# Kinder Surprise, Stoke-on-Trent, March '09



## smileysal (Apr 5, 2009)

The weather was good, and Fairygirl was at school (YAY) so we decided on taking a trip down to Stoke-on-Trent and have a look at Kinder Surprise. After a few wrong turnings, and a few phone calls and texts to R1 (cheers mate) we found it. 

Other people have done the culvert so I won't say anymore, other than it's currently under Chatterley Whitfield Colliery, but they're doing a lot of work redirecting the stream into the open parkland and will be closing the underground part up. (No idea when that will be tho. :blush )

Anyway onto the pics. (Some are ok, some dodgy, so had to keep changing the timer on the cam, but hopefully they're ok lol).

50's/60's built part of the culvert.






God knows what I was doing with the camera (or torch lol) here, went a little mental with it. 





The stone built part is ace, loved that part.










And the last one from me. 



Not the best of pics, but it's another place off my list of places to see. Visited with Mendo. 

 Sal


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## Black Shuck (Apr 5, 2009)

Nice one that tunnel is amazing, well done.


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## clebby (Apr 5, 2009)

it has an awesome name. 

nice work.


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## Foxylady (Apr 5, 2009)

The brick part's great. Cool pics, Sal. 
Always meant to go back and visit Stoke since our meet there nearly two years ago!


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## BigLoada (Apr 5, 2009)

Nice one Sal, that first bit is a brillaint shape. Concrete doesnt normally do it for me underground but thats really cool


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## smileysal (Apr 5, 2009)

I think it was Little Mike who found and named it.  

I thought the place was great, really liked the shape of the concrete, and i'm not a concrete culvert person either. 

 Sal


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## LittleMike (Apr 5, 2009)

They are finally getting on with redeveloping the park then? I should really get back for one last look before it's lost. This was the first really nice drain I ever found and still one of my favs. Love the collapsing sections!


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## Dieter_Schmidt (Apr 5, 2009)

What has this place got to do with a popular German sweet?

I thought I was gonna see a factory or summit...


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## ThenewMendoza (Apr 5, 2009)

LittleMike said:


> They are finally getting on with redeveloping the park then? I should really get back for one last look before it's lost. This was the first really nice drain I ever found and still one of my favs. Love the collapsing sections!



There are several dozen earth moving machines reshaping the south and western slopes of the pit tip. It's an odd feeling being in a crusty collapsing culvert when you can hear them trundling about above your head somewhere. They don't appear to be working directly above the culvert atm though.

M


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## Pip (Apr 7, 2009)

Please tell me that ain't shite oozing from the walls in the first pic  I think I'm gonna chunder 

Good report and pics though Smileysal.


Pip


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## smilla (Oct 24, 2009)

*What wonderful colours!*

Great brickwork.


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## phill.d (Oct 24, 2009)

I missed this one earlier, those pics are good Sal. great one


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## spacepunk (Oct 25, 2009)

Wish I had the bollocks to do stuff like this. Nice one brother.


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## LittleMike (Oct 26, 2009)

I highly recommend people now avoid this culvert completely due to bad air. Me Yaz and Karim popped in briefly on our way past Stoke and found the water has now been diverted above ground. The lack of water in the tunnel means that coal deposits on the floor have been exposed. The first 50m from the outfall was fine, but the next 50m to the junction chamber see oxygen levels drop sharply from 20.9% down to 17.9% where we aborted exploration. Given that there now appears to be no air flow in the tunnel whatsoever, it's likely this situation will become worse over time and I wouldn't be surprised if the atmosphere already reaches lethal levels further in given the amount of exposed coal we could see past the junction.


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