The first stop on something of a northern road trip in late 2007, Nottingham was a convenient midway point.
I'd trawled maps and drainage info to uncover what appeared to be a sizeable and aged culvert.
Indeed it was both, however, following further investigation it dawned on me that this was not new ground! The
Beck Valley Stormwater Culvert had been explored in early 2005 by JasonBirder, and again at a later date
by Siologen & Jason. No big deal,
so we wouldn't get to tread virgin drain ground, we still get to ad-venture into new ground for each of us present.
At this point on the journey we were three strong, myself, Dsankt
and Steve Duncan. We rolled up to the culvert's River Trent outfall
to be greeted by a scene so stereotypically English I half expected Hugh Grant to come bumbling and blinking
out of the shrubbery with his pants around his ankles. It was a still morning, the sun was low, the fields beyond the opposing river bank
were blanketed in mist and the hazy silhouettes of dog walkers strolled leisurely in and out of sight. Rounding a bend in the river the slender bow of a row boat
came into view
and the cox's calls of encouragement sporadically broke the silence. Looking down to the culvert's outfall, three swans gracefully
rode the wake of the now passing boat and each wave sent arcs of light dancing across the red brick of the stone dressed outfall
portal. This was going to be a very English explore!
The storm culvert was completed in 1884/85, at the outfall a keystone bearing the Nottingham coat of arms also carries the date 1884.
The culvert takes the trickle of flow that was once the Beck stream, it had been channelled underground sometime
previous to the culverts construction and served as a woefully inadequate sewer, often flooding streets above its course.
The decision was made for improvement and Victorian engineers set about constructing the playground of future generations.
At over two miles in length the culvert has some odd and interesting features, one more notable than the rest. It shifts and
changes in both construction and shape, passing under railway lines where braced and rivetted steel provide extra support
while in another spot concrete pillars offer a more modern day utilitarian solution to the same issue. From the outfall for a
good long way into the culvert the water was almost groin deep, small shoals of fish darted around our legs and we tentatively walked along
keeping a close eye on avoiding wader breach!
Once out of the deep water the tunnel soon changed from a brick arch with a flat central channelled floor to a 12ft
circular brick pipe of a super slippery nature. As I walked ahead I recall hearing Steve go on his ass at least once,
and I came very close a few times! The next change was a modern one. A rise of three concrete steps within the circular brick pipe
brought it's size down to about 6.5 ft. The new concrete floor had a slight incline to one side so the water flowed on one side creating a nice dry walkway on the other.
A sewer had been run through the culvert
and concreted in creating this rise and new flat bottom within the original brick pipe. Occassionaly manhole covers were passed
which presumably gave access to the sewer, it's always odd to see manhole covers inside a drain. The next feature was unquestionably quirky and English.
By now we were pretty deep underground and nearing the end of the standing height reaches of the tunnel. We had passed under what appeared to be an access shaft
and so we decided to climb the new galvanised ladder stacks to see what might be up above us. I had read previous to the trip that during construction
a shaft had been sunk for works access and on completion the shaft had been utilised for ventilation. Looking up there was no sign of light and so it seemed
unlikely that this was the shaft in question. As we climbed the shaft we noticed the brickwork had been stepped and graduated to form an elegant
twist of some 45 degrees as the shaft rose upwards, it was certainly fancy! At the top of the shaft was a very new looking hinged galvanised cover
and leaf matter could be seen to be strewn all about it, it was clearly not in a roadway. Emerging from the cover we found ourselves standing within a
4x5 stumpy brick tower. Three walls were plain brick with no opening whilst the fourth featured a heavy padlocked steel gate. It would
appear that this was indeed the original access shaft and we were stood within the tower which was added to fulfil the ventilation function, I guess it wouldn't originaly
have had the gate, rather just the grated top which was still in place.
The tower, something of a local curiosity, is located on land in a public park and we were about to cause a stir which has no doubt given rise to
new local legend already. We were now effectively caged in a tower with the only option being to head back into the drain. Dsankt reached through the bars
of the gate to examine the padlock, as he did he gave a few passing locals an unexpected fright and they hurridly came over. They were incredibly curious
as to how exactly we'd come to be inside 'The Curious Tower' and so we re-counted our tale of secret crypts, hidden templar passageways and then told them the truth.
By now we were gathering abit of an audience and things were feeling increasingly zoo like. One man shouted across the park to group of friends
"Hey! There's some people in the Curious Tower", "Who are they?" they shouted back as they walked over, he turned to us and asked "Who are you? what do you call what you do?".
"Drainers, I guess" we replied, he looked at us for a second, took a breath and shouted back, "They're Subteraneans!", subteraneans it is then!
So there we were, now with a crowd of folks holding cups of steaming tea, giggling and generally being over excited at having had their Saturday mornings stroll
through the park interupted by Subteraneans in The Curious Tower. Someone offered to take our picture from outside the tower looking in and gestured to Steve to pass his camera through the bars.
"Hey" said Steve, "I'm from New York, I trust anyone I can reach". Steve and Dsankt took a couple of pictures, seen above, and we said goodbye to the crowd, descending back in to the calm of the culvert.
We didn't hang around much longer underground, exiting onto the street in front of a church we startled a passing mother pushing her buggy
and then began to make our way back to the car. We passed through the park, now aboveground, to see the tower from outside and sure enough it was much more curious looking externally,
also we now realised that when someone had commented about it being on Jehovah's witness land they weren't joking. It was located in the gardens of a Jehovah's Witness meeting hall within the park!
Once back at the car we changed and headed out of Nottingham via a glorious Cheesecake shop, not quite New York cheesecake Steve reminded us, but damn tasty non the less.
A very English drain adventure.
