Hiya, I'm a longtime lurker of this site & this is quite obviously my first post & report, so please excuse any atypical etiquette and I do hope I've managed to place this in the correct forum!
A quick explanation of what I'm about: I typically exist in the south of England, especially London & Kent, although I have been known to venture into the southwest, the Cambridgeshire regions and I especially adore visiting Edinburgh. I almost never visit the obvious tourist tripe, instead opting for dirty off-track hovels & hideaways - I even seek them out ahead of time!
So for some context, this set of skanky structures was found in a small section of woods in the east of the Cambridgeshire village of Great Gransden, with the village's Mandean Brook running along its southeast side (and potentially acting as a drain for the runoff?), and a new housing estate being built directly to the west. I must clarify that whatever these are, they are distinct from the waste water treatment plant in the Waresley woods to the west of the village, which has severely impacted my researching efforts. I've looked at local maps, Victorian maps, OS maps, and I can't find anything about this site other than it was potentially first constructed in the 1950s.
I would have to visit a second time to figure out a more exact ground plan, but off the top of my head I've drawn this rough plan of the site. Some of the details and placements might be incorrect but it should give a good impression of what was going on with the structures in relation to each other. This first set of images depicts the set of chambers towards the southeast, both chambers waterlogged with a filthy mix, and they seem to have some smaller chambers throughout the middle that directly connect to the Maldean brook southeast of this forested section.
Continuing further into the site, the first image here is the small lone chamber on the map near the middle, which I have graciously edited a drowned bird out of (nobody wants to see that). A couple of the pipes in that chamber seem to have broken, but the two shorter pipes seem to be direct runoffs, I believe coming from the northwest direction. The second image is of what I can only imagine is a covered chamber, whilst the third is an uncovered manhole which seems to lead to an incredibly cramped maintenance section of one of the main flows? I can't quite remember the location or alignment of some of these smaller areas as I was nearing sunset and had to rush to enjoy & photograph in equal measure!
This section was interesting, a set of four covered chambers(?) in a cube pattern, with what seemed like a walkway between them all. I wasn't sure how stable the ground was above the chambers themselves so I made sure to stay on the walkway sections. Better safe than sorry! There seemed to be some subsided opening in the middle of the walkway sections, at the halfway point of the chambers themselves. There was also a heavily subsided opening in the absolute middle of the walkways, which I didn't care to test the stability of.
Further in, a couple more smaller manholes & open chambers that I can't quite remember the placements of, and then the sighting of one of the two large circular silos. This one was overgrown with no easy way back out if I jumped in, so I didn't bother. The two silos seemed to be on opposite sides of the complex to each other, with smaller circular chambers directly in the middle of each. We'll get around to the other one in a bit, it's much more interesting.
Here we found another dangerous looking open manhole with a horseshoe-like metal ladder rungs leading down. The large rectangular chambers seem to be exact mirrored duplicates of the southeast waterlogged chambers, although these are much drier and help to see the potential depth of the others. There's also some groundwork that I could make out jutting off away from the main structures.
Here there was a set of broken apart pipes leading in and out of a small open manhole maintenance(?) chamber. I do apologise for my lacking terminology, I don't know what this place is in the first place and I'm new to this kind of exploration & structures as a whole!
Here another shot of the northwestern dry rectangular chambers, and then finally bursting through the maze of thick foliage and random brick walls to find the second large circular silo, with a surprise! It seems that somebody actually enjoys themselves here regularly, there are two deck chairs, safe ladder leading down into the silo, and what seems to be a makeshift brick-built campfire, complete with seats. Again, I sadly didn't have time to venture down and explore, and probably for the better as I didn't want to interfere with their cosy little operation.
Some final shots include what seems like a replica of the small inner circular silo, albeit outside of the silo and located somewhere around the main structure instead, as well as some brick rubble from the outer stretches of the site, and a terrible low-light wide-angle shot of one of the northwest rectangular chambers, as well as some evidence at the bottom of perhaps an actual entry point with a (now non-existent) door.
That's all I have for you, I'm very willing to revisit this site the next time I'm near the village, which might be soon. If anyone has any ideas, clues or requests about this place, please fire away! I am very eager to know what the hell this was, why it's been pulled apart, and why its mangy sludge seemed to pump directly into the village's otherwise beautiful local stream. Thanks so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and please don't be afraid to give me any tips & tricks on site etiquette - I'm new but I'm very invested in urbex, so I'd love to stay if you'll have me
A quick explanation of what I'm about: I typically exist in the south of England, especially London & Kent, although I have been known to venture into the southwest, the Cambridgeshire regions and I especially adore visiting Edinburgh. I almost never visit the obvious tourist tripe, instead opting for dirty off-track hovels & hideaways - I even seek them out ahead of time!
So for some context, this set of skanky structures was found in a small section of woods in the east of the Cambridgeshire village of Great Gransden, with the village's Mandean Brook running along its southeast side (and potentially acting as a drain for the runoff?), and a new housing estate being built directly to the west. I must clarify that whatever these are, they are distinct from the waste water treatment plant in the Waresley woods to the west of the village, which has severely impacted my researching efforts. I've looked at local maps, Victorian maps, OS maps, and I can't find anything about this site other than it was potentially first constructed in the 1950s.
I would have to visit a second time to figure out a more exact ground plan, but off the top of my head I've drawn this rough plan of the site. Some of the details and placements might be incorrect but it should give a good impression of what was going on with the structures in relation to each other. This first set of images depicts the set of chambers towards the southeast, both chambers waterlogged with a filthy mix, and they seem to have some smaller chambers throughout the middle that directly connect to the Maldean brook southeast of this forested section.
Continuing further into the site, the first image here is the small lone chamber on the map near the middle, which I have graciously edited a drowned bird out of (nobody wants to see that). A couple of the pipes in that chamber seem to have broken, but the two shorter pipes seem to be direct runoffs, I believe coming from the northwest direction. The second image is of what I can only imagine is a covered chamber, whilst the third is an uncovered manhole which seems to lead to an incredibly cramped maintenance section of one of the main flows? I can't quite remember the location or alignment of some of these smaller areas as I was nearing sunset and had to rush to enjoy & photograph in equal measure!
This section was interesting, a set of four covered chambers(?) in a cube pattern, with what seemed like a walkway between them all. I wasn't sure how stable the ground was above the chambers themselves so I made sure to stay on the walkway sections. Better safe than sorry! There seemed to be some subsided opening in the middle of the walkway sections, at the halfway point of the chambers themselves. There was also a heavily subsided opening in the absolute middle of the walkways, which I didn't care to test the stability of.
Further in, a couple more smaller manholes & open chambers that I can't quite remember the placements of, and then the sighting of one of the two large circular silos. This one was overgrown with no easy way back out if I jumped in, so I didn't bother. The two silos seemed to be on opposite sides of the complex to each other, with smaller circular chambers directly in the middle of each. We'll get around to the other one in a bit, it's much more interesting.
Here we found another dangerous looking open manhole with a horseshoe-like metal ladder rungs leading down. The large rectangular chambers seem to be exact mirrored duplicates of the southeast waterlogged chambers, although these are much drier and help to see the potential depth of the others. There's also some groundwork that I could make out jutting off away from the main structures.
Here there was a set of broken apart pipes leading in and out of a small open manhole maintenance(?) chamber. I do apologise for my lacking terminology, I don't know what this place is in the first place and I'm new to this kind of exploration & structures as a whole!
Here another shot of the northwestern dry rectangular chambers, and then finally bursting through the maze of thick foliage and random brick walls to find the second large circular silo, with a surprise! It seems that somebody actually enjoys themselves here regularly, there are two deck chairs, safe ladder leading down into the silo, and what seems to be a makeshift brick-built campfire, complete with seats. Again, I sadly didn't have time to venture down and explore, and probably for the better as I didn't want to interfere with their cosy little operation.
Some final shots include what seems like a replica of the small inner circular silo, albeit outside of the silo and located somewhere around the main structure instead, as well as some brick rubble from the outer stretches of the site, and a terrible low-light wide-angle shot of one of the northwest rectangular chambers, as well as some evidence at the bottom of perhaps an actual entry point with a (now non-existent) door.
That's all I have for you, I'm very willing to revisit this site the next time I'm near the village, which might be soon. If anyone has any ideas, clues or requests about this place, please fire away! I am very eager to know what the hell this was, why it's been pulled apart, and why its mangy sludge seemed to pump directly into the village's otherwise beautiful local stream. Thanks so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and please don't be afraid to give me any tips & tricks on site etiquette - I'm new but I'm very invested in urbex, so I'd love to stay if you'll have me
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