[Snake Oil]

Two Penny Jenny, Bolton

April 2013 - Explored with ViralEye

First discovered by ConcreteJungle we thought we'd found something new but the name of the brook jogged something in my memory and after asking CJ it turned out we'd found 'Two Penny Jenny'.

Entering one of the two 4 foot RCP outfall pipes from the River Croal it was around an 80m stoop to the first brick chamber which featured a small fall from a slightly larger RCP littered with whatever the population of Bolton had flushed away along with a rusty and totally mangled 45 gallon drum. The air in the chamber had a slight whiff of sewer fresh about it but nothing too bad. Further up the RCP and beyond a few nice looking brick manhole shafts the construction changed to round brick pipe. With the smell of fresh getting stronger it opened up into a quite large brick chamber with the floor strewn with rubble.

The far end of this chamber offered a choice of two tiny three foot RCPs that had been built into an old archway, the left revealing the source of the bad air. A tiny stone step CSO outfall caked in p00pz that we decided to give a miss because of the size and the extremely bad air coming from inside. Opting for the slightly better air of the right hand RCP this thankfully was only short before opening up to possibly the oldest section and one of the best looking drains I have seen. A brick arch with a nice smooth cobbled floor almost looking like an old Victorian alley way sloping upwards in front of us. On the left a small (badly) bricked up outfall was trickling clear water, possibly from surface drainage.

Looking back at the twin pipes behind us it looks as though they are built under an old stone arched bridge most likely dating from before the brook was culverted. Carved into the keystone of the arch is what we believe to be the original stone masons mark.

The arch section gave us a good chance to stretch our legs before changing to a short round brick section heavy with mineral formations. This then opened up into a stone arch section before shrinking back to 4 foot brick pipe. We gave up at a tall manhole shaft off to the left at the end of this section as it again shrank, this time to 3 foot brick that looked to go on for a considerable distance.

The air in this drain is quite bad, getting worse towards the end and the mist was making taking photos difficult adding to the fact my camera got soaked on the last outing causing either muck on the sensor or the shutter to not fully open making all my photos come out very dark.