Colossus of the South - March 2011.

Ojay · (#1)

Colossus of the South 2011

In 1995 Southern Water built Black Rock, Europe’s largest storm-water storage tunnel under the seafront at Brighton & Hove to stop pollution during storm conditions

@ 4.8km long and 6m in diameter, the retention tunnel stores excessive flows of storm and waste water during heavy loads and after each flooding episode, the combined waste water is
pumped in controllable volume to the waste treatment works at nearby Portobello

Myself & M_J_S have talked about paying this place a visit for time. Finally the talking was over and we were on our way to Brighton. Rain had been forecast but no real cause for concern (hmmm)

After an afternoon of dicking about, we headed out under the cover of darkness

Inside we made our descent over 100ft, down the various ladders & stairways

Once down it really does strike you.... Fuck me this place is Hooj!

We kept a close eye on the water levels due to the fact it was raining when we dropped in. (Note the lack of water initially in the dropshafts)

Including 'Eddies Vortex' we managed to see 4 dropshafts in total

No.1 Vortex

Next we headed West as per the above map, where the second vortex could be seen, beyond that there was a seemingly never ending section of stoopy RCP which we eventually gave up on in favour of seeing better stuff.

No.2 Vortex

Stoopy RCP

Next, we headed East in search of more features, we noticed that the water level had dropped a good few inches which was a relief, although the tunnel was still quite wet & slippy we proceeded with caution

Having spent a considerable amount of time walking about, we chilled for 10 mins, grabbed a few people shots and carried on towards the next dropshaft

Mandem

No.3 Vortex

We seemed to have walked an absolute age without seeing anything new, as M_J_S shone his torch up the tunnel all we could see was more 'crete

Knowing that 'Eddies Vortex' was somewhere in the distance we pressed on, the walkway was now dry and made walking much easier

After around 5 minutes I heard an almighty roar coming from behind us which was odd, as aside from the usual drain noises it had been fairly quiet up until this point

"hey man somethings not right, you reckon it's raining hard above us, as it sounds like a shit tonne of water is about to come down that pipe"

I think it's fair to say we both required a change of undies at this point, which was made worse by the fact that the once dry tunnel now appeared to be filling up fast with surface water (GULP)!

Despite my foot still being fooked we both ran as fast as we could in a desperate attempt to find refuge. 15 minutes later and we finally arrived at 'Eddies' which was now in full flow

We clambered up the ladders to the first gantry level and got all our gear up safe and away from the main tunnel. We sat it out another 10 minutes before I went down to check the levels, which thankfully had only risen a few more inches...

Before & After

We reluctantly grabbed our cameras for a few shots each down below before making our way to safety at the top of the vortex

'Eddies Vortex'

Looking Down

We sat it out for a good hour before making our way back out. Much LulZ were had as we both emerged, we managed to scare the living shit out of a young couple dogging, who literally ran like fuck

5 Hours of WIN, it was good to be back above ground, where it was obvious it had been pissing down