# Kinder Surprise, Stoke-On-Trent - June '08



## Jondoe_264 (Jun 9, 2008)

I hadn't planned to visit here, but circumstances ended up being such that I had the opportunity to do so. Since seeing Little_Mike's pics I had wanted to take a look, even though I knew it was short, it looked like somewhere I'd really enjoy spending a few hours. Indeed it was a fun place, yes it's short and yes it's not built on a grand scale, but it has that aged charm about it.

It only took fifteen minutes to walk the entire culvert from outfall to the infall. I wandered through at a leisurely pace, if you don't like culverts with debris fields then this one isn't for you, I had many an ankle crunching moment. The watercourse is the Ford Green Brook, a tributary of the River Trent. It was culverted on the site of the Chatterley Whitfield colliery, the owners of which then proceeded to heap 75metres(!) of mining spoil on top of it. No wonder the culvert is seriously failing at various points. 

At about a kilometre long it has three main forms of construction, brick arch (the original culvert), trippy concrete cone shaped arch (60s or 70s extension), and a short section of circular rcp re-lining a portion of the brick arch. From the outfall heading upstream the concrete arch runs straight for about 200 metres until you hit a small concrete junction chamber where a smaller tributary of the brook would likely have once joined.






_From the junction chamber, looking back to the infall_





_The junction chamber_

Although the joining pipe has some water flow this seemed to be mostly groundwater seeping in at various points. Following this joining pipe you quickly reached its end, where it is breeze blocked off. In front of the breeze blocks is a grate, similar to those on the infall and outfall of the main pipe, suggesting that this was once an infall for a joining drainage channel or tributary. The side pipe is the same concrete arch as the section from the outfall to the chamber, but it has one area of REALLY scary collapse, which is hardly surprising. 

From the junction the concrete arch of the main pipe continues a little way, with curious steel brackets set into the top of the arch along one side. It soon transitions, on a corner, into the original brick culvert. i spent quite a while here, I had a bit of a back lit pics extravaganza. 





_The transition, looking downstream_





_The transition, looking upstream_

The brick arch was by far my favourite stretch of the culvert. It's so crusty! The floor was diabolical to walk on, varying from a barely ankle deep debris choked trickle to clear run knee deep sections. It was in these rare debris free sections that I saw several fish, all about 10 - 15cm long, I'm pretty sure they were gudgeon. On another particularly encrusted bend I stopped to take a couple more pics.











The RCP section is a bit of a stoop, but nothing severe. Once out and back in the brick arch it seemed like no time at all until daylight was invading. The infall is a nice little spot, very chilled. The grill is all but obscured by massive amounts of collected clutter and plant matter hurled on to it during a time of more substantial waters.





_The infall_

I had initially walked from the outfall upstream without a stop in fifteen minutes. My walk back to the outfall taking pics took two hours, it was really good fun, I definitely felt way more relaxed under Stoke-On-Trent than I did back above ground 

The valley and site of the Colliery are being transformed into parkland, the plan is to re-direct the Ford Green Brook back out of the culvert through a new open channel and then seal the current culvert. If or when that will happen is uncertain.

JD


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## phill.d (Jun 9, 2008)

Great set of pics Jon. Piccie no 3 is very nice indeed 
Great crustations!!
I know what you mean about the ankle crunching moments. The light painted shots always make the tunnels look easy to navigate when there not! :icon_evil


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## ThenewMendoza (Jun 9, 2008)

Looks great, particularly the last one.

TnM


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## vanburen (Jun 9, 2008)

fantastic pics ! very atmospheric !


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## TK421 (Jun 9, 2008)

Those are the most stunning photos I have seen of a drain for a long time, your lighting and composition are brilliant chap!


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## MonkeyGirl (Jun 11, 2008)

F-ing ace! Love the last shot!


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## NobodyGirl (Jun 11, 2008)

Great explore! Love your write up and pictures! Fantastic!!


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## BrickMan (Jun 12, 2008)

stunning pics! that two way shot with the backlighting is lush!!!


sounds like the sort of place you can either just wonder thru at your own pace, or really take your time taking shots and enjoy it


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## OSPA (Jun 12, 2008)

Ooo I love picture 6, its got a lovely quality about it.


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