Storm Drains

At some point last summer my mental health kinda dropped like a bomb, and I ended up shutting down for a bit. It wasn't just your regular low mood. It was a total crash, and I retreated inside myself for a while, surfacing occasionally just to be reminded by well-meaning but useless people that I should try yoga or something, before retreating again. Eventually I'd drag myself out of it because my bounce-back game is totally awesome, but in the meantime I was a little lost. My usual coping mechanism is urbex, and when I'm home, rooftopping. But even rooftopping leaves a bitter taste now, because some people have gone up there and vandalised, and consequently a lot of the old spots aren't accessible anymore, and the ones that are just make me angry. Just imagine there's one thing that can calm you down after a bad day, and when you go to do it, you find someone has taken a big shit on it.

 

Of course, I'm one for using depression as a motivation to push the limits of my comfort zone. How'd you think this crazy hobby got started to begin with? I wasn't just sat in perfect bliss, sipping my tea with my loved ones, saying "I'm going to needlessly put my life in danger today." No, the lack of fear spawns from an apathy of consequence, and to reach that level, your mind has to crash and burn. And then by not caring, you live more, and rediscover an appreciation for life. At least that's how it worked for me. But this time without the rooftops to lift my spirits, I decided instead to head under my town, to check out the labyrinth of drains that runs underneath Shrewsbury. 

 

There are a couple things I need to get out of the way. Firstly, these aren't sewers. The two photos above are taken from the same spot, the latter pointing at the river, and the wonderful obstacle that dared try to stop me getting here, and the other pointing away from the river up the tunnel. Nobody is flushing their shit into the river. These aren't sewers. These are drains. They don't transport waste, they transport rain water. The rain flows into the drain, and it gets regurgitated out into nature via a tunnel. Sometimes these culverts are actual rivers that were just doing their thing for centuries when humans came along and said "I want to build a city here. Let's put the river underground." In which case, it's possible to follow the tunnel from one portion of the river and emerge from the tunnel further upstream. So no, these aren't sewers. I wouldn't be this excited about sewers.

 

My second point, and I can't stress this enough, is that this is fucking dangerous. Forget rooftops. Forget mines. Drains are possibly the most dangerous form of urbex. There's no phone signal. There's no light source. There's barely any sense of direction. And there actually are examples of urban explorers dying when it starts to rain and they get flushed out. If there's rain, stay out of the drain. 

But in spite of these risks, let me repeat myself- this isn't a sewer. I won't be inhaling sewage, so among the risks involved, we can probably rule out the likes of campylobacter, giardiasis, or methaemoglobinaemia, which is terrific. I don't want anything entering my body unless I can pronounce it.

It's a good thing I can pronounce penis.

But having said that, if you're ever in a drain and you smell something off, or you start to feel dizzy, then get the hell out of there. 

On a positive note, drains are pleasantly cold in a heat wave, and pleasantly warm in the winter, and combined with the relaxing sound of running water, they can make for a nice little stroll as well as a rare glimpse at a towns infrastructure.

 

 

There's graffiti down here, with arrows pointing towards the exit. It sure is intriguing to think that people have explored these tunnels before. But who were they? How long ago was this?

 

 

One of the frequent features of a drain tunnel are the ladders up to the surface. This gives us a good idea of just how deep we are, but while I did occasionally hear traffic and footsteps overhead, I had a very minimal idea of what I was under. 

Interestingly, if you look closely you'll see an older set of steps built into the wall behind the ladder, so these have been modified at some point.

 

This graffiti is stupid. You know why? Because I can just follow the flow of the water to find the way out.

 

There's a cute slope here, which ordinarily wouldn't pose too much of a challenge. But with the water flowing down it and the floor being slippery, it did take a little effort to traverse.

 

With drains, it's probably important to tell someone where you're going and what time you expect to have phone signal again. Of course, while I'm a big believer that urbex should be stealthy, drain exploring is one area where the size of your group won't impact your chances of being caught.

Naturally, I prefer to explore solo, or in a duo, and the whole problem I mentioned with the rooftopping is a brilliant example of why. An urbex group is only as intelligent as its stupidest member. It only takes one imbecile to do something silly and the adventure is ruined for everyone.

It’s important to seek out people with positive ethics when doing urbex. Surprisingly you may find that the most well-behaved people are the ones to watch out for. I’ve found that those who mindlessly obey the rules because the rules are there don’t have such a firm grasp on morality as someone who doesn’t use the law as a substitute for their own moral compass. These are the people who have actually considered whether their actions are harmful, and developed a conscience on their own. In my experience, some people are only well-behaved out of fear of legal repercussion, and no matter how angelic they seem in the “normal” world, they will be the first ones urinating on the walls and smashing windows as soon as they’re in a place away from the CCTV. I guess it’s a freedom overdose.

 

But I digress. None of that really matters here.

 

The larger main tunnel is frequently joined by smaller drains.

 

 

So in addition to the current that makes it dangerous are all the bits of debris that have also ended up down here. If there was a sudden flow of water, and one was taken off their feet, any rocks caught in the flow are also a pretty serious hazard. 

 

 

So were it to rain, and the water level were to rise and flow at a dangerously rapid pace, this platform could provide a safe place to wait it out, and hope it's not a long one. Leaving via the manhole is out of the question. For one thing, those things are heavy. And on top of that, I actually have no idea where that thing is going to come up. It could emerge in the middle of the road, and one truck to the face could ruin my entire day.

 

Here we have some rungs to nowhere, from nowhere. It's evidence that this drain system has been re-built at some point.

 

The main tunnel concluded here, with a ladder on the right, a crawlspace in front of me, and a small area on the left. Interestingly the bit on the left actually went around this big square space, with two ladders leading to the surface. I could hear voices above me. I think I'm next to a building.  

 

But with no way to know for sure, I turned my attention to the crawl tunnel. Of course, only a complete moron would consider crawling along a drain.

 

Whoopsie!

I crawled for about half an hour, and my joints sure did start to ache! But the crawl tunnel was broken up periodically by respite points. That is, areas with ladders, where I could stand up straight for a bit.

 

 

The downside is when the tunnel continued, it was even narrower. But long-time readers of the blog will know that this isn't the first time I've ever been in such a situation. The drain off Welsh Bridge was far tinier and I squeezed (Squoze?) up that for a good amount of time too, albeit not nearly as long as I did with this one.

 

The sad fact about drains is they don't really end that well. They just get narrower and narrower. The reward is in the doing rather than in the completion.

 

 

Eventually I decided to turn back. The tunnel made a sharp turn up ahead, but dipped a bit and was full of about six inches of dark stagnant water with an awful aroma. I decided to call it a day and head back. 

I was a bit tired after the half hour crawl, and consequently the crawl back took longer, giving me plenty of time to think about what would happen were it to suddenly rain while I'm on my hands and knees in such a cramped space.

 

Hey look! It's a spider, coated in a fungal infection. I documented these before in my blog about the cancer labs. The fungus is called Engyodontium Aranearum, and its poor victim is the cellar spider. The cellar spider has more knees than the average spider, and this means it has a thinner exo-skeleton, in order to be able to move. Unfortunately this makes it vulnerable to the fungus, which basically keeps the spider alive as it eats it from the inside out. It's pretty gruesome, and it leaves the spiders as these cute little dead fluffballs.

 

The adventure is not over... after the storm drain I decided to find a stream that had been built over. 

 

So this one is basically a great big tube with stalactites growing down from the ceiling. It's pretty awesome. This actually was a stream prior to Shrewsbury being plonked over it, so the water is flowing a little faster, and while it's probably not safe to drink, it does support life. I saw a few frogs down here, as well as fish and various insects. It's kinda cool. I mean, what are their lifespans? The average British frog will last about five to ten years. It's possible that I was their first ever encounter with a human being. Poor little bastards. 

Bats apparently aren't uncommon in tunnels like this either, but alas, I saw none.

 

 

It's basically one big tube, broken up occasionally by ladders to the surface. The colouration on the walls is a good indicator of how deep the water gets, and that's probably good news. But I was slowly starting to ponder how much fun it would be to ride down this on an inflatable donut during a heavy storm. It would basically become one big subterranean water slide!

I probably won't do it, but it does sound fun.

 

In the distance I could hear a pretty loud noise up ahead that I thought at first might be the sound of busy traffic. But as I got closer I realised it was a fuckload of water flowing, which meant I was heading towards something relatively interesting and dangerous to break up the monotony of the tunnel.

Finally I found the source of the noise. And in such a confined space it was pretty deafening. It's a waterfall!

 

So it's a good thing I wasn't approaching from that end of the tunnel, isn't it? And again, this shows just how dangerous a drain can be. Getting swept off your feet down a tunnel might sound recoverable, but I wouldn't want to be swept off the top of that. Curiously the brickwork up there looked a lot older than the part I was in, so I was really curious about seeing it. Luckily for me, there's a great big ladder nearby.

 

I have no idea where the ladder comes up. Opening the hatch isn't important though.

 

So by climbing the ladder I was able to catch a glimpse at the rest of the tunnel, and some of the brickwork. It was far older than the part that I'm in, although I'm not sure how old exactly. Clearly at some point it was modiified and attached to the big modern tube. I was very curious about how I was going to get up there, seeing as it involved scaling a subterranean waterfall that was completely lacking in handholds or footholds.

 

But you know I totally found a way. Here's a view of the ladder, from the top of the waterfall.

 

This is absolutely the best part of the tunnel, purely because it's so old. There's two different examples of masonry here. The roof of the tunnel is brickwork, but the walls are older stonework. This is amazing!

And the just like that the tunnel ends. It would be possible to crawl under this obstruction, but look at the floor. Why would I want to? Also up ahead is a big metal grate over the mouth of the tunnel, stopping people with a somewhat less-than-firm grasp on their survival instincts from venturing downstream, to get to where I am now ironically sitting. Given that this tunnel literally leads to a waterfall, that's no surprise really. 

 

To conclude, I really enjoyed this little mooch under the streets of Shrewsbury. I know when it comes to underground tunnels, people generally prefer to think of ancient secret passageways that lead from one building to another, that served some long forgotten purpose. But the truth is, this sort is far more numerous, and it's another angle of my town to explore. I've heard rumours that Shrewsbury has some that are big enough to drive a car down, but I'm a little sceptical. We flood far too often to have storm drains that spectacular, let's be honest.

If anyone wants to do storm drain exploring, well, I'm not going to say where the openings are, because I don't want someones death on my conscience, and your eagerness probably won't outweigh my belief in human idiocy. I'm not a role model. I'm stupid and lucky. I'm having the time of my life being me, but I'm not setting a good example. 

But if you do really want to explore drains and you know where they are then make sure you do it on a dry day, and tell someone where you're going. Bring a torch. Preferably a head torch so that you can use your arms to catch yourself if you slip. Bring spare batteries. And also, know your limits. If you think it's time to turn back, turn back. This isn't a dick measuring contest, and you're not a coward for wanting to live. 

Anyway that's all I've got. My next blog is a local bunker, and then I'm taking a look around an abandoned hotel on my internatrional blog. It's gonna be pretty cool. 

In the meantime, follow me on my various social medias. Instagram is by far the one I use the most, but I'm also on Vero, Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter for some reason.

Seriously, why am I on Twitter?

Thanks for reading!