Red Barn drain, chadderton, near oldham, 26/05/08

Visited with thenewmendoza.

Ive been wanting to do this drain for a long time, we had a failed mission infact about 4 weeks ago, so we did foxdenton drain instead!!! Anyhow the fails were due to the council, kindly fiting a HUGE padlocked steel gate over the E/E point, so it was a nogo anyhow, about a week ago i saw a report from here on Derp, hmmmmmmmmm i thought, i wonder if...................

Jump on a few days and MENDO had done a report on it on NWE!!! shit i thought, id better do this quick then as it wont be long before they lock it again!!!

so a quick text to mendo last night, and the plans were in place!!all i can say about this place is WOW, its really amazing inside, it changes shape every 50 yards or so, its everything from cathedral tall to stooping low, RCP, bricks, stone and iron pipes all make this place up, i think it should be renamed to HEINZ drain 'cos it really has got 57 varieties!! so we meet up outside the beast, with me, late as usual and set off up the pipe, "well get to the top, and take pics on the way back" i said, and with mendo agreeing, we headed up the pipe as far as we could get.now i say this because this drain is what is known as a "shrinker" Ie it gets smaller and smaller till you hit a point where you cant get any further, and it is at this point we start the pics with mendo, seeing if we can get any further!!

we obviously couldnt as it toooooo narrow, so we headed back taking pics all the way!!

this is looking back down the pipe we had just come up, note the big pile of iron under one of the outfalls further down, this stuff is ROCK hard! this next pic is of an brick inverted egg, its only small, and apparently leads to a sewage overflow

then the brick pipe opens out into a stone built chamber

Then it closes dow AGAIN, into a stone pipe, with a funny iron ceeling!!

Then another suprise, a HUGE brick inverted egg, this is a good spot for the group shot methinks!!

then down the RCP, you see int he last shot, that opens out into a funny shaped bit, that shrinks again, it looks like this bit is on the point of collapse ;)

then thankfully, the way out apppears in the distance!! *phew*!!!