East of Desolation Infrastructure, decay, urban exploration and discovery…

The River Westbourne and The Egg

Parking up outside a rather posh hotel, complete with doormen, men in suits talking into earpieces and Mercedes doing 3-point turns in the narrow road, The Winch and I kitted up and walked off into the darkness.  A few minutes later, and after some brief confusion, we entered the flow of the River Westbourne.

Initially, we headed North on the Ranelagh Sewer, following its meagre flow through to the point where it meets what is officially known as "Middle Level Sewer No. 1"  Glamorous!  The flow was a bit fast and deep here (like, thigh high) and the tunnel seemingly only around 5'6" so we turned around, and walked back the way we came.

Doing it

Passing the point where we entered the flow, we progressed, this time South.  We stopped off at this minor junction, where we can spot Winch's bag, nicely in shot.  Apologies for the varying light temperature.  Lit with a pair of 5,000,000 candle power "SearchBlaster" torches, and a few LED's from behind the camera.

3 pipes meet, we had come from the right-most one.

This section was particularly misty.  The sewer we had come from was carrying London standard sewage.  I suppose the steam was due to it meeting the cold, clear flow from these other two pipes.

We progressed further; Pushing South towards the river.  Our journey came to an end as we hit the junction between "The Egg" and the Westbourne.  The Egg starts off in the River Tyburn Sewer, before joining the Westbourne briefly, to carry away excess storm flow.  For the final time that night, we set up our lights and cameras, and snapped away!

The Winch, providing moral support to our SearchBlasters...

On the left most tunnel, is the interceptor-weir-thing where the Westbourne has the opportunity to overflow given storm conditions.  Behind the camera, is the Egg proper, and the smaller tunnel to the right leads up to another interceptor point, if I recall correctly...