The River Darwen rises on the moors of the South Pennines and flows north through Darwen town before skirting Blackburn and heading west to join the Ribble and emptying into the estuary.
It’s partially culverted under the town itself, running through tunnels totalling about 1.3 km in total - red lines on the map below.
The aim of this Easter expedition was to walk through the lot in one day, starting at the bottom of the map and heading north towards the top.
This corresponds to going downstream - no particular reason, just the first bit I arrived at driving from the south.
One noticeable feature is that the culverts start off with normal dimensions then get wider, ending up enormously wide and flat as more little streams feed into the main river.
There are a lot of pictures because there was fair amount to see and also some offshoots to investigate.
Photos are a mixture of camera and phone - the underground camera ones are either longish exposure or just pointing a torch and using auto settings.
I actually prefer the latter because it’s faster and produces more realistic images without strange fuzzy water although lighting is a bit hit and miss.
There are many little culverted sections at the southern end which could be starting points.
I chose a modern plastic pipe near Watery Lane since it leads straight down to the river proper.
I had a brief look at the culverts which join at the bottom but they were a bit low so headed along to the next underground section which starts with a little (12 ft) waterfall.
Next a bit of a slog along a rather low section, mostly not much more than 4 ft…
…before it opened out. The inlet on the right probably comes from a former reservoir next to Watery Lane, which still has water flowing into a gated pipe.
This is one of numerous reservoirs in Darwen associated with old cotton and paper mills.
The next culverted section runs under India Mill, passing east of the famous chimney, the yellow X on the map above.
Some bits of the roof have either been patched up with concrete or completely spraycreted.
Many of the roof stones near the entrance also have eye bolts in them.
Going under the mill - the low section just visible at the far end is only about 3 ft high requiring a bum-shuffle for about 30 yards.
After this it opens out and is easily walkable.
This last 100 yard portion has been reported before - see https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/alum-house-brook-darwen-aug-2016.104860/ for more pictures.
The next section runs under market square (Y) in the centre of town.
Plenty of bricks with names of local manufacturers mixed in with the rubble on the floor along here.
Rows of corbels in the walls - these projections are common under towns in this area, maybe left-over supports from construction (?).
The next picture was taken looking back upstream, more or less under the market hall.
There used to be a short open section here, covered over by 1990 which is why the roof looks recent.
I followed the small tunnel on the right for a while until after a straight section with mini-corbels it shrank down to about 2.5 ft.
The water may be coming from another old water store (Hills Reservoir) uphill to the west of market square.
Back on the main river again.
continued
It’s partially culverted under the town itself, running through tunnels totalling about 1.3 km in total - red lines on the map below.
The aim of this Easter expedition was to walk through the lot in one day, starting at the bottom of the map and heading north towards the top.
This corresponds to going downstream - no particular reason, just the first bit I arrived at driving from the south.
One noticeable feature is that the culverts start off with normal dimensions then get wider, ending up enormously wide and flat as more little streams feed into the main river.
There are a lot of pictures because there was fair amount to see and also some offshoots to investigate.
Photos are a mixture of camera and phone - the underground camera ones are either longish exposure or just pointing a torch and using auto settings.
I actually prefer the latter because it’s faster and produces more realistic images without strange fuzzy water although lighting is a bit hit and miss.
There are many little culverted sections at the southern end which could be starting points.
I chose a modern plastic pipe near Watery Lane since it leads straight down to the river proper.
I had a brief look at the culverts which join at the bottom but they were a bit low so headed along to the next underground section which starts with a little (12 ft) waterfall.
Next a bit of a slog along a rather low section, mostly not much more than 4 ft…
…before it opened out. The inlet on the right probably comes from a former reservoir next to Watery Lane, which still has water flowing into a gated pipe.
This is one of numerous reservoirs in Darwen associated with old cotton and paper mills.
The next culverted section runs under India Mill, passing east of the famous chimney, the yellow X on the map above.
Some bits of the roof have either been patched up with concrete or completely spraycreted.
Many of the roof stones near the entrance also have eye bolts in them.
Going under the mill - the low section just visible at the far end is only about 3 ft high requiring a bum-shuffle for about 30 yards.
After this it opens out and is easily walkable.
This last 100 yard portion has been reported before - see https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/alum-house-brook-darwen-aug-2016.104860/ for more pictures.
The next section runs under market square (Y) in the centre of town.
Plenty of bricks with names of local manufacturers mixed in with the rubble on the floor along here.
Rows of corbels in the walls - these projections are common under towns in this area, maybe left-over supports from construction (?).
The next picture was taken looking back upstream, more or less under the market hall.
There used to be a short open section here, covered over by 1990 which is why the roof looks recent.
I followed the small tunnel on the right for a while until after a straight section with mini-corbels it shrank down to about 2.5 ft.
The water may be coming from another old water store (Hills Reservoir) uphill to the west of market square.
Back on the main river again.
continued
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