# Corn Brook, Manchester - June/July 08 - Parts One and Two



## ThenewMendoza (Jul 27, 2008)

In the quest to explore more of Manchester's underground Bigjobs, SparkUK and myself met near the Manchester Ship Canal, intent on traversing one of the city's lost watercourses, the Corn Brook. First discovered and explored by Siologen a few years back, I already had an idea of what lay ahead, for the others, it would be a journey of discovery, for us all it would be a back-breaking, ankle-wrenching 5600 metre hard slog upstream in one of the stoopiest drains I've encountered so far.





Entering close to the outfall we began to get an idea of what this drain was all about within a matter of minutes. From the virtually collapsed ceiling-entry the trickle of water gets deeper until you find yourself thigh deep in sticky mud, every step harder than the last. Bigjobs took the lead as me and Spark struggled through the viscous filth that is the Corn Brook. Then, it opens up, a chamber of red brick, easy to stand up in, though only a short section, before returning to the five and a half feet concrete box that we started off in, and it goes on and on and on...forever..

Keen to crack on, we didn't take any photos for the the first three hours we were in there, simply because we kept telling ourselves 'there's gonna be something great around the next bend'. Progress was slow, stopping frequently at manhole shafts to stand up straight, the changes from concrete to red brick to spraycrete were happening all the time, sadly, the floor is in such a poor state you spend most of your time looking where your feet are going lest you trip in a pothole or over one of thousands of bricks and stones left lying in the gentle trickle of water.

Our backs were beginning to feel the toll of the constant stooping, the rest stops became more frequent and before long we reached a split in the tunnel, the three of us stood there 'which one?' 'fuck knows, but I can get a phone signal, I've got three texts!!' For the next ten minutes or so we made the most of the oportunity to check in with the outside world, surprisingly, the brook only runs a matter of ten feet under the streets of Manchester. Then, we were stooping on in to the darkness again.

The further upstream we travelled the less interesting it became (or we became less interested), concrete section after concrete section, punctuated, infrequently by a red brick pipe, then concrete, concrete, concrete...The one thought that kept us going was the one of some splendid Garden of Eden with unicorns awaiting us when we reached the end, where marvellous paraplegic virgins with golden vaginas and..oh no, hang on, that was just a random conversation between me and Bigjobs..

We stopped for a break beneath a manhole cover set into the pavement and decided to give it two more bends of the drain, this turned into three, then four, then it turned into Spark heading off ahead of us to check out the route. Spark was gone for half an hour or so before returning with wild tales about concrete, and victorian looking brick pipes and more concrete. We'd been underground for over five hours and didn't have a clue where we were.




'Let's pop the manhole!'

We were up and out somewhere near the university, right underneath a CCTV camera, we got a couple of odd looks from passing motorists, but apart from that, the streets of Manchester were deserted, save for a taxi. Bigjobs flagged him down, he slowed, gave us a worried look and pulled over, it's not every night three wader clad, headtorch wearing, tripod carrying guys covered in mud get in your cab. We told him where to head before the three of us deposited five hours worth of filth all over the seats and floor, well, the thieving swine stung us for an extra 40p.

From the cars to the manhole had taken us just over five and a half hours, the cab ride to the cars took less than five minutes, it was way past midnight and we still hadn't seen the end of the brook...

TnM


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## ThenewMendoza (Jul 27, 2008)

We'd been talking about it on and off since our first trip into the Corn Brook, the first trip that saw us make it to approximately the half way point.

'When are we finishing this one?'

Nobody gave a really positive answer much beyond 'Yeah, we must get it done...', the thought of another five and a half hours traipsing through a stoopy rubble strewn tunnel, replete with rats and questionable water quality didn't sound an appetising mix, but we all wanted to finish it. In the end it was a matter of motivation, enough Relentless to float a Navy and a ballsy manhole entrance on a busy Manchester thoroughfare.

We lifted the lid and quickly climbed in, back in territory we knew, the whole procedure took less than fifteen seconds as the familiar smell we'd left behind a month earlier rose to greet us.

'History has taught us' Bigjobs commented 'that hanging around your access point is never a good idea'.

And with that we were off, stooping away into the darkness, heading upstream on a mystery tour to Gorton, who knew what delights awaited us...?




*The Quest for the paraplegic virgins with the golden vaginas.*

We walked for a good half hour before deciding to stop, certain there was enough distance between us and the access point, the drain is a mess, trip hazards-a-plenty, low low ceilings and more things certain to cause injury or mayhem to the dozy traveller in this tunnel of doom. Last time we were down here between us, we took no more than 6 pictures, this time though, we were keen to remedy that and took the opportunity whenever we could, if only to stop for a respite against the ankle breaking debris. It looks like the engineers simply dropped the rubble into the stream bed when replacing brick sections with concrete, the Victorians builders of these chambers of fun must be turning in their graves.









One thing that is more noticeable in this one is that the further from the city centre you travel, the more interesting the drain becomes, none of this concrete box section that dominates the downstream half, we were in drain country, red brick drain country, but better than that, we were able to stand up straight, a blessed relief, because mile after mile of stooping might put lesser explorers off, it put us off for a month at least.









Section after section this is a crazy shapechanger, egg-shaped, round-shaped, square-shaped, rectangular, triangular (only joking) and more bits and pieces that make you go 'Woah!' than I care to remember. It wasn't the painful, boring slog that had been the first trip, this one was a watery obstacle course with visual delights and mystery choices 'Do we go left, or do we go right?' Decisions, decisions...release the tsunami!!




We were keeping an eye on the time, I estimated we would be down below for around five hours, we entered at 8PM and it was creeping closer to twelve, the tunnel split, one side was a crusty funky looking wet thing, the other was a messy climb over a jamrag-a-philliacs wet dream, wader breaching levels of water left us no choice but to figure our way around it, the jamrag-a-philliac within us all was strong this night.









We carried on upstream, climbing over obstacles, tripping up on stuff, sliding around and generally making good progress. Then we found an open manhole, so we sent Spark up with a GPS unit 'We're 0.2 miles from the car' (we'd thought about this and left a car near the infall).

Nearly there, it was 12:30am and after a final stoopy trouser-dampening struggle we reached the grated infall, no way out, the paraplegic virgins with the golden vaginas had eluded us this time, but we'd seen the end of the culverted Corn Brook, 5600 metres of the most hardcore drain in Manchester.




Backtracking to the open manhole we made our way up and found ourselves the wrong side of a 10ft razor wire topped fence sandwiched between a factory and a wall, looking at two domecams. Fuck it, we we're up and over in a couple of minutes and back on the streets of Manchester. It had just turned 1AM and my estimate had been right.

Five hours underground exactly. FTW.

Mendo 

FIN.


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## Bigjobs (Jul 27, 2008)

I really enjoyed being the guinea pig sent forward to see if it was ok for the other two.

Here's my shots.






We shoulda brought rope for this waterfall.



































There were a few signs of previous cave-ins, and this didn't inspire confidence










This was the part which sorted the men from the boys, well ok, the thigh waders from the chest.
The roof is about 18-24 off the water, which in parts is only 4 inches deep. with the worst floor I've met. ever.





Then this





Then this





And finally, this




Which is where I heard the voices in my ear.

Apparently the paraplgic virgins with golden vaginas only come out to play if you go from start to finish in one hit.

So there you go, if you want to meet the virgins, enter from the outflow, and go all the way without giving in half way like we did.




Nearly forgot. The gnatty walk over the pit of death


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## Alley (Jul 27, 2008)

A great read. Fully deserving of the 'hardcore' tag 

But come on...virgins?
In Manchester?


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## BigLoada (Jul 28, 2008)

Brill write up mate, and a lovely long one you had there. 5km is pretty cool! 

I was wondering, when you pop manholes like that how do you know if it aint in the middle of the road with a 40 ton truck coming you way? Or are they always on pavements? Thats something I have been wondering about recently.


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## LittleMike (Jul 28, 2008)

Ahh class. Me and DDT wanted to do this forever but never conjured up the energy to do it. Don't fancy going back now do you? 

btw, yeah, you gotta be careful with lids. Drains are almost always constructed beneath roads since demolishing half a city to build a cut&cover drain is somewhat impractical. Sometimes you can tell if a lid isn't under a road by looking through the cracks, there might be obvious grass, roots, or a wall, or some clue that it's in a safe area

Also, some places have certain types of lids that are never in the road. eg very light pneumatically assisted hinged lids. This is never the case in the north though. Southern Bastards! 

If in doubt, don't lift! You only have to lift the wrong lid once and it's game over...


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## ThenewMendoza (Jul 28, 2008)

LittleMike said:


> Ahh class. Me and DDT wanted to do this forever but never conjured up the energy to do it. Don't fancy going back now do you?



Lol, not just yet. But it's a drain that is well worth doing and one of Manchester's most neglected in terms of exploration. I'd love to see what other people make of this one. The upstream half is a LOT easier than d/s and much more interesting too.

Lithium, the manhole we 'popped' was a fairly lightweight stainless steel one, not the sort of cover that would take the weight of a bus or lorry, so on that basis we came to the conclusion it was set in a pavement rather than the road, although we were very cautious when lifting it for obvious reasons.

Jobs, great pics, chesties FTW!

Mendo


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