In snippets of spare time Goan and I have been researching potential Teesside drains, other things keep meaning this gets put to the side. Back in May Urban Fox and Siologen explored “The Den”, I was pretty sure I knew where it was, so with this new motivation from their report me and Goan checked it out and sure enough there it was. Likewise recently Siologen and Urban fox explored and brought to light another drain in the area, initially explored by Urban Fox Larey and Wellwasp and named "Lew Hill". A great discovery it had a beast of an interceptor sewer overflow in it, could it be that one of my leads lead to it? well the best way to find out is to get in there, so that we did! We headed out one night checking other leads along the way, after a fail and then a fail with potential (looking for drains is more often than not full of fail, but thats what makes the good ones more rewarding right!?!) anyway before we knew it we were there!
I love this drain, its short but what it has is nice! It basically consists of a large brick overflow, this has a drainage channel in the middle which is full due to the blockage right before the end, it did cross my mind to clear it, but there was a lot of it and it looked like we could avoid breach, and wheres the fun with dry drains, plus it helps keep the kids out, so on we headed. At first I had the daft idea of staying out of the flow but in the end decided it was best to give up to walking and crawling on the slippy sloped sides before I slipped so I joined Goan wading through the channel. At the top end of the drain things get even more interesting, a couple of small surface water inlets, a nice alcove leading to a smelly manhole shaft off to the side and the main drain follows a sweeping bend into a huge concrete chamber. This chamber has a nice big sewer that noisily drops off through a grill into the abyss to be pumped elsewhere, there is (not visible from inside) a sewer pipe that runs alongside the overflow channel and out to sea, but I suspect it is now usually pumped to the outfall further out to sea that is further up the coast as I know sewage from further away is now sent there.
Right on to the pictures:
1: Standing in the (over)flow (digi):
2: At the concrete section (film):
3: The Sewer interceptor (film):
4: With preinstalled Electric Lighting (film):
5: The Flaps, 3 of these beasts down either side of the sewer, waiting for the sewer to get full enough to tip the weights and have the flaps open and let the sewage run riot, nice (well nice and clever, but probably not so nice if you are downstream at the time) (Film):
6: Looking down the overflow (Film):
7: Drains with lights, still a novelty to me (Film):
8:Watching the nuggets head off to be pumped out to sea (Film):
9: I Finished off with a digital shot on the compact (the film had run out, I couldn’t be bothered reloading it, and I wanted to get this one ‘right’ and couldn’t be bothered faffing with taking on both digital and film) (digi):
So there you have it. (note Goans camera is out of action at the minute)
I love this drain, its short but what it has is nice! It basically consists of a large brick overflow, this has a drainage channel in the middle which is full due to the blockage right before the end, it did cross my mind to clear it, but there was a lot of it and it looked like we could avoid breach, and wheres the fun with dry drains, plus it helps keep the kids out, so on we headed. At first I had the daft idea of staying out of the flow but in the end decided it was best to give up to walking and crawling on the slippy sloped sides before I slipped so I joined Goan wading through the channel. At the top end of the drain things get even more interesting, a couple of small surface water inlets, a nice alcove leading to a smelly manhole shaft off to the side and the main drain follows a sweeping bend into a huge concrete chamber. This chamber has a nice big sewer that noisily drops off through a grill into the abyss to be pumped elsewhere, there is (not visible from inside) a sewer pipe that runs alongside the overflow channel and out to sea, but I suspect it is now usually pumped to the outfall further out to sea that is further up the coast as I know sewage from further away is now sent there.
Right on to the pictures:
1: Standing in the (over)flow (digi):
2: At the concrete section (film):
3: The Sewer interceptor (film):
4: With preinstalled Electric Lighting (film):
5: The Flaps, 3 of these beasts down either side of the sewer, waiting for the sewer to get full enough to tip the weights and have the flaps open and let the sewage run riot, nice (well nice and clever, but probably not so nice if you are downstream at the time) (Film):
6: Looking down the overflow (Film):
7: Drains with lights, still a novelty to me (Film):
8:Watching the nuggets head off to be pumped out to sea (Film):
9: I Finished off with a digital shot on the compact (the film had run out, I couldn’t be bothered reloading it, and I wanted to get this one ‘right’ and couldn’t be bothered faffing with taking on both digital and film) (digi):
So there you have it. (note Goans camera is out of action at the minute)
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