I thought I’d do this report as I’ve not posted one for a while and also because these sewer overflows don’t warrant individual reports. So here are five of them, all of which are all roughly within half a mile along the Northern High Level Sewer which was constructed in 1859.
Pics are in the order of west to east, the direction of flow within the sewer.
The first two overflows were explored in the company of Llama and Stumpy_UX early last year.
The flow of the 7ft diameter sewer is quite fierce here. First pic taken from the overflow looking upstream in the sewer.
The overflow chamber is a neat little affair, which sports a short drop shaft into a little plunge pool whose emerald coloured water gave almost the impression that it was clean and pleasant.
Carefully stepping over the pool and into the 4ft round brick pipe to take a photo, this storm relief eventually connects to the Fleet Storm Relief in Camden Town.
Next, heading just a few metres round the bend of the fast flowing High Level Sewer, we come to a big impressive overflow chamber with a large deep dropshaft constructed from blue engineering bricks.
After marvelling at this lovely chamber, we descended the ladder and were now in the Holloway Storm Relief into which this and the next three overflows all spill.
A short walk in a northerly direction took us to a chamber where the HSR continues ahead. To the west, a short concrete 6ft pipe leads to the bottom of another small drop shaft which appears to be another overflow from the HLS above on Tufnell Park Road.
The fourth overflow was explored with Tallginge in 2022. It is just a little north east of Gillespie Park.
Map data indicates that this overflow originally dates to around 1884 but a lot of modernisation work has taken place in more recent times as such it looks very contemporary.
This photo is as close to the actual overflow chamber we got, as there is no way of accessing the HLS from the storm relief due to this sudden drop.
In Ojay’s report here, his final pic shows the view from within the HLS overflow chamber looking back to where I took this photo from.
From the bottom of this drop shaft, a couple of modern concrete tunnel sections and shafts are present between the overflow above and the original 1884 yellow brick pipe that runs below the Blackstock Road.
Taking a left and heading north from where TG is standing, we made our way to the fifth overflow (also explored with TG in 2018) which I actually have already included in a previous report but am adding to this one simply because it fits in.
Here the now 8ft diameter High Level Sewer has an overflow chamber with another smaller but nice blue brick drop shaft. Climbing the rag-laden ladder from the storm relief was not the most pleasant experience but it was good to see what goes on here with a couple of local egg shaped sewers spewing their load into the flow.
This photo below shows the 5.5ft yellow storm relief for these last two overflows just before it reaches Highbury Fields and joins the main 7ft diameter Holloway Storm Relief.
The final photo was taken looking west and shows this 5.5ft tunnel joining the HSR from the right hand side (North).
Hope this was of interest and that most of it makes sense!
Thanks to Llama and Tallginge for the company on these visits.
Pics are in the order of west to east, the direction of flow within the sewer.
The first two overflows were explored in the company of Llama and Stumpy_UX early last year.
The flow of the 7ft diameter sewer is quite fierce here. First pic taken from the overflow looking upstream in the sewer.
The overflow chamber is a neat little affair, which sports a short drop shaft into a little plunge pool whose emerald coloured water gave almost the impression that it was clean and pleasant.
Carefully stepping over the pool and into the 4ft round brick pipe to take a photo, this storm relief eventually connects to the Fleet Storm Relief in Camden Town.
Next, heading just a few metres round the bend of the fast flowing High Level Sewer, we come to a big impressive overflow chamber with a large deep dropshaft constructed from blue engineering bricks.
After marvelling at this lovely chamber, we descended the ladder and were now in the Holloway Storm Relief into which this and the next three overflows all spill.
A short walk in a northerly direction took us to a chamber where the HSR continues ahead. To the west, a short concrete 6ft pipe leads to the bottom of another small drop shaft which appears to be another overflow from the HLS above on Tufnell Park Road.
The fourth overflow was explored with Tallginge in 2022. It is just a little north east of Gillespie Park.
Map data indicates that this overflow originally dates to around 1884 but a lot of modernisation work has taken place in more recent times as such it looks very contemporary.
This photo is as close to the actual overflow chamber we got, as there is no way of accessing the HLS from the storm relief due to this sudden drop.
In Ojay’s report here, his final pic shows the view from within the HLS overflow chamber looking back to where I took this photo from.
From the bottom of this drop shaft, a couple of modern concrete tunnel sections and shafts are present between the overflow above and the original 1884 yellow brick pipe that runs below the Blackstock Road.
Taking a left and heading north from where TG is standing, we made our way to the fifth overflow (also explored with TG in 2018) which I actually have already included in a previous report but am adding to this one simply because it fits in.
Here the now 8ft diameter High Level Sewer has an overflow chamber with another smaller but nice blue brick drop shaft. Climbing the rag-laden ladder from the storm relief was not the most pleasant experience but it was good to see what goes on here with a couple of local egg shaped sewers spewing their load into the flow.
This photo below shows the 5.5ft yellow storm relief for these last two overflows just before it reaches Highbury Fields and joins the main 7ft diameter Holloway Storm Relief.
The final photo was taken looking west and shows this 5.5ft tunnel joining the HSR from the right hand side (North).
Hope this was of interest and that most of it makes sense!
Thanks to Llama and Tallginge for the company on these visits.
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