River Croal - Bolton Culverts, March 2010

[crippletron 3000]

Bolton Culvert(s) - Undergound Bolton - Visited by Ojay, Gone, Rookie & Urban Soldier.

The River Croal is culverted at three seperate points through Bolton town centre, running under Knowsley Street; the Market Place and Bridge Street. Prior to 1836 the River Croal formed the boundary between the townships of Great and Little Bolton.



Another last minute.com explore and bombing it over to Bolton late one evening we once again wadered up.

Access was one of the Outfalls on the other side of town where we walked firstly downstream then back Up-Stream towards Bridge St, passing under Bradshaw Gate and the Gates Shopping Centre.

On the way, there was some very interesting features, in all we spent 4 hours and it was nowhere near long enough!

The night wasn't complete without it's comedy moments:

Me and Gone both falling into some huge hole in the middle of the river bed

Gone getting attacked by killer budgies LOL,

Rookie getting pissed wet through because he only had wellies.

Anyway some photos of the River as it passes through under the Town Centre, Enjoy

Infall into downstream section, mainly concrete


Looking back out


After A long walk down we came across the roaring weir at these falls




Eventually we could see daylight


Just further downstream


Looking back upstream


Eventually we came to another infall even further downstream


Whilst at this point we spotted this curious egg shaped sewer/storm outfall




And This


Urban Soldier had no sooner pointed this out, that before I could grab my camera Gone was in like a rat up a drainpipe. Seconds later he came flying out like a crazy mutha, he was being attacked by 'Killer Budgies' I managed to Grab a few shots before Gone & Rookie jumped back in and headed up the overflow.

If you look hard enough you can see 'Killer Budgies' just inside....


Heading back upstream from the section we first started at


Fucking soaked after dropping down some big ass hole just infront


Passing through a mixture of concrete and stone arches






It was here we noticed some massive metal door, inside we were under the foundations of what looked like to be part of the Gates Shopping Centre




We eventually arrived here


This was by far the most interesting section even though we didn't make it onto the bridge still managed to get some decent shots

[Rochester]

Great report mate, see many rats?

[crippletron 3000]

No just killer budgies LOL

[boxfrenzy]

Some tidy stuff there indeed. The outdoor shots are pretty cool mate

[TCCI]

Great work m8 i love the first pic some cool water affects

[Neosea]

This looks great and a real adventure!

[ZombieSazza]

Wow, nice place to explore! Nice pictures and report

Killer Budgies..?

[KingElvis]

That's a great report there, loved it.

Killer budgies? feral budgies?

[doozer]

The killer budgies are Dippers (I think - black on top, white underneath, look a bit like a blackbird?) and I get monstered by them at Boardwalk in County Durham. They nest inside culverts and get really p*ssed when they think you're threatening their nest... Cute little beasties really, as long as you stay out of their space, whereupon they become spiky, angry, pecky little sods with a death wish.

That bridgey bit's cool. Would like to have a go down that one day!

[georgie]

bloody good report m8 like this lots