter so it's a serious crouch and it's a long long tunnel so to investigate this tunnel we need to send the robot okay so the robot is now in that tunnel six hundred mill high and we are six meters out from Sackville Gardens this tunnel is made of vitrified clay now that dates it around 20 to 30 years old remarkably no records exist of this tunnel so this like I say this is very much uncharted territory this would be too much for one individual to crawl down and you'll see here now 40 meters out from Sackville Gardens we're going at a downwards angle and presumably we're heading towards a river medlocke but now at this point we don't know exactly Gardens 57 meters and the tunnel goes on and on and here at 60 meters we open up into a manhole chamber we're not sure where that is like I say we're now 63 meters from Sackville Gardens okay so the theory is that this we think this manhole chamber is blocked at the top obviously the robot can't quite say to the very top difficult to say where we are possibly somewhere underneath Whitworth Street but we actually don't know and the robot carries on okay so the journey continues from that manhole chamber and you'll see that the distance clock at the bottom has been reset we're now measuring distance from the manhole chamber so you need to add on the 60 meters that were already away from Sackville Gardens so where it says 36 meters you'll see jumping because obviously this is a long length so we are sort of like skipping through the tunnel 61 meters from the manhole chamber and you'll see the water level is B getting to rise we are heading at a downwards angle 73 meters from the manual shaft and there is something up ahead there's a large piece of debris in the water but there is something ahead I could see that's debris in the water what is that ahead okay I'm just gonna stop it for a moment another waterway is about to bisect our path shooters Brooke is now going to turn to the right and another something else some drainage from the left joins it we are interested in that what are we looking at there what is that wall okay so we are now at the limits to how far the robot camera can go we cannot go any further if we just turn the camera around you will note that we are the the route ahead to the right we can't go down there but we are in a manhole chamber we don't know we're at the 80 meters onto the 60 meters already because remember we restarted at their previous manhole chamber where our 140 meters from Sackville Gardens but we're not sure exactly where we are could we be looking at the outside wall of Dukes tunnel because we're near there now we're almost we should be connecting with it at this point is that the outside of Dukes tunnel is that the archway there was a we're on the brook about there on boys when they think we're accustomed to pass by an underwater opening from the brook into the tour and bring out coal from a sunken bowl at that time lying in the tunnel [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so there you go some questions answered what many more questions raised will we find out where shooters broke family meets the river Medlock is it in Jukes tunnel but is it somewhere further along that we've completely missed and down below ground what was that wall that we saw was at the outer wall of Jukes tool and what was the archway it was now brick talk is that where the boys ducked through and Nick call off the badge from while they were bathing in shooters Brook when it ran open he's out the place don't know we'll never know I'd like to think it was because I think it could well have been but it was all so long ago we may never know the answers maybe one day on this channel we will find out but then again maybe with a vault anyway I hope you enjoyed the video thanks for watching and I shall see you next time [Music]

Channel: Martin Zero

Views: 114,065

Rating: 4.9030385 out of 5

Keywords: underground manchester, underground river, lost waterways, underground tunnels manchester, underground tunnels manchester city centre, urban exploring, urban exploration, martin zero, manchester history, history of manchester, urbex manchester

Id: pJyFJ2qTWp0

Length: 45min 6sec (2706 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 05 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/skudber]

This guy's channel is awesome for anyone interested in industrial archeology in Manchester.

[u/marzipaneyeballs]

Nearly always a new video every Sunday too. Hope this post brings him some well deserved exposure.

[u/N_K420]

Yeah he has belter niche knowledge